CYPRINIDiE OR CARPS. 375 



tained by some Italian doctors and all the old women of 

 Italy^ who believe this fish to be so impregnated with 

 marsh malaria as necessarily to engender ague, 



Nessuno mangia tenca 

 Che febbre non senta,* 



at Florence it is rightly held superior to any fishy food 

 which enters the market ; and in the Neapolitan pescheria 

 yields to very few finer marine species. A Florentine 

 noble had once the hardihood to assert at Leo X.'s table, 

 that there was nothing that swam the sea, to his mind, 

 comparable to a good Tuscan tench ; f which declaration, 

 though it convulsed the native Romans assembled at the 

 board with laughter at the simplicity of so poor a con- 

 noisseur, we should certainly have sided with, and been 

 willing to back an Agnano, Baccano, or Thrasymene 

 ' tenca'' against the whole of the Mediterranean ichthy- 

 archy. 



A good way of serving tench is, cooked in a rich gravy 

 sauce, containiag raisins, Corinth currants, and pine- 

 cone kernels, together with all the other ingredients of 

 an ' agrodolce' stew, bringing it quite hot to table, and 

 there squeezing over it the juice of a lemon : or else take 

 just sufficient water to cover the fish, add a quarter of a 

 prat of vinegar, a bunch of thyme, an onion, some lemon - 

 peel, a little scraped horse-radish, and a seasoning of 

 salt ; put in the tench before the water boils, to prevent 

 the skin cracking : for sauce, dissolve two anchovies in 

 water over the fire, with half a pint of stewed oysters, a 

 quarter of a pint of shrimps, and a sufficient quantity of 

 melted butter ; garnish the dish with slices of lemon and 

 pickled mushrooms. The skin (which from its thickness 

 has procured this fish in. Holland the name of shoemaker) 



* Italian proverb. 



t ' Ego oerte Thrasymenam tincam conditam in leucophago bis 

 vestris triglis, spigolis et rbombis valde prsestitero.' — Aldrov. 



