328 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



In this fishing it is well to select a swim where the fish are 

 actually rising, which they are pretty sure to be if they are there 

 at all, and if they appear to be following the bran or gentles 

 down the stream the angler should do the same and always 

 cast where he sees most rises. Wherever bleak are tolerably 

 plentiful a good dish, or a good can full, as the case may be, 

 can generally be obtained, and those the finest. Dressed and 

 eaten like white-bait and thoroughly browned over a sharp fire 

 bleak make a fairly good dish, especially if a squeeze of lemon 

 be added. It is a sine qua non, however, that they should be 

 eaten straight off the fire, and that they should be well dredged 

 with plenty of salt and pepper whilst they are in the process of 

 frying. In fact, the latter prescription holds good in all sorts of 

 fish-cookery, and is especially true of gudgeon, which cooked in 

 the same way, is even better fare, or, as some old writer describes 

 him, 'a dish fit to fatten a king.' 



I once knew a great fish epicure who was so devoted to this 

 dish that he never went out gudgeon-fishing without taking 

 with him in the punt a 'travelling kitchen range,' consisting of 

 a small frying pan on a frame over a spirit lamp, and ate his 

 gudgeon and sometimes his dace also (scaled, N.B.) as the 

 piece de resistance for luncheon. This connoisseur considered 

 the dace almost the best fresh water fish for the table. Bleak 

 also, he spoke very highly of, and was of opinion that when 

 fried just out of water they are actually better than gudgeon. 

 Not even my friend's cookery, however, could enable him to 

 stomach roach. 



Another enthusiastic writes : ' In a gastronomic point of 

 view, the Gobio Jim 'iatilis gives precedence to none: a fry of 

 fat gudgeon, eaten piping hot, with a squce/e of lemon juice, is 

 a dish " to set before the king," and as superior to anything 

 that Greenwich or Blackwall can produce, as Moet's cham- 

 pagne is to gooseberry pop.' 



'John Williamson, gent.,' (temp. 1740) who seems to have 

 had a keen eye to the good things of this life, writes of the 

 gudgeon that he is 'commended for a fish of an excellent 



