THE EISHING GAZETTE 
390 
THE BOOK OF THE ROACH. 
By the Late John Geeville Fennell. 
Edited and Revised by John Bickebdyke. 
(Continued from page 226.) 
CHAPTER IX. 
the roach regarded from a culinary point op 
■VIEW—SOME VALUABLE MAXIMS—CONCLUSION. 
As Food. —“ He is a fish of no great reputation, 
and his spawn is accounted much better than any 
other part of him.”— Walton. 
“ The roe, which is green and boils red, is 
remarkably good. They differ greatly in good¬ 
ness, according to the rivers in which they are 
caught. Kone are good that are kept in ponds. 
— Naturalist’s Cabinet, vol. v. 
“ It is in little estimation generally for table, 
but it is best as food, as well as finest in colour, 
in October,—a state produced probably by the 
variety as well as quantity of nutriment obtained 
during a long summer : it is in this month that 
it is most sought after by the Thames anglers.”— 
Yarrell. 
The roach, which is now in no estimation, and 
thought useful only as food for better fish, was 
probably more valued formerly. According to 
Blomfield, in 1413, Clement Paston, Esq., and 
others, trespassed on the ponds belonging to the 
Abbot of Si. Rennets, and took 200 roaches, 200 
perch, and 300 eels, which were together -valued 
at 100 shillings, a high price then. Pet in 
L’Estrange’s “ Household Book,” which refers to 
the next century, few notices of fresh-water fish 
are to be found. A barrister friend informs us 
that this value was only nominal, as were the 
numbers also, but lawyers assume a great deal. 
Cooking Boach, &c. —When large roach are 
scored across the sides, and broiled with the scales 
on, they are considered by many a well-flavoured 
fish, especially in the autumn and winter seasons. 
I feel assured that no one thing is more 
neglected in this country than the cooking of 
fish. How is it that at tables east of London, 
barbel, roach, dace, and even the white bream 
are brought to table and eaten by the most 
fastidious with relish and thankfulness ? With 
one style of cooking the roe of the barbel 
is a violent poison; by another treatment it 
becomes palatable and wholesome. The mere 
fact of washing and boiling it either in vinegar 
or vinegar and water, making the difference. 
Roach from one kitchen shall appear a sappy, 
soddened, sickly pulp, only held together by a 
framework of loose bones. From another, with 
firm and flaky flesh, a single one affording, with 
a well-boiled potato, a relishing meal. And who 
that has partaken of dace, hot and hissing from 
the brazier of the dark-eyed Rebecca, will gain¬ 
say that this much-despised fish is delicious when 
cooked as she can cook them ? The truth is, we 
are all behindhand in our knowledge of cookery, 
and blame our fresh-water fish when we ought to 
take the shame to ourselves. 
“ Take a roach—the sooner after he is caught 
the better—of about half a pound or upwards, 
and having wiped the scales off him—which may 
be done wiih a coarse cloth without injuring the 
flesh, as with a knife—dredge it with flour, and 
having your fat or oil ready boiling in the pan, 
lay him gently therein ; do not crack or break the 
skin ; keep it as much as possible from touching 
the pan, by causing it to float in the grease, and 
turn with a flat dumpling-strainer, or other 
similar instrument, and it will brown by the mere 
contact with its seething bath. A squeeze of 
lemon, or drop or two of vinegar, when on the 
plate, will add a zest. Now I have not said py- 
thing about gutting the fish. Indeed I strictly 
enjoin you not to do so. AVhen the fish comes to 
table, all you have to do is to divide the fish down 
the back with your knife—the fins and their 
bones being avoided—strip one side and then the 
other of the fish, which you will find you can do 
in perfect and unbroken flakes, and place the 
anatomical structure on a separate plate for 
removal. Or if you are in immediate proximity 
to the kitchen—or what is still better, if you have 
the stove at your elbow—remove the flesh before 
it is placed upon the table.”— Rev. J. Marlin. 
