a method of cooking certain freshwater fish, especially trout. The fish should be still alive when the procedure starts. It is then killed by banging its head on something solid, gutted through the gills, sprinkled with vinegar, and put at once into a boiling court bouillon. The effect of the vinegar on the mucus which covers the body of the fish is to turn it blue; and the sudden immersion in boiling liquid, given the totally fresh state of the fish, is to cause the body to arch into a crescent shape, a characteristic of this technique.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
