6 - The Power of the Pot : Naturalizing Carp Through the Early Modern English Receipt Book

Summary

Abstract

How did early modern cooks and their recipe books respond to the introduction of invasive species? The introduction of the common carp to England provides an illuminating example. At the end of the fifteenth century, manors and monasteries began to stock ponds in England with imported carp, but they quickly colonized English river systems. Their tolerance for mucky waters helped them thrive in England, but less-thanpristine environments affected the taste of their flesh and resulted in divided culinary opinion. This essay examines strategies for dressing carp that proliferated through the seventeenth century as cooks sought to transform this stranger fish into a naturalized British dish.

Keywords: cookery, carp, fish, angling, invasive species, naturalization

Near the outset of her literary history of early modern angling texts, Myra E. Wright asks, ‘Is there such a thing as an English fish?’ On landscapes and waterways that have been so extensively managed and domesticated throughout history, what does it mean to draw a distinction between English fish and ‘naturalized’ fish? Although the last ice age left species of freshwater fish isolated in fragmented pockets of Europe for much of recorded human history, fish are wont to flow without regard for national borders. Perhaps no European species demonstrates this better than the common carp (Cyprinus carpio). Ecologically, they are eager colonizers, gamely adaptable to new habitats. Culturally, carp are perceived disparately in different waters. A prized pond fish here, a dangerous invader there; unfit for the kitchen according to some, a culinary delicacy for others. Frequently reviled in North America as a muddy-tasting bottom-feeder, carp are immensely popular in other countries. In fact, carp are now the most farmed fish in the world.

Common carp are no more indigenous to the British Isles than they are to North America, but they elicit very different responses depending on the continent. Ask a white person in North America what they think of carp and you’re likely to hear phrases like ‘trash fish’ or, especially, with the introduction of Asian carp to North American rivers, ‘invasive species’.