The message
from Jaques d'Alltrades contains these
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fried
eel is rather good - if you can bear to see it wriggling once you've
decapitated it, and wriggling after you've skinned it, and the segments
twitching as you drop them in the pan...

Well, I can't bear it. My grandmother used to catch and cook eels
(ISTR , red knitting wool came into the capturing bit, but can't
remember how) horrible slimy things, then she'd have them wriggling in
the tin bath, before they wriggled in the frying pan, eeeeek. I've also
eaten panfried elvers which die quicker (or twitch less). Smoked eel is
nice, but only if I didn't meet it during life :-)

Janet