Harengs frais, harengs frais!” When that singsong cry broke the quiet of my small town, the housewives clattered hastily out into the street to buy. For in Montserault, as in other small towns in the central part of France, a Salt-water fish like fresh herring was a rare treat. Of course, the wealthier citizens of our town could afford to have salmon, turbot, sole, and lobster sent to them from the coast, packed in ice in barrels that had to be re-iced en route, but the only salt-water fish we ever saw for sale was herring. Not that we lacked for fish. We fared very well indeed on fish from l'eau douce—the sweet waters, as we called them, of our own streams and lakes.
Indeed, it may have been all for the best that we had so few salt-water fish, because lacking them, as well as lobster, shrimp, and other shellfish, we learned to Appreciate the joys of pike. perch, carp, and lake trout, and thought particularly well of brook trout and crayfish, the écrevisses which are so famous in France, but can be found. so far as I know, only in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and near New Orleans in this country.
Fish was as important a part of our cuisine as chickens, eggs, or vegetables, and every farmer built an artificial fishpond in his low-lying field just as he built hen houses, or planted vegetables. The chore of catching fish from the fishpond was reserved for the children; so was the less pleasant chore of helping to drain the pond every so often and to clean it out.
But in spring, when the snow melted high in the hills, and the quiet streams became rushing rivers of cold water splashing over their rocky beds, the trout fishermen were in their glory. Enthusiasts came from all over the countryside to cast their lines in our streams.
We never had enough fish, even when we added to the produce of our own fishponds and the trout streams the fish which commercial fishermen caught in the river Allier, whose broad waters were the center of the fishing industry in our départment. livery household relished fish, and every housewife knew how to cook it. The restaurants of the district made much of their fish specialties. Most of them had little ponds near at hand where they kept the live fish they purchased until the moment they were to go into the pan. Some city restaurants still do this; they keep the live fish in a pond for the customer to choose and have cooked to his order.
Here is a guide to some of the freshwater fish you may buy in your local market, especially inland, or which the sportsmen of your families may bring back from fishing trips.
Pike is an excellent freshwater fish, but it lives off other fish, and is so voracious that we used to call pike “freshwater sharks.” A pike could devour a carp almost its own size. Whenever we restocked our pond, we pur in only enough pike to get rid of the excess small fish. Or we would isolate the pike.
But it is more interesting to talk of eating pike than of what they eat. Their flesh is while and firm, just right for making quenelles and fish mousse, delicacies for which fish flesh of a grayish cast is quite unsuitable. At the Maison Calondre in Moulins, where I Served my apprenticeship, quenelles were a favorite garnish of many of the sauced fish dishes. The fish mousse was a popular entree made from the same fish mixture as the quenelles, but steamed in a mold instead of being poached. I must have pounded thousands of pike filets for these specialties during my few years at Maison Calondre. We chose the large pike for this purpose, because the flesh is dryer, The smaller pike, weighing from three to five pounds, we frequently braised in red or white wine, or steamed and Served with Nantua sauce, a béchamel sauce finished with crayfish butter (see January, 1953). Pike is also delicious for the buffet when served cold and dressed with mayonnaise in the same way a whole salmon is prepared and served. The one defect of pike is its large number of bones.
Carp is another fine fresh-water fish. No wonder the pike likes to eat it! It is truly delicious. For some reason, carp lives to a greater age than any other fresh-water fish. In Paris, people say that some of the carp that decorate the park ponds arc at least fifty years old. They continue to grow larger as they grow older, and their scales, large at any age, become very big indeed. The color of carp changes from light brown or golden to a reddish hue as the age of the fish advances—just as our hair turns gray, I suppose. An uncle of mine used to have charge of a fishpond on an estate belonging to a man about forty years old. Some of the carp in this pond were as old as the owner, and when the pond was emptied and cleaned every few years, the owner always insisted on restoring these dozen or so carp that he remembered from his boyhood. Several of these old fellows weighed as much as fifteen pounds, a far cry from the little poissons d'or that arc usually kept in fishponds as pets.
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