Lampreys from Great Lakes Destined for Queen's Pie (Britain's Queen Elizabeth II)

U-T San Diego ^ | April 27, 2012 | AP

[DogByte6RER]

Lampreys from Great Lakes destined for queen's pie

DETROIT — A few unwanted, invasive sea lampreys from the Great Lakes have been shipped to England for use in a traditional pie for Queen Elizabeth II.

The Detroit Free Press reports (http://on.freep.com/IdmZkP) the City of Gloucester, which has given the pie as a gift to the monarch since the Middle Ages, requested the eel-like creatures from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission because they're a protected species in England. The pie is for June's Diamond Jubilee, the 60th anniversary of the queen's ascent to the throne.

Commission spokesman Marc Gaden shipped 2 pounds of frozen lamprey from Lake Huron. He says Great Lakes officials "would prefer to send them truckloads of lamprey."

Lampreys got into the Great Lakes through Atlantic shipping canals in the 1920s and have threatened native fish since.

[DogByte6RER]

Recipe: 15th-Century 'Lamprays Bake' (sea lampreys)

'Lamprays Bake'

This is a translation into modern measurements from an old English recipe from the 15th Century called “Lamprays Bake” from “A New Boke of Olde Cokery,” a collection of medieval recipes by Rudd Rayfield.

Pastry dough for nine-inch pie crust

1 pound eel, catfish, or other fish filets

1/2 C brown bread crumbs (1/3 C if blood is used)

1/4 C wine vinegar (2T if blood is used)

1/4 C fresh eel or fish blood (optional)

1/4 C dry wine

1/4 tsp. each cinnamon and black pepper

Salt to taste

SYRUP AND SOPS:

1 C sweet wine

1/4 tsp. powdered ginger

3 slices firm white bread

1 T brown sugar, or to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400°.

2. Line a pie pan with the crust, and put it in the oven for ten to fifteen minutes to harden it. Remove it, and reduce oven temperature to 350°.

3. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, vinegar, dry wine, cinnamon, salt and pepper (and blood if it is used).

4. Place the eels or fish in the pie crust, and pour the sauce over them. Cover the pie with heavy aluminum foil, with a few holes poked in it. Put the pie in the oven, and bake it for half an hour to forty-five minutes, or until the eels or fish are done. Remove it, and allow it to cool.

5. Remove the foil from the pie, and carefully remove the eels or fish from the pie, and arrange them on a serving dish.

6. In a saucepan, over low heat, combine half of the sweet wine with the ginger and brown sugar. Carefully pour the sauce remaining in the bottom of the pie crust into the saucepan. Bring the ingredients to a boil, and simmer, stirring frequently, for about five minutes.

7. Line the bottom of the pie crust with the slices of white bread, and pour over them the remaining sweet wine. Then pour the hot syrup over the bread and wine, and serve the sops in the crust, and the eels or fish separately.

Serves six to eight.

NOTES ON THE RECIPE: This pie is simply the container in which the eel (or fish) is baked; it is removed from the crust for serving, but then a sop of bread and spiced wine is put in the empty crust, and that is served separately. The sauce for this dish is similar to the blood sauce for fish, Sauce Pour Lamprey, but I have adapted it so that the blood is optional. Feel free to add it if you have access to fish blood. I also cover the pie with aluminum foil to bake, rather than a second crust, since the cover needs to be removed to get the eels (or fish) out anyway. I add sugar to the wine sops, which helps a great deal.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“they’re a protected species in England.”

Are they insane? These damn things are a curse!

[the invisib1e hand]

ick.

[cripplecreek]

Nasty critters not to mention the $20 million or so dollars it costs every year to keep them at managable levels.

[the invisib1e hand]

Go stick yer cigar in one of those, Bill Clinton.

[hinckley buzzard]

Wretched creatures wiped out the indigenous white bass population in Lake Erie before they came under control. The lake is doing well these days but the lamprey sure earned its bad reputation as a useless but aggressive predator.

[cripplecreek]

Feel free to add it if you have access to fish blood.

I just happened to buy a quart the other day. LOL

[JRandomFreeper]

I prefer 'lamprey a la bordelaise', but I'm a sucker for anything with leeks in it.

The brits don't know how to cook.

/johnny

[Tennessee Nana]

they’re a protected species in England.”

Are they insane? These damn things are a curse!
________________________________________

I see a pattern here...

Moslems are also protected in England...

[EDINVA]

I always add a bit more cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg to my Lampray Bake.

[DogByte6RER]

Strange British meatpie recipe ...

ping

[Hot Tabasco]

I remember back at the end of the 1950's ( I think it was then) when the DNR poisoned the Boyne River back to Boyne Falls in order to kill the lamphreys. I'd walk the river bank picking up all those dead suckers and putting them in a bucket. They were everywhere!

Of course as a 10 year old kid at the time, I never realized what a problem they were for the then limited fishing industry.........

I also remember seeing almost every trout caught from the river or Lake Charlevoix having a lamphrey attached to it or the wound marks on it.......It was an infestation.

[DogByte6RER]

I actually like mine with a scoop of vanilla ice cream ... pie a la mode!

heh

[cripplecreek]

The great lakes states support an enormous sportfishing industry (Something like $10 billion in Michigan alone) so I get pretty agitated with people who think these invasive species aren't an issue.

[Bratch]

Strange British meatpie recipe ...

Evidently, lampreys >>>> blackbirds.

[cripplecreek]

4 and 20 lampreys baked in a pie....

[DManA]

A slimy parasite for royal. Perfect.

[NonValueAdded]

Egads, does she not know what happened to Henry I?

[fieldmarshaldj]

Yuck. Like I REALLY wanted to see a pic of Moochelle’s vajayjay.

[BerryDingle]

snapper bump