THE CARP. 245 



be handled. Some have even been taught to " answer" 

 to their names. Colonel Goodlake, at Denham, near Ux- 

 bridge, has some large carp quite tame, which will feed 

 from his hand. 



Gastronomically, I have little or no reverence for the 

 carp. In pre-Reformation days, when any kind offish was 

 made much of, and a variety of coarse food was eaten with 

 a gusto by our ancestors and ancestresses, especially in the 

 form of highly-seasoned stews, carp was all very well ; but 

 as soon as the eating of fish ceased to be a religious ob- 

 servance, each kind had to stand on its own merits, and 

 educated Christians soon began to esteem carp of little 

 value. Dame Berners, in her book on angling, to which I 

 have occasion so often to refer, says the " carpe is a 

 daynteous fysshe;" and|in The Haven of Health the carp is 

 included among the " ten sortes of fishe which are reckoned 

 as principall in the preservation of health," and the author 

 says that it is " greatly desired of great estates, and no 

 marvaile, for it is in wholesomeness of great value, and 

 the tongue of the carpe is very pleasant to carping ladies." 

 But carp soon fell into disrepute, and rightly so, for 

 without a rich sauce and all sorts of " herbes," the flesh 

 is worse than insipid. Our revered master, Izaak Walton, 

 gives a most elaborate recipe for stewing him, with in- 

 gredients and concomitants as many in number almost as 

 the stars in the heavens, to collect and compound which 

 life now-a-days is too short. Others have followed him, 

 and even modern cookery-books persist in telling us how 

 to dress carp, by stewing them or otherwise. But all to 

 no purpose, at least in my opinion. The carp will be a 

 carp, gastronomically, to the end of all time, unless we 

 can improve the breed, as we have done that of our oxen, 



