"Andy Hall" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 23:07:50 +0100, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:




No, it was called snoek to try to fool us that we weren't eating whale,
allegedly.

Trouble is, people at least in the north pronounced it 'snook', which is
the
noise you make when you force air up through your nose to dislodge snot
and
it made the product unpopular ...

But it was wartime, most things were rationed and we were hungry. You
wouldn't believe what we ate - unless you admit to being old of course :-)

Mary


My mother has mentioned it before now - I'll have to ask her.

It does seem unlikely that a new fish was discovered though.

Thinking that this sounds like a Dutch word, I did some searching and
it appears that it is a Pike.

Oh I know well what snoek is, I'm saying that in the 1940s people were very
suspicious of a 'new' product which was - I don't like to say "forced" on us
but appeared - and because of food shortages we ate it. I don't remember
anyone enjoying it and the consensus was that it was whale. That was
reported in the papers too but you know my opinion of those. I could never
understand why whale was so undesirable anyway. But I didn't like 'snoek'.
Mind you, I didn't like cow heel either but when you're hungry

aside a good dose of hunger would do no amount of good to today's picky
children.


Also, whale meat, at least when cooked, has more of the texture and
taste character of meat, rather than fish.

This stuff did. But pike caught in British waters is meat-textured and not
fishy tasting. Well, that which has been caught by an angler friend and
given to us has been. I'll have it any time, it's delicious and not at all
like the wartime stuff we had.

Yes, those fish WERE pike, I was given them whole, not in fillets or steaks.
You can't mistake a pike for anything else!

Mary
--

.andy

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