Cooking Fish. —Many have been the good 
dinners we have made beside the streams—being 
our own cook—upon some of the roach caught to 
earn the meal; and as there is no appetite like 
one obtained by labour, and no flavour like that- 
the open air imparts, the relish has been beyond 
description. The angler should be provident at 
starting, taking with him a loaf in a hole in 
which some butter has been hidden—salt, pepper, 
and lucifers, not forgetting something in a flask 
wherewith to adulterate the pure element, and his 
cuisine is thus far complete. A handful of dry 
sticks, some leaves, turf, or any dry rubbish, will 
afford fuel, and a flat stone, cleansed in the river 
and placed to warm by the fire, will afford a good 
substitute for a plate. 
The flsh should be washed clean, particularly 
the throats, cut open and gutted, but no water 
should touch the inside, as the natural juices 
should be retained as far as possible. Take off the 
heads, score the sides slightly, and pepper and 
salt them well, inside and out. Cut some twigs 
of blackthorn, or any hard wood, peel and trim 
the ends, and run the pointed end of one along 
the backbone of each roach, sticking the thick 
ends into the ground, so that the fish may lean 
over the fire. ^ i_ -n 
The appearance of the inside of the fish will 
tell you when they are done. Take them off the 
twigs, one by one, with a twist to disengage the 
stick from the flesh; lay them on your hot stone 
plate, and butter them while warm. 
In cooking perch after this fashion, it is much 
better to leave the scales on; they protect the 
juices of the fish, and peel off all in one flake. 
We are told by an American friend and angler, 
of the following recipe for baking or steaming 
fresh-water fish : “ Let the fire be a good one, to 
produce the requisite amount of live embers. 
When it is burned down it is ready both for pota¬ 
toes and fish. Do not cut off the heads of the 
fish, but season them, and then take a piece of 
strong thin paper, and smearing it thinly with 
butter, roll a fish in it. After saturating each 
fish so encased in the stream, lay them side by 
side in the bed of hot ashes, cover them u^, and 
give a minute to an inch; that is, if a fish is ten 
inches long give it ten minutes, and so on. When 
you uncover them they can be removed from the 
ashes by inserting the forked end of a long stick 
beneath, and drawing them out. When you take 
them out of the paper, unroll them carefully on a 
flat stone, open and butter them to your liking, 
and, above all, regard the head as a precious inor- 
sel; it contains much, when done in this fashion, 
'hat is glutinous and fatty. In the language of 
Father ‘ Izaak,’ ‘ they are too good for any but 
honest anglers.’ Old anglers have confessed, after 
a roast or bake (in the former plan doing the fish 
on flat stones previously heated in the fire), that 
they have missed much by not adopting this 
simple way of providing a sumptuous dinner, and 
that all household methods, with their epicurean 
appliances, were not to be compared with roasting 
or baking under the ashes. The latter is the 
surest method of retaining the natural flavour of 
the fish.” 
We have heard of large chub and roach being 
cooked in the artful gipsy fashion of surrounding 
the fish, entrails, scales and all, in a dumpling of 
clay, and submitting this to a hole previously 
dug, in which a wood fire had left but its embers, 
and then closing the top with a turf. But com¬ 
mend us to the toasting and baking process. 
[D- gustibiis, &c .; for my own part I believe that 
if a roach, caught in autumn or winter, when it 
is not feeding on weeds, is scaled, cleaned, and 
wiped dry inside and out (he., not washed in water), 
egged and bread-crumbed, and exquisitely tried 
the day he is taken out of the river, he will be 
superior to another roach cooked by any other 
process. With him should be fried a little parsley, 
and the best of sauces is a little lemon juice, 
and either pepper ground from a table mill or 
cayenne pepper. But cook him the day he is 
caught—fail not in that. If the frying is done in 
butter, which learned cooks say is w'rong, he will 
taste all the sweeter, but not be such a good 
colour as if fried in oil or lard. But how many 
roach fishers have cooks who can fry exquisitely P 
Not one in five hundred. Mind you, do not try 
this receipt on a pond roach, but deal thus with a 
river roach in good season, as I have explained. 
—J. B ] 
We will conclude with a few hints, the result 
of long experience, which escaped notice in their 
proper places. 
All tackle should be as good and carefully 
made as the means at the angler’s command will 
admit: it should be kept in good condition, and 
[Mat 27, 1893 
packed away so as to be available at a moment s 
notice. The young angler especially should learn 
to whip a hook on to hair or gut, to put on a 
ring, or splice a broken rod; but we have not 
thought it advisable to go into the detail of tackle 
making, which has been well and often treated of 
by other writers. 
