Surprised Eel Historian, PhDさんのイラストまとめ

So, traditionally you're supposed to skin eels alive, & they object pretty strenuously. So you need to secure the head. Modern cookbooks still suggest you nail the head to a board.

This works if you're working with small numbers. But we're talking about a castle kitchen here. /5

The cook, impressed by Havelok's strength, considers offering him full-time work, & asks what else he can do.

Havelock lists several things: he can carry water, make a fire, wash dishes...whatever the cook needs. He only mentions one thing having to do with food, though. /3

In fact, the English were well acquainted w/ the method by which the local people fished for eel. William Bradord wrote that Tisquantum "trod them out with his feet"...a means of fishing that Chaucer had written about as common in England several centuries earlier. 3/6

@Nekrotzar @ChaZhe4 @JohnFetterman @Popehat

It's #VeteransDay2020, so let's note that eels weren't just for civilians; medieval armies ate eels, too.

In the 1390s Henry, Earl of Derby went on crusade to Prussia, & fed his men lots of eels. His army purchased eels as often as cows, & far more often than pigs or other fish.

@escaped_ferret

So in 1773 the famous fisheries expert Livingston Stone, working for the US Fisheries Commission & the CA Fisheries Commission, got to work.

He got 1,500 eels from Martha Vineyard, & 40,000 eels from the Hudson River, put them in an "aquarium car" on a train, & headed west. 3/8

Freshwater eels aren't native to the US Pacific Coast. All the eels in N. America come from the Sargasso Sea, & swim in waters that empty into the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.

There are lots of lampreys on the W. coast. But no native eels.

But they wanted some. Like you do.2/8

Friends...I simply don't have the emotional juice to do a snappy eel history tweet today. Apologies. So, instead, enjoy some of the eels that my son has drawn for me over the last 5 years.

He's a good kid, & he deserves a good world to live in. And his eels make me happy.

So...why did no one tell me that this existed until JUST NOW?