Consider the Eel [Hardcover]

Richard Schweid (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 2001

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While Spanish, German, Irish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese and especially Japanese people place Anguillae well above salmon in their cuisines, Americans, by and large, consider eels to be bait. Thus, North American estuaries have the best remaining migratory wild eel populations; that fact provides a good foundation for a light science travelogue shuttling back and forth between eel capitals on both sides of the Atlantic. Schweid (The Cockroach Papers) tries to fill in the gaps in the eel's astonishing natural history and tie that to sketches of fishery traditions, folklore, literary excerpts and reportage (beware the natural history that includes this many ingredients), mostly by focusing on the erratic transatlantic economy that eel supply (here) and demand (there) creates. Schweid visits five of the traditional eeling waters in Europe, but mostly he's concerned with recording the yarns of North Carolina's Outer Banks eel-fishing culture, where small-scale U.S. "eelers" operating inshore catch and ship tons of wriggling eels to Europe and Japan. Schweid is searching hard for a handle on his slimy, reclusive subject, but even science is not much help: the migratory Atlantic genus has been so resistant to study that even strong commercial imperatives (immature eels have fetched $500 a pound) have not yielded a true eel aquaculture. An overview of such an enigmatic creature that ranges over a huge ocean and inshore ecology is all that can be expected from this slim book; still, anyone with a curiosity about the sea will find Schweid's taste of the eel strangely appealing.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A coveted food in Japan and a readily consumed item in Europe, the eel has all but disappeared from American tables in homes and restaurants. Yet it is still fished here and sold to Europeans and Japanese. Journalist Schweid (Catfish and the Delta) helps us realize what a strange and fascinating little fish the eel is. It breeds in the Sargasso Sea, a stretch of Atlantic waters between Bermuda and the Azores; the young then migrate to freshwater creeks and rivers, where they may live for years before migrating back to the Sargasso Sea to mate. This migration pattern, the opposite of that of salmon, is shared only with the mullet, and how eels navigate the distances remains a mystery. They are picky eaters, have a sense of smell equal to that of dogs, and appear to be a barometer of pollution levels in water systems. In addition, eels are the only farmed fish that we have been unsuccessful in coaxing to reproduce in captivity. Schweid writes with clarity and enthusiasm, combining elementary biology with recipes from England, Europe, and America, historical notes on fishing and cooking, and present-day interviews with fishers and others. Unlike Mark Kurlansky's expansive Cod, this title's narrow scope (it reads like an extended magazine article) limits its appeal to large public libraries and fishery collections. Michael D. Cramer, Schwarz BioSciences, Research Triangle Park, NC
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; First Edition edition (December 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807826936
• ISBN-13: 978-0807826935
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,955,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tales of the Elusive Eel, April 10, 2002

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Consider the Eel (Hardcover)

If you are an American, it is unlikely that you have ever eaten eel. You are more likely to have eaten eel if you are a European, and if you are Japanese, you may well eat it regularly. It is hard to figure out just why Americans now have an aversion to eating eels and other countries do not, especially since eels are part of our Pilgrim heritage, they were enjoyed by our founding fathers, and they formed an important commercial catch earlier in the last century. Its all very mysterious, but if you read _Consider the Eel_ (University of North Carolina Press) by Richard Schweid, you will quickly realize that almost everything connected to eels is mysterious indeed. It isnt just that humans deal with eels in peculiar ways; the fish itself is full of paradoxes and unsolved questions.

Schweids topic is the Atlantic eels of two species, the European and the American. These eels reproduce in the open sea, and early development of the young takes place there, but they drift to different fresh water sources to feed and grow to adult sizes, over a period of up to twenty years. (This is opposite to the life cycle of the salmon.) Then they stop eating forever and head to sea, changing their eyes to adapt to ocean dark, and changing body chemistry to put up with salt water and the change of water pressure. It was only in 1924 that a Danish researcher found eel larvae in the Sargasso sea, the huge area of the Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Azores. All the Atlantic eels go there to mate, and then they die, but no adults have ever been seen swimming there; the only two eels found there had been eaten by other fish. We can only guess at what they are up to deep below the surface. The larvae look like little oval leaves. Depending on currents, the larvae float for thousands of miles and for years until they reach estuaries and mouths of rivers. Once they find a river with a muddy bottom and food sources, they take control of their lives. They can even cross land to get to a lake or pond over a mile away. Farming eels is quite possible, and can be lucrative, but must be done under an extraordinary disadvantage which no other farm animal presents. Eels cannot be bred in captivity. No one has been able to make them forgo their trip to the Sargasso for reproduction.

American eel fishermen and dealers, many of whom Schweid talked to in preparation of this book, have a peculiar business of trading in a product that no one they know likes. Many of them have been in business for decades, although catches are declining and sales which have to be to Europe or Japan are profitable or not based on exchange rates. Many are simply revolted by the idea of eating their product. Schweid offers to fry some for supper, and a woman who has caught eels for decades replies, I would never eat one. Looks too much like a snake. Another fisherman, when Schweid brought up the long migration of the eels said, I know what all the scientists say about what they do, and the trip they make. It may be right, but it aint reasonable. Whether the facts are reasonable are not, this readable account of a very strange fish and the strange people who make their living from it is full of facts that are entertaining and astounding.

5.0 out of 5 stars More than you ever thought you wanted to know about eels, December 13, 2011

By 

Thisisnotacleverusername - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Consider the Eel (Hardcover)

What could possibly be fascinating about eels? They're gross, slimy, snake-looking fish, right? Wrong. This well-written book will enthrall you with the curious history of this strange fish; not just its life cycle, though that is intriguing as well, but also the freshwater eel's relation to Man throughout the ages. There are some recipes included in the back for good measure, provided you ever get your hands on some eel. This book is not just a dry factbook about a seemingly unappealing fish, but rather an enlightening guide to how this humble creature has managed to slither onto the tables and into the hearts of many a culture throughout human history. (Furthermore, the hardback copy looks really nice sitting on your shelf; a pretty dark-tan color with black lettering in a nice font. That is, without the dust jacket on. The jacket looks nice too. Very pretty little book.)

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Icky no more!!, July 11, 2002

By 

Greggory M. Elliott (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Consider the Eel (Hardcover)

Sure eels are slimy and weird, but that doesn't mean you can't learn to love them!

Read this book and instead of retching at the thought of a mouthfull of broiled eel, you'll find yourself smacking your lips (at least I did).

Overall, this book seems well researched. It's well written and an overall fun read. Like an eel, it's sluggish some times. But page after page it remains fascinating.

Buy it.