164 Man and Shark 



That last line, which mentions the Thornback skate {Raja clavata) 

 and presumably the Common skate {Raja batis), may not be very poetic, 

 but it is candid. And it establishes that Elizabethans called a skate a 

 "scate." Shakespeare also referred to sharks, though not in ways that 

 complimented them as food. The recipe for witches' stew in Macbeth 

 calls for 



Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, 



Witches^ jnuniiny, ?naw and gulf 



Of the ravin'' d salt-sea shark. 



And dogfish found its way into Henry VI, Part One, though only as 

 an ingredient of a complex pun. When Talbot is speaking angrily about 

 the slaying of Salisbury before Orleans, he vows revenge: 



Frenchmen, Vll he a Salisbury to you: 

 Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish, 

 Your Hearts Vll stamp out with my horse''s heels 

 And make a quagmire of your mingled brains. 



Dogfish was used commonly in Shakespeare's time as an opprobrious 

 epithet. Dolphin was a pun on the Dauphin of France. 



Elizabethans ate a variety of selachian dishes, and, when the export- 

 ing of fishes to the Continent drove domestic prices up, British fish 

 eaters became angry men. In 1578, a group of them drew up a stirring 

 petition which began: 



Whereas divers kinds of sea fishes, as congers, hakes, pilchards, skates, rays, 

 thornebags [Thornback skates], papillions [Butterfly rays], and dogs [dogfish] 

 being necessary victuals for the people of this realm . . . now of late altered 

 from their kinds by curing without salt or otherwise converting them into gross 

 oils, for the contention of foreign realms and to the great increase of dearth and 

 lack and penury of this realm . . . 



Some of the methods of preparing skates and dogfish in the British 

 Isles in the old days would paralyze a modern palate. In the Shetland 

 Islands of Scotland, skate was buried in the ground to cure it, and it 

 was said to have an unusual flavor after its resurrection. In the Highlands, 

 "sour skate" was produced by simply hanging skates up to dry for a few 

 days in the open air. Dogfish was also skinned, to prevent identifica- 

 tion, then cut open, dried outdoors, and sold as a special kind of salmon! 



Perhaps because of sour skates and phony salmon, the eating of 

 sharks and skates eventually became unpopular in Britain. The modem 

 emergence of shark as a British food fish came around 1904, during an 

 industrial depression. 



Fried fish retailers, looking for a cheap fish they could sell to the poor 

 and still make a profit, discovered that they could buy dogfish for as 



