Synopsis
Famous eels:
1/ “Those are the shrieking eels. You don’t believe me? Just wait. They always grow louder when they’re about to feed on human flesh.” (Name that movie.)
2/ Mark Oliver Everett
3/ Medieval eel rents!
The medieval church, famously, had a lot of restrictions on what people could eat and when—during Lent, on Fridays, and other fast days as well. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss some of the ways people got around these laws, including…eels! Medieval people LOVED eels. You could pay your rent in them. You could eat them. You could…well, that might be a list of all the things you could do with eels, but they were certainly beloved. So let’s talk about this little-known but apparently delicious delicacy.
Notes
1/ For reference, the referenced 3-year-old is now 5. We are a little behind.
2/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/science/moray-eels-eat-land.html
Side note: I don’t think anyone knows how eels have sex.
3/ https://www.facebook.com/sheddaquarium
4/ Moray eels: actually 200 species in 15 genera. The one I describe is the green eel, which grows up to 8.2 feet in length.
5/ Episodes that involve heretics: 8 (hell and damnation), 9 (heretics and saints), 48 (Meet the Cathars), 49 (Where’s Waldensians?). Arguably also 47 (Gnosticism).
6/ https://twitter.com/greenleejw
He got written up in Time, too: https://time.com/5886487/eels-history-conservation/
Link to Eel Rent Website (with map): https://historiacartarum.org/eel-rents-project/english-eel-rents-10th-17th-centuries/
Map alone: https://cornell.carto.com/u/jwgreenlee/builder/31e4bb99-f02b-431a-a4e2-aa83a043e53a/embed
7/ The smell of dried squid, and—especially—the smell of nuoc mam being made are things I will never forget.
To be fair, they weren’t selling squid by the stick—they just had them attached to sticks to bike them around.
8/ Henry I died of a surfeit of lampreys. I heard this on QI and therefore it is true, forever and ever amen.
9/ Surprise! Our episode on Mathildas came out two weeks ago—episode 58! And yet we apparently taped this two years ago. What planning!
10/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_goose I guess it’s a thing.
11/ Eel ships 2019: https://www.hermitagemoorings.com/2020/02/20/eel-barge-korneliske-ykes-ii-visit-2019/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV-_rLOvLI8
The only good reason to have water inside your ship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvwTv1t_Mss
12/ “They are Brexiting right now.” Jesse, how many PMs have they been through since we recorded this? At least three, not including May. [And a head of lettuce! I think I said this when Boris Johnson was having so much trouble “finishing” Brexit.–JN]
13/ Here is the Surprised Eel Historian’s Twitter thread on the maps: https://twitter.com/greenleejw/status/1421144699897790471
The mapmakers:
Pieter van den Keere (1571–c. 1646) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_van_den_Keere
John Norden (c.1547–1625) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Norden
Norden’s map of London (1593): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Norden#/media/File:London_-_John_Norden’s_map_of_1593.jpg
The Visscher Panorama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visscher_panorama created by Claes Visscher (1586–1652) c1600 and first published in 1618 in Amsterdam.
Pieter van den Keere engraved John Norden’s map of London (1593). Visscher was Dutch, and it’s possible he never visited London. His map might be based on others, including Norden’s, since Norden’s engraver (van den Keere) was Visscher’s publisher’s brother-in-law. Repeat: Pieter van den Keere was Visscher’s publisher’s brother-in-law. Interestingly the publisher had been to London (it could potentially be his work?). The publisher is Jodocus Hondius (1563–1612).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodocus_Hondius
14/ Turnips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-L4hFWVxU
And yet more turnips (poor video quality, sorry): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD2iYSKHHzo
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