Eel, barbel, pike, carp, chub, perch, zander, catfish and trout are some of the edible freshwater fish species.
Raised for centuries by the monks, who dug and cleaned up ponds to develop their production, fished or poached on the lands of the lords by the peasants to improve their daily lives, kept in fishponds along the banks by professional fishermen, freshwater fish have always held a special place in French cuisine.
In his culinary guidepublished in 1921, the great chef Auguste Escoffier listed dozens of recipes based on the wonders of our ponds, lakes, rivers and streams.
Today, getting them is sometimes a challenge, and few people still know how to cook them.
How to recognize them, where, when, how and at what price to get supplies, know where the specimens cooked by restaurateurs come from, and learn to cook them while forgetting your prejudices: Nathalie Helal and her guests tell you everything you need to know about water fish.
Jean-Thomas Vuillard is the founder of Bresse Aquacultureat Chapelle-Saint-Sauveur, in Saône-et-Loire, Stephane Merieux is a fish farmer and president of the Syndicat des étangs de la Dombes, and Ambroise Voreux is a cook-fisherman at The sailor cabin in Bréhémont in Indre-et-Loire. Patrick Bertronhead of Relais Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu, joins them in the second part of the show.