Fricasseed Frogs and Eel Pie

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Eel Pie!  That looks great doesn't it?

When the kids were young, I read them every single one of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series of seven novels.  We loved them all!  A favorite character of ours is named Puddleglum.  Puddleglum is a Marsh-wiggle.  He is tall and skinny.  His fingers and hands are webbed like a frog's hands.  His hair is greenish-gray and he wears a pointed hat with a wide brim.  When the protagonists of the story in "The Silver Chair" find Puddleglum, he is out fishing for eels - his favorite meal. Puddleglum is an eternal pessimist and doesn't expect to catch any, but ends up catching about a dozen.  Puddleglum decides to join Eustace and Jill on their adventure because "the other Marsh-wiggles said that he is too flighty and that he needs to learn that there is more to life than fricasseed frogs and eel pie."

In order to make eel pie, you have to find the perfect eel habitat, which just so happens to be right behind our house in a low-lying swamp area that holds water and is in a shady, cool area.  I almost expected to see Puddleglum sitting back here smoking his pipe.

The perfect eel habitat

It just so happens Benjamin has some crawfish traps in these murky waters.  This reminds me so much of me when I was his age.  I always had some sort of camp or fort back in the woods with traps for critters.  I watched as Benjamin lifted his trap.

Benjamin hit the jackpot in his first trap.  A nice, fat eel was writhing around inside the trap.  It was a fine eel - one that is the perfect eating size.  If they get much larger, they are tough and too chewy.

Benjamin dumped him out on the ground and the eel tried to wiggle away and return to his muddy abode in the soft mud of the swampy area.  But I wasn't about to let him get away.

I picked him up, but it was next to impossible to hold him.  The eel was so slimy that he kept squishing through my fingers, leaving my hand with a thick coating of eel slime.  An eel, despite looking like a snake, is actually a fish.

It is hard to see in this picture, because it is blurry, but it looks like he has little arms, but they are actually pectoral fins.  We were having a Gospel Quartet at church tonight with finger foods following the music in the fellowship hall.  Perhaps we could bring eel pie to church for our finger food offering. Eel pie isn't exactly 'finger food,' though.  Besides, it would be very hard to hold an eel in your fingers.

Unfortunately, Benjamin only caught one eel.  According to Tricia's recipe, you need 13 eels to make a nice eel pie.  With only one, we figured we'd let him go so that he could grow.  We watched as he disappeared in the mud.

With our lone eel released, I was left empty-handed.  Well, except for the mucous-slime that coated my hand.  I tried to wipe it off on some tree bark, but it stuck to me like glue.

I didn't want to wipe the slime on my clothes, so I finally just licked it off.  It tasted salty.

Okay, I have to confess.  I did not lick the slime off my hands and I had no intention of ever eating the eel.  About the only truth in today's post was that we caught that interesting critter in the backyard and he was pretty doggone cool.  I'll leave eating eel pie to Puddleglum.