Paying Medieval Taxes Using Eels

>This is in part because, in Europe and the Americas, we have generally moved away from eating eel on anything like a regular basis. Consequently, the idea of eels having any type of social or economic value appears less normal to us the thought of other animals or commodities having negotiable value.

This makes it sound like we simply lost our taste for eel, but the truth is that the European eel is critically endangered after years of overfishing. I'm sure they were still a delicacy if they were available. Japanese eels popular in unagi dishes are also quite endangered and even though they're farmed in aquacultures these days, these depend on wild-caught glass eels as far as I understand.

We used to catch yellow/adult eels in the river at home fairly regularly growing up. Anytime you were after catfish, you'd occasionally catch them. They're quite tasty! I can definitely see why they'd be considered valuable.

Sadly, they're a lot more rare now. I don't recall the last time I saw one... It's probably been 20 years... From what I understand, the American eel population started coming under intense commercial fishing pressure in the 90's and especially after 2011, when the tsunami from the Tohoku earthquake essentially wiped out the Japanese commercial eel fishing industry. Couple that with the KY lake dam we're behind, and a lot fewer make it into the rivers at home. (The dam does have locks and fish ladders, but it's a significant barrier.)

It was always wild to me to see them and know it was a fish that had migrated from the Atlantic ocean, into the gulf, up the Mississippi, around a large dam, and made it to middle TN.

I still find it incredible to think about the thousands of years of civilization and written history that is behind us, living in the same spaces that we are now.

Not to even mention the hundreds of thousands of years of the first humans.

Where do Eels Come From?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23265000

7 months ago - one of my fave HN posts of all time!

These are my favorite posts on HN. Great interactive maps, interesting historical context I didn't know about, really everything I love to see on a Sunday morning :).

Helpful, puts "my hovercraft is full of eels" in historical context. P.S. For those interested in the origin of that phrase, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Hungarian_Phrasebook

One of the largest taxes paid this way: 125,000 eels! Owed, appropriately, to the Bishop of Ely.

Slashdotted, anyone got an archive?