When punt fishing, the attendant should never 
be allowed to bait the hook, or take the fish off ; 
the latter is a fruitful source of damage, the gut 
or hair being, by clumsy handling, crippled where 
it is tied to the hook. To avoid this we con¬ 
stantly use a disgorger, which prevents this mis¬ 
chief, and causes the hooks to last much longer. 
It is curious to notice the difference in durability 
between gut and hair; the former, if drawn fine, 
sometimes frets, and loses its strength in a day s 
fishing ; the latter, with care, will last for years, 
and does not deteriorate by the action of the water. 
All rods, lines, floats, &c., should be carefully over¬ 
hauled from time to time, the req'dsite repairs 
made, and the rods varnished when necessary. 
When proper time can be given for the varnish 
to dry well, coachmaker’s copal is the best that 
can be used, but as this takes a long time in 
drving, shellac dissolved in wood naptha makes 
an" excellent tough varnish, which dries in a few 
minutes. [Good for whippings, but cannot _be 
recommended as a rod varnish.—J. B] Spirits 
of wine is often recommended as a solvent for 
this gum, but varnish made with it is more 
liable to chill, and it will not dissolve so much 
shellac; whereas good wood naphtha will unite 
with the gum in any proportions. There are 
several sorts of wood naphtha, some of which 
will not dissolve shellac, but the best is sold 
especially for the use of hat makers. There 
are two methods of making up tackle, one with 
dry silk, the other with silk waxed. If the 
former be preferred, it may be varnished with 
the shellac varnish just mentioned, but if shoe¬ 
maker’s-n-ax has been employed, a varnish must 
be used that will combine with it, such as the 
dammar varnish previously mentioned. 
[There are a few roach fishing maxims which, 
may be summed up at the end of this volume. 
Fish fine; ground bait judiciously so that the 
fish get the bait and yet do not over-eat them¬ 
selves ; be patient, but not too patient; when one 
method or baits fail try other methods and baits 
until successful; let the fish neither hear nor see 
you; consider the season, the heisjht and colour 
of the water, and fish accordingly; use clean, 
sweet baits; return undersized fish. Finally, be 
not puffed up with pride if, after reading 
“ Greville F.’s” exhaustive work, you, by follow¬ 
ing his directions, catch a hundredweight of 
roach, more or less.—J. B.] 
Note. —Azuriue Roach. —Mr. T. R. Sacha 
kindly sends me the following extract from 
“ Darling’s Guide to Walton-on-the-Naze,’ written 
by J. (Ireville Fennell, and published in 1876; it 
is now out of print:— 
“ Inland fishing can be obtained for roach, &c., 
some three miles to the west of Walton, in a little 
and apparently insignificent river. But here as 
many as forty pounds of mach have been caught 
to a single rod in a day, many of the fish com¬ 
peting for size, colour, and flavour with those of 
the Thames or Lea. But the naturalist as well as 
the angler will not fail to vi.sit this stream, as it 
contains that remarkable scarce fish in the British 
Islands, the Azurine or Blue Roach (Lencibcus 
cocruleus). Its habits are said to be rnuch like 
those of the chub, and especially it is highly 
retentive of life. It in shape re.sembles the rudd, 
but as regards colour it is distinguished by 
having the upper part of the head, the back, and 
sides a slate-blue, passing into silvery below, and 
both shining with a metalic lustre, whereas in 
the rudd the lower part of the body is of a golden 
yellow, and the fins of the azurine are white, not, 
as in the rudd, of a vermilion colour.”—J. B. 
(Concluded.) 
We understand that Messrs. Richardson, ‘A e 
Pluckie Terche,” 77. Finshury-pavement, have 
been appointed by Messrs. Warner, of the Welsh 
Harp fishery, Hendon, to act as their agents in 
the City for the fishing, and that day tickets, 
price la. each for bottom and 2s. fid. each for 
jack fishing, can therefore be had from Messrs. 
Richardson, as well as annual subscription tickets 
at 21s. each. 
