THE THIRD DAY. 



CHAP. III. How to fish for, and to dress, the CHAVEDNER, of 



CHUB. 



PISCATOR. 



'"THE Chub, though he eat well thus dressed, yet as he is 

 usually dressed he does not : he is objected against, not only 

 for being full of small forked bones, dispersed through all his 

 body, but that he eats waterish, and that the flesh of him is not 

 firm, but short and tasteless. The French esteem him so mean 

 as to call him un Vilain ; nevertheless he may be so dressed as 

 to make him very good meat : as, namely, if he be a large 

 Chub, then dress him thus : 



First scale him, and then wash him clean, and then take out 

 his guts ; and to that end make the hole as little and near to 

 his gills as you may conveniently, and especially make clean 

 his throat from the grass and weeds that are usually in it, for if 

 that be not very clean, it will make him to taste very sour. 

 Having so done, put some sweet herbs into his belly ; and then 

 tie him with two or three splinters to a spit, and roast him, 

 basted often with vinegar, or rather verjuice and butter, with 

 good store of salt mixed with it. 



Being thus dressed, you will find him a much better dish 

 of meat than you, or most folk, even than Anglers themselves, 

 do imagine; for this dries up the fluid watery humor with 

 which all Chubs do abound. 



But take this rule with you, that a Chub newly taken and 

 newly dressed is so much better than a Chub of a day's keep- 

 ing after he is dead, that I can compare him to nothing so fitly 

 as to cherrie newly gathered from a tree, and others that have 



