There was a time when I was eating the eel It just didn’t look normal, it was. It would be absurd not to take advantage of this abundant and ubiquitous succulent fish. Since the beginning of time, people have fished and ate eel, but This tradition may end very soon.
Consumption of eel was common in areas of Spain where it had not existed for a long time. This Felipe II’s Topographic RelationshipsFrom the late 16th century it tells us that in Helechosa de los Montes (Badajoz) eels were considered “the best fish”, and in Torralba de Calatrava “a stick long (just over 80 cm) and almost a quarter of fat” .
In the middle of the 19th century, eels lived and were eaten in almost the entire territory of Spain. HE newspaper Under the editorship of Pascual Madoz, he tells us about the delicious eels in places as diverse as Cabra (Córdoba), Canals (Lleida), Lake Carucedo (León), where an arroba (more than 11 kg) is said to weigh-and Mansilla. (La Rioja)—a town that is now submerged in the reservoir that bears its name.
After eating for too long, around the eel An important culinary culture has emerged. Fried or boiled, smoked, xapadillo or everything is fine. Also, the eels have recently reached the shore after their spectacular voyage from the Sargasso Sea.
But all this has to stop. Continuing to eat eels will lead to their extinction.. No eels.
Global collapse of eels
The euphoria of the European eel ended dramatically in the late 1970s. The species collapsed and never recovered. Today they reach the shores of Europe about five eels for every hundred eels made fifty years ago.
The decline is so severe that the European eel species “critically endangered”the most extreme degree of threat, considered the step before extinction.
For comparison, it’s the same category that the Iberian lynx had at its worst when about 100 people stayed. A great effort was made to improve its status until it was placed in a lower threat category (“endangered”).
This effort is not made with the eel. We eat it. As usual, we continue with the culinary traditions that have arisen with the chance of a thriving eel population that has not existed for decades.
The reasons for the snake’s collapse are not entirely clear, possibly as various factors are involved. These have affected the eel in different places and times, and they interact with each other to complicate things even further. In any case, fishing for eels at different stages of their life cycle has been at least one of them. And more importantly, it’s probably the biggest obstacle to your recovery.
There are those who say that if there are no eels left here, they will continue to eat from elsewhere. But this is not possible. There is no eel species left in the world that can survive commercial fishing, let alone international trade.
Involvement of gastronomy
No restaurant would consider adding Iberian lynx to their menu. and such tasting festivals are unthinkable. However, all this happens with the European eel, although it is a species more at risk of extinction than the lynx.
Last year, actor Robert de Niro visited Spain and ate on a menu prepared by several prestigious chefs, including a dish with eel. Days later, an article that takes advantage of this event to encourage readers to abandon supposed preconceptions and “dare with the eel”. Popular RTVE program Masterchef in the kids version “a boy kills an eel”.
Cooking eel, an endangered species, was never considered controversial. In fact, Masterchef keeps adding eel to its ingredients over and over again.
Between 3 and 5 March, the XXXVI eel gastronomic festival will be held in L’Arena and Soto del Barco (Asturias). seven restaurants will offer baby eel casseroles for 65 euros. This exorbitant price is an example of the human obsession with specialty items implied on the road to extinction by various species.
Beyond the price, you have to consider that there are about a hundred individuals of a critically endangered species in each stew. How many casseroles will be served? Will someone do this calculation?
From those who provide the products to those who advertise in the media, the cooking world must stop promoting the extinction of the European eel. Snakes should not be caught, sold, served or eaten. Any size, any source, any format. All this should be banned, but both our European and state and territory governments show a remarkable blindness to allowing the commercialization of eel. While these restrictions remain, awareness must drive eel to separate from shops, tables, and recipes.
Unless the eel is cured, eating or encouraging it should be considered reprehensible. I hope the time will come when the eel will become abundant again and we can enjoy its taste once again. But we have to stop hunting him for that to happen. completely.
Reference article: https://theconversation.com/debemos-dejar-de-comer-anguilas-antes-de-que-desaparecan-para-siempre-200416
Miguel Clavero Pineda
CSIC is a staff scientist at the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC).
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Contact address of the environment department: [email protected]
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