EELS FOR EPICURES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18834, 24 March 1931, Page 2

EELS FOR EPICURES.

NEW YORK'S BIG BILL. HABITS AND MIGRATIONS. FISH PUZZLE FOR CENTURIES. The longer a person dwells in New York and the more versed in its ways he becomes, the more assured grows his conviction that neither Babylon nor Bagdad was more fabulous than is this modern city. It is not the towers of the skyline, the rumbling trams OT the population of 7,000.000 that startles the average New York pereon. All of these by now to him are the expected; they have become the acceptd tradition. It is the detail of life In the city which day by day rouses anew the New Yorker's wonder at New York. , .. . Take, for instance, the eel situation in the borough. Who would suspect that such a thing as an eel situation even exists in the city Who ever saw more than a dozen persons dining on eel in the "speakeasy” restaurants of Manhattan The eels, however, sold m the New York markets constitute a highly specialised and prosperous business, and a section of the public here regards them with gastronimic delight. More than 50001 b of eels are brought into New York every day—more than 2,000.000 lb a year. The average price received by fish vendors for eel is about 50 cents a pound. New York then spnds about £200,000 annually for nothing but eels. Eels as Christmas Fare. There are places in the brackish lagoons of Long Island, especially about Sayville and Montauk Point, where eels are farmed, so far as eels can be farmed, and during the Christmas season they are shipped alive in barges all the way to South Street from the St Lawrence River region about Quebec. The eating of eels at Christmas is a tradition among New York Italians, by whom they are regarded as a great delicacy. They are relished also by Germans, Danes and Austrians in the East Eighties and are eaten by many Americans who have acquired the taste abroad.

The popular eel season begins about the end of November. Anyone with the curiosity to search the restaurant menus for such a thing may find eels listed in many places from then until March. The diner may order eels friend, stewed, pickled or smoked. Unless a person wishes to become an eel addict, however, he should be warned to be careful. Eeel eaters soon become addicts. They speak of the food with enthusiasm, say that it is more delectable than any guineafowl, that the flavour is finer than that of any other fish. Trappers Prepare for Season. The eel has other properties more peculiar than its well known slipperiness. At the end of November many of them turn a silvery shade, the snout grows sharper, the eyes larger, the pectoral fins more pointed. Within a ftw days, with winter approaching, these begin a mass desertion of the waters along Long Island, and start for the far-ofl Sargasso Sea, their one and only spawing ground, south of Bermuda. Many of these the eel flsheemen catch tn their nets and traps and they soon find their way to the markets in New York.

Fisnermen on the St. Lawrence begin in November to trap the especially fat eels of that region for the New York Christmas trade. They fill tanks with water, and before the canals begin to freeze these are placed on barges and sent through the Erie Canal into the Hudson, as though they were iron ore or bulk wheat.

Each year from 150,000 to 500,000 lb of live eels are sent Into New York from this source. This season the shipment was expected to amount to approximately 400,0001 b. These are extra fine eels and many of them bring 75 cents a pound. The silvery eels from Canada also are the “capltone” which the pushcart pedlars offer in Broome* and Orchard Streets, and in the Italian quarter of Harlem. They weigh from four to six pounds each, are a yard long and as thick as one’s wrist. They are “turkey” for the Italians, who insist on purchasing them alive. In the kitchen then they are done to a turn with herbs and olive oil and are served with red wine—wine that is as near to Chianti as local conditions will permit. Puzzled Ancient Greeks. Mr J. H, Matthews, executive secretary of the Middle Atlantic Fisheries Association, is one of New York’s authorities on eels. To him the eel is one of the earth’s most remarkable ! creatures. He says they had worried the civilised nations since the time of the early Greeks. The people about Salamis and Marathon often found eels but never once did they discover young eels or eels ready to spawn.

“Where did eels come from?” was one of the unsolved mysteries to the ancients In the end, all of them except Aristole gave the matter up. Eeels, the Greeks decided, were sired by Zeus, Perhaps, said Aristotle, they were great earthworms. No wonder that the Greeks and Romans could never locate the spawning grounds of the eel. How were they to know of the Sargasso Sea, when to them the end of the earth was but a little east of Gibraltar?

Dr Johannes Schmidt, of Copenhagen, sailed from America to Africa and from Iceland to the Azores before he located the spawning region in the Sargasso. He found thais area by the process of elimination. He found eels travelling both from America and from Europe toward the warm sea south of Bermuda. Only the tiniest of the young were observed going away from that region. It was proved that the region was the spawning area. After spawning the adult eel dies. They spawn at the depth of a mile, and although the American (Angulla chrysypa) and the European (Anguilla anguilla) eel never spawn in the same locality, they never once lost their direction. An American eel never goes to Europe, the European variety never travels to these shores.

From the time they are hatched an eel is two and a-half years reaching the shores of America. Once there they cease feeding, lose their larval teeth and change into elvers or little transparent eels during the next winter and summer. They assume the size and shape of the eel from four to eight years later. When about ten or twelve years old they start toward the Sargasso and death.

Eels are round In every lake, bay and river east of the Rocky Mountains. Some of them are years travelling from Bermuda to the Yellowstone River in Montana. Many burrow in the mud and many are found in ponds isolated from any other body of water and drained by no stream. This circumstance has given rise to much argument as to the source of eels. If they originated in the Atlantic, fishermen ask, how did they get to isolated inland waters? One theory Is that they travel overland through wet grass. If they do that, why is it that nobody ever sees eels during the land journey? Probably the first eel egg ever found was in a net by Dr Marie Poland Fish, a member of the Beebe Expedition, m the deep water off Bermuda in 1925. She found four specks of living matter and had no idea what they were. She kept them and found that they hatched into eels. Eels are shipped to New York from some of the middle Atlantic states and

the maritime provinces of Canada. The eel farms at Sayville and Montauk are replenished by the natural supply of elvers. Because of the peculiar habits of eels, the farmers can do nothing themselves toward stimulating artificial propagation. The traps are baited and set and every morning are visited by the farmers. They have found that there is no use to attempt to prevent the silver eels making their migrations. Others always come, to take their places.