The sprat( espadín ) also known as brisling or skipper, is a small, herring-like, fish. It has silver grey scales and white-grey flesh.
Where I grew up in a small town on the edge of the Bristol Channel you could see the remains of ancient stake nets which were used by farmers to catch sprats.
A stake net has a long vertical wall of netting held up by a line of strong wooden poles sticking up wards from the beach, running at right angles to the shoreline , often several hundred metres long,that is intended to interrupt the natural swim of the fish and direct them along it away from the shore and into a series of traps.
Inheritance
A childhood seasonal treat. Looking back I can see that for both my mother and grandmother these small fish also represented fond memories that they wanted me to inherit. Heads and guts removed They were dusted in flower, shallow fried in lard and consumed in quantity.
Fresh Sprats from the Bristol Channel occasionally turn up on the fish counter at Waitrose here in Thame, but there were none at the time of writing this post. My need for instant gratification saw me buying some canned Baltic Brisling from John West instead . I grilled them on toasted sourdough with black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil
