TO COOK CARP 109 



but indifferently nourished. Brought straight into the kitchen, 

 where too often the culinary art runs on a very low and 

 unimaginative level, it is submitted to the treatment suitable 

 only for the finest of salt-water fish, and the result is deplorable. 

 It was otherwise in old times in this country, when carp were 

 very highly prized and carefully treated. The monks of old 

 knew far better how to treat the Creator's gifts than to 

 drag carp out of a miry pond and deliver them straightway 

 upon the table, with all their impurities upon them, imparting 

 a disgusting flavour of mud to the flesh. Having caught 

 their fish, and knowing by the calendar exactly when they 

 would be required for fast-days, they bestowed them in stews 

 constantly replenished with pure water, and fed them up on 

 boiled grain or other fattening material, calculated to sweeten 

 and enrich the flesh. Treated in this way, it is easy to suppose 

 that there was good foundation for the high esteem in which 

 people of old used to hold this fish, and that the elaborate 

 recipe given by Izaak Walton for the cooking thereof was 

 not thrown away. 



^' I will tell you," says he, " how to make this carp, that 

 is so curious to be caught, so curious a dish of meat as 

 shall make him worth all your labour and patience. And 

 though it is not without some trouble and charges, yet it 

 will recompense both. Take a carp, alive if possible ; scour 

 him and rub him clean with salt and water ; then open him ; 

 and put him, with his blood and liver, which you must save 

 when you open him, into a small pot or kettle. Then take 

 sweet marjoram, thyme, and parsley — of each half a handful, a 

 sprig of rosemary and another of savoury ; bind them into 

 two or three small bundles and put them into your carp, 

 with four or five whole onions, twenty pickled oysters, and 

 three anchovies. Then pour upon your carp as much claret 

 wine as will only cover him, and season your claret well with 

 salt, cloves, and mace, and the rinds of oranges and lemons. 

 That done, cover your pot and set it on a quick fire till it 



