Gastronomy, natural and social history, anecdotal autobiography,
wit and a good measure of obsession blend pungently in this
peculiar book. Tom Fort has arranged a meaty platter in honour of
the not-so-humble eel: its life cycle, taste, place in myth,
religion and folklore, and, simply, its slippery, mutative
bizarreness, which should satisfy the literary epicure as well as
the gastronomic. We discover, for example, that a student Sigmund
Freud published a paper on the inconclusive structure of eel
genitalia, in which he had (forlornly) hoped to isolate the eelish
testicle: 'After the riddle of the eel's gonads,' Fort opines, 'the
exploration of the human psyche and the identification of the
castration complex must have seemed comparatively straightforward.'
The alignment of all things eel-like with everything from art to
breakfast gives this book an irresistible sideways air of gentle
impishness; major historical players and ancient empires appear
onstage cast in their relation to the little tubular fish that
populates pies and pantheons alike. Eel cults and cutlets rub
shoulders with a detailed and complex history of the uncertain
science of eel biology; the heroic journey of the schooling elver
from the depths of the Sargasso Sea to inland waters is told in
cleanly measured language, with a proper respect and infectious
wonder. Anyone with ambivalent feelings towards the beast that did
away with Henry I (the infamous surfeit of lampreys was, in fact,
probably composed of eels) may well find themselves converted; this
book does for a wriggling bundle of hermaphroditic fish-flesh what
Anna Pavord did for the tulip, and, frankly, it's lipsmackingly
good. (Kirkus UK)
Beginning life in the Sargasso Sea, the eel travels across the ocean, lives for twenty or so years, and then is driven by some instinct back across the ocean to spawn and die. And the next generation starts the story again. No one knows why the eels return, or how the orphaned elvers learn their way back. One man discovered, after many adventures, the breeding ground of all eels ? and he is the hero of this book.
Eels were being caught and consumed 5000 years before the birth of Christ ? Aristotle and Pliny wrote about them; Romans regarded them as a peerless delicacy; Egyptians accorded them semi-sacred status; English kings died of overeating them. There are many strange practices among eel fishers all over the world, and many great fortunes based upon the eel harvest.
The Book of Eels, a combination of social comment, biography and natural history, is also a fascinating and witty account of Tom Fort?s obsession with the eel, his journeying to discover the eel in all its habitats, and the people he meets in his pursuit.
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