image copyright David Doublet

image caption Young eel is one of the most expensive foods in Spain (source: David Doublet/Getty Images)

Young eel is one of the most expensive foods in Spain, but when you first see them, you can't see why they are so expensive.

they are very inconspicuous and have no mouth-watering appearance at all. When fresh, this is a kind of fish that looks transparent and slippery, slender as a small snake. After cooking, they are no longer transparent and look a bit like dead worms. There are only two black spots in white, and those are their eyes. Do you feel any appetite?

Of course, many delicious foods don't have a beautiful appearance. What matters is the taste. But this is even more strange for young eels, because they don't taste good or bad. However, this humble and tasteless fish is so expensive in Spain, and the price can be as high as 1 euros a kilogram. Stranger still, it is said that this kind of fish used to be just feed for chickens and pigs!

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Many Spaniards (including myself) don't understand why some people are willing to spend a lot of money on this small fish. As an author who pays attention to Spanish food and culture, I have always been curious about the expensive status of young eels, especially a traditional young eel dish (la bilbana) which is fried with garlic and pepper in olive oil.

The life course of the young eel is equally wonderful, which sounds a bit like a strange myth and legend. They live in fresh water, but they can breathe through their skin, so they can crawl over long distances on land. They can eat anything, dead or alive. Adult eels descend the river, cross Europe into the Atlantic Ocean, and finally reach the the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean 5 kilometers away. Scientists have not found out how they navigate correctly so far. These fish, who are used to living in shallow rivers, finally dive into the sea more than 5 meters deep to lay eggs and die at the bottom of the sea. And their fry will drift all the way to Europe with the Gulf Stream, and it will take two years to reach their destination.

When the young eels finally reached the Atlantic coast of Spain, the fishermen had already cast their nets for them. The season of catching young eels begins in November every year, and the best time is in the coldest and darkest rainy night, when the tide is the highest and the sea is turbulent and turbid.

Image Copyrightsiqui Sanchez

Image Caption Young Eel fry drifted with the tide and arrived at the Spanish Atlantic coast from the sargasso sea in two years (Photo source: Siqui Sanchez/Getty Images )

Young eels are so expensive, and the first net fish is particularly expensive every year. In 216, the first net young eel was 1.25 kg, which was sold at an eye-popping price of 5,5 euros, which is still the wholesale price. The young eel with almost the same weight in the second net was sold for only 17 euros.

what is the reason? The same young eel, just a few minutes of fishing time difference, the price is so different. The thing about young eels is so strange. These two nets of young eels are the same buyer.

I managed to find a buyer, a man named Jos Gonzalo Hevia, who owns a restaurant called Casa Tista in Asturias.

"This is a marketing strategy for my restaurant and a tribute to the fishermen." Hevia said that he himself used to be a young eel fisherman, and now he is retired. "The atmosphere at the auction was very exciting, which was also an event that attracted media attention. The next day, the name of my restaurant appeared in all the newspapers and TV news in Spain. "

of course, this kind of public relations success will bring a large number of customers. "Some of my customers will come to my restaurant for 2 or 3 times to taste young eels in a young eel season." Hevia said, I asked him why young eels are so attractive. He said, "It tastes wonderful."

image copyright Mike Randolph

image caption It is said that in the past, young eels were not eaten by many people, but only fed to chickens and pigs (source: Mike Randolph)

However, I didn't feel how good the taste of young eels was, except that they were slippery and chewy. I was still interested in the reason why young eels are so expensive, so I visited Arima, a famous Basque restaurant in Madrid, and chatted with the chef Rodrigo Garca Fonseca.

In the past January, Fonseca cooked 3 kilograms of young eels for diners in one week. "I won't spend so much money to eat young eels myself. They are colorless and tasteless, and they don't even smell like fish. Lettuce tastes better than it. But two of our customers actually ate half a kilo of young eels! It cost 5 euros at a time. Rich people don't care how they spend their money. Who doesn't want to show off their wealth from time to time? "

Nagore Irazuegi, the owner of p>Arima restaurant, comes from Basque region. Young eels are a traditional food on Christmas Eve, and this kind of small fish can also be seen on the menus of New Year and St. Sebastian's Day on January 2th. "I think they are really too expensive, but some people like to show off. Of course, it is a tradition to eat young eels on special festivals. Eating young eels divides some people into classes. This is a culture. Birds of a feather flock together, and people are divided into groups. "

image copyright Mike Randolph

image caption In 1991, a company made a young eel-like substitute with minced fish products (source: Mike Randolph )

No matter whether the young eel was once the feed for chickens and pigs as people said, it was indeed the food for working people in northern Spain. But at that time, there were many young eels, so they were very cheap. Now that there are fewer and fewer young eels, the price will naturally go up. Angulas Aguinaga, a company, found an opportunity. In 1991, they used surimi, a processed fish product, to produce a young eel-like substitute called gulas, which looks almost exactly like a young eel, but tastes softer and smells a little fishy. "Gulas" are so popular that you can see them in almost any food store in Spain.

part of the reason why young eels are so expensive is that the number of them has decreased due to the deterioration of dams and living environment. Now young eels have been listed as endangered species. Overfishing is also a big problem. Live young eels were exported to China in large quantities, where they were fattened and sold as eels when they matured, but this trade activity has been banned since 21. However, the black market still exists. In 217, the Spanish police cracked an illegal international trafficking in young eels shipped to China, and seized the hidden gold ingots, 1 million euros in cash and 2 million euros worth of young eels.

Ma Nuoluo gonzlez, an award-winning Spanish food author and historian from San sebastian, believes that the favor of chefs in Michelin-starred restaurants is also one of the reasons for the soaring price of young eels. "When I was young, we ate a lot of young eels in the 195s and 196s, when they were still the food of the working people. But in the 197s, some famous Basque restaurants began to cook and serve young eels, and young eels suddenly appeared on the table of the upper class. "

Nowadays, the number of fashionable young eels is decreasing day by day, and the price is becoming more and more expensive.

image copyright basque country-mark baynes/alamy stock photo

the traditional young eel recipe, la bilbana, cooks young eels with garlic and peppers in olive oil (source: basque country-mark baynes/alamy)

Why does this humble fish continue to become popular on Spanish tables?

"When it comes to food, the uniqueness of food will always play an important role," Gonzalez said. For example, he said that just like spending 5, euros on a bottle of fine wine, it really exceeds the real value of the object, but some people think it is worth so much money, even if it is just to show status. However, Gonzalez himself really likes the meaty taste of young eels. "As a food lover, it is not too much to spend 8 euros to eat a young eel head dish occasionally."

because of the high price, Gonzalez no longer cooks young eels himself, but the delicacy of traditional young eel dishes cooked with olive oil, garlic and pepper still remains in his memory.

"You can make this dish with spaghetti. We call it the young eel dish for the poor," he said with some sarcasm. "Try to make this dish, and you will find it so delicious!"