Transylvanian Tales 1 – Eating crap

Just back from 2 weeks in Transylvania, and this included eating crap.

Crap just happens to be the Romanian word for carp, and it is widely eaten there. We went to restaurant built on the side of a small lake containing carp, near the village of Budz outside Medias. The fish was served in a fairly strongly flavoured sauce, so I was unsure what the actual taste of the carp itself was.  It was fairly firm and white, and nice enough. As usual bones are a problem – some very big ones, which are OK, but some irritating small ones. In general eating crap is nice.

In England carp is probably the mostly widely fished for ‘coarse’ fish (that is, non-game fish, salmon trout and grayling). However here carp is not eaten – the fish are very carefully handling and returned to the water unharmed. Large carp are maybe 20 or 30 years old, and worth quite a lot of money. It is a social disgrace (and illegal) to take and eat them.

One thing I was unhappy about was seeing carp sold live in Romanian supermarkets. They are kept in small tanks, from which the customer  makes a selection, then the fish is netted out and put in a plastic bag – still flapping around. Carp have a fairly low oxygen requirement and will live for hours out of water, so they are likely to be still alive when the customer gets them home – but they are slowly dying. Such treatment of live fish would enrage English carp fishermen.

Fishing trip

I went fishing on Thursday, just the second session of the year so far. And no, Andy, gardening and golf are not the opium of the bourgeoisie. Golf is the weed of the chavs, and the true bourgeoisie favour gardening and fly fishing.

As you can see, its a dirty little river, but someone has to fish it.

As I drove across there, the rape is now in bloom, and the brilliant yellow fields send out the narcotic scent, just like in the Wizard of Oz. But then when you get into the valley where this river is, you can smell the wild garlic.

The weather was excellent, and the height of the river was just right. The nicest thing about the trip was the spring flowers – the wild garlic (which accompanied my lunch), the cowslips, bluebells, daisies and so on.

In the morning I’d been interviewing some people in Tyseley, Birmingham. Pretty much of a contrast, stepping into the car in Tyseley and getting out here. And where is it you say? Well when I started fishing I used to let everyone know when I found a great place to fish. But not now – so let’s just say ’somewhere in Wales’.

And yes, I caught 5 trout – too embarrasingly small to photograph