.

As for that monster fish, there are times, even when the fishermen
are not telling me about him, that I believe he exists. Besides
the two varieties of Esox mentioned there is another which is
common to all suitable waters of North America, Europe and Asia.
That is Esox Lucius, as Linnaeus named him, the common pike. This
fish is very like the pond pickerel in appearance and he sometimes
grows to weigh forty pounds or more and to a length of four feet.
Such a one might well be too large to come up through the hole
which the fishermen have cut for his little cousins, the brook
pickerel. It is quite possible that one of these Jonah-swallowing
leviathans rules the pickerel in each pond kingdom; like a Morgan
among millionaires. Of the pike, which he loved well, Isaac Walton
has much to say and I cannot refrain from quoting a few of his
most loving phrases, which are those which tell how he should be
cooked.

*****

"Keep his liver," he says, "which you are to shred very small with
thyme, sweet marjoram and a little winter savory; to these put
some pickled oysters and some anchovies, two or three; both these
last whole, for the anchovies will melt, and the oysters should
not; to these you must add also a pound of sweet butter which you
are to mix with the herbs that are shred, and let them all be well
salted. If the pike be more than a yard long then you may
put into these herbs more than a pound, or if he be less,
then less butter will suffice. These being thus mixed, with
a blade or two of mace, must be put into the pike's belly, and
then his belly sewed up so as to keep all the butter in his belly
if it be possible; if not, then as much of it as you possibly can;
but do not take off the scales. Then you are to thrust the spit
through his mouth and out at his tail; and then take four or five
or six split sticks or very thin laths and convenient quantity of
tape or filleting; these laths are to be tied around the pike's
body from his head to his tail, and the tape tied somewhat thick
to prevent his breaking or falling from the spit. Let him be
roasted very leisurely and often basted with claret wine and
anchovies and butter mixed together, and also with what moisture
falls from him into the pan. When you have roasted him sufficiently
you are to hold under him, when you unwind or cut the tape
that ties him, such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of,
and let him fall into it with the sauce that is roasted in his