NOEL? NO EEL!

I'm crushed.  Preparations for this year's Feast of the Seven Fishes have begun here at the old homestead and I've been voted down on the eel.  The thing is Shannon and I compromise. For the most part I replicate the meal I had at my great-grandmother's as a kid.  She prefers to shake things up, bringing in new - albeit Italian - dishes.  Which is fine.  But this year she nailed me on the eel.  Now it's true the eel had dropped off my family's menu at some point in the fifties or sixties.  But I had resurrected it a few years ago and thought it quite tasty.  Granted it's a little effort to clean and prepare - but worth it.  Last year, for some reason it didn't go over as well.  Now Shannon has teamed up with my father-in-law and my mom to nuke me on eel.  We're going to try something else this year.  I feel like I'm betraying the lowly eel. But what can you do?  At least I still get to have the octopus - which we serve char-grilled on a bed of sea salt drizzled with lemon.  I don't think my great-grandmother ever gave that a shot - but knowing her she'd have loved our approach.  Damn - forgot I'm supposed to be mourning the eel...

Buon Natale,
Robert Tinnell

Comments

[saundra]

Try cooking it a different way...make it sweet and sour the way southern Italians make mackeral.
I ordered eel from a fish monger in California when we moved from the East and he got me a bucket of eelets instead the a big eel. A good fish monger should clean and skin the eel for you.