Jellied Eel

I am not too familiar with many seafood dishes so I decided to make a post regarding a seafood dish this week. From my experiences with seafood, I find myself sticking to the basic dishes such as fish, shrimp or crab and have only heard or seen of a few strange dishes such as sea cucumber or shark fin soup. I find myself not a huge fan of seafood and am not very adventurous on trying seafood dishes for some reason. So when searching for a strange seafood dish, I was definitely intrigued by what other cultures have on their seafood menus. In the United Kingdom, jellied eel is a traditional dish made up of chopped eels that are boiled in a spiced stock and is cooled and set to get the jelly part of the dish. The dish can be traced back to the 18th century and was a common or popular food because the freshwater eels were cheap, nutritious and plentiful in Britain. Many other cultures, such as other countries in Europe, have a similar dish to the recipe from the United Kingdom with just a few adjustments. For example, Spain has an eel dish that is slightly different. It calls for baby eels, a much expensive ingredient to the dish because of how rare baby eels are, to be sauteed in olive oil, garlic and chili pepper. It it very fascinating how a country not too far from Britain can have a similar dish with their own spin on it. I probably would not try jellied eels but it was very interesting to read about how a country's resources and location plays a part in food.