THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 53 



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, arid 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 humour 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 

 keeping after he is dead, that I can compare him to nothing 

 so fitly as to cherries newly gathered from a tree, and others 

 that have been bruised and lain a day or two in water. But 

 the chub being thus used, and dressed presently, and not 

 washed after he is gutted (for note, that lying long in water, 

 and washing the blood out of any fish after they be gutted, 

 abates much of their sweetness), you will find the chub (being 

 dressed in the blood, arid quickly) to be such meat as will 

 recompense your labour, and disabuse your opinion. 



Or you may dress the chavender or chub thus : 



When you have scaled him, and cut off his tail and fins, 

 and washed him very clean, then chine or slit him through 

 the middle, as a salt fish is usually cut ; then give him three 

 or four cuts or scotches on the back with your knife, and 

 broil him on charcoal, or wood-coal that is free from smoke, 

 and all the time he is a-broiling baste him with the best 

 sweet butter, and good store of salt mixed with it ; and to 

 this add a little thyme cut exceeding small, or bruised into 

 the butter. The cheven thus dressed hath the watery taste 

 taken away, for which so many except against him. Thus 

 was the cheven dressed that you now liked so well, and com- 

 mended so much. But note again, that if this chub that you 

 ate of, had been kept till to-morrow, he had not been worth 

 a rush. And remember that his throat be washed very clean, 



