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Consider the eel
Schweid, R. (2002). Consider the eel. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill. ISBN 0-8078-2693-6. XIV, 181 pp.

Available in  Author 
    VLIZ: Pisces PIS.172 [105119]

Keywords
    Countries > Developed countries > Oecd countries > North america > Usa > Southern states of usa > South atlantic states of usa > Appalachian states of usa > North carolina
    Economics
    Farming
    Fisheries > Marine fisheries
    Life cycle
    Anguillidae Rafinesque, 1810 [WoRMS]
    Marine/Coastal

Author  Top 
  • Schweid, R.

Abstract
    Journalist Richard Schweid first learned the strange facts of the freshwater eel's life from a fisherman in a small Spanish town just south of Valencia. "The eeler who explained the animal's life cycle to me did so as he served up an eel he had just taken from a trap, killed, cleaned, and cooked in olive oil in an earthenware dish," writes Schweid. "I ate it with a chunk of fresh, crusty bread. It was delicious. I was immediately fascinated." As this engaging culinary and natural history reveals, the humble eel is indeed an amazing creature. Every European and American eel begins its life in the Sargasso Sea--a vast, weedy stretch of deep Atlantic waters between Bermuda and the Azores. Larval eels drift for up to three years until they reach the rivers of North America or Europe, where they mature and live as long as two decades before returning to the Sargasso to mate and die. Eels have never been bred successfully in captivity. Consulting fisherfolk, cooks, and scientists, Schweid takes the reader on a global tour to reveal the economic and gastronomic importance of eel in places such as eastern North Carolina, Spain, Northern Ireland, England, and Japan. (While this rich yet mild-tasting fish has virtually disappeared from U.S. tables, over $2 billion worth of eel is still eagerly consumed in Europe and Asia each year.) The book also includes recipes, both historic and contemporary, for preparing eel.

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