Letter: Ssh, pike for tea
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Your support makes all the difference.KEITH ELLIOTT, commenting on UK National Fishing Week ("Fish may not be very bright, but as for fishermen...", 22 August), writes: "... roach, perch, pike, carp, chub, tench, bream and sticklebacks. All are inedible. Try a chub if you don't believe me. Oven gloves taste better."
I cannot vouch for oven gloves or chub but I have enjoyed pike as quenelles de brochet in France and as Hechtfilet mit Senfsosse in Germany.
Jane Grigson's Fish Book draws on Isaak Walton's The Compleat Angler for its main pike recipe. Walton says: "This dish is too good for any but anglers or very honest men; and I trust you will prove both, and therefore I have trusted you with the secret." Perhaps this is really why carp syndicates are so secretive.
DAVID EARLAM
Ely, Cambridgeshire
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