How Eels Almost Became the Thanksgiving Main Dish

thevintagenews.com ^ | Samantha Franco

[BenLurkin]

Squanto giving the pilgrims eels made sense given the time during which he discovered the pilgrims. Eels do not like cold water. During the winter, they gather in large numbers to ball up and twist themselves together in the mud. This makes them easy to catch with the forked spears that were typically used by the Native Americans.

Native Americans would also harvest eels in large numbers by building river weirs in the autumn. River weirs arer small-scale dams that raise the water levels in a small area to allow for the build-up of (in this case) the eel population. After the eels were caught, they were dried and smoked for the winter. They provided a long-lasting, reliable food source.

When the first Thanksgiving meal took place the following year, it was very likely that eel was served at the table.

[rlmorel]

LOL, I know...I just thought it was funny!

[Rappini]

I didn’t know Hoosiers ate eel.

[Army Air Corps]

Remove from oven. Throw away the eels and eat the bacon...............

Kinda like "Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

[Red Badger]

Exactly!.........................😜

[dennisw]

Love that slimey, old timey Okra. I have not eaten it for a while. But I ate something just as good last week. Pressure cooked some whole beets. Beets are tough so they need pressure cooking. Do not cut them up. Pressure cook them whole.

[Pennsyltucky Boy]

Native Pennsylvanian and never heard of this little piece of history. But fishing rights was a big deal. I think Virginia and Maryland fought a brief war over oyster beds and fishing rights as well.

[kosciusko51]

Unagi is the only eel dish I’ve ever eaten. It was in a little town near Kamakura.

[ConservativeInPA]

I stumbled upon this history because I enjoy fishing. I simply wanted to know what were true native fish species remaining today in Pennsylvania. To do that, I had to go back in history to see what was once caught before industrialization and government imposed conservation which includes the introduction of non-native species.

I have no doubt to the possibility of skirmishes between VA and MD. If I recall correctly, James Michener alluded to that in his novel Chesapeake. I read that decades ago, so don’t hold me to that.

[dforest]

I hate snot otters.

[Pennsyltucky Boy]

Speaking of native species… I have always wanted to try my skill at shad fishing on the Delaware. I think it is a springtime thing.

[dforest]

Oh yeah, we eat them all the time. /s

[gundog]

Maybe you’re cooking them wrong.

[ConservativeInPA]

The shad run is in the spring and is water temperature dependent. When the water temp moves into the upper 40’s the fishing turns on.

[COBOL2Java]

Hey, I can always go for some Unagi Nigiri!

[PLMerite]

No thanks, a scene in a movie ruined eels for me:

That, plus I tried some in sushi once. Nasty.

[DPMD]

Nail it to a pine board. Slow cook at 250 for 10 hours.

When done, throw away the eel and eat the board.

[kiryandil]

Oyster stuffing is the bomb.

[SamAdams76]

Actually eels (also known as lampreys) make for good eating, if you can get around the fact that in nature, they are parasites and attach themselves to other fish.