Greetings from San Francisco!
Yes, we’re talking about eels today. One of the stranger foodstuffs of history and one of the most odd life cycles of any critter, eels are an English delicacy, possibly not so popular now as in former times. I can’t imagine why not.
Say Wide Sargasso Sea to me and it makes me think of eels, not Jane Eyre or the first Mrs. Rochester. That’s where both European and American eels spawn in the beginning of an extremely odd life cycle of metamorposes. Eggs hatch into leaf-shaped larvae, drift to the coast, and become elvers or glass eels, and take to a fresh water habitat, swimming upstream and even traveling overland before settling into a river, growing and becoming yellow eels. They can live there for several decades before returning to the Sargasso Sea as silver eels where they embrace a salt water environment again, reproduce and die.
Like so many European species, eel populations are in decline. So the harvesting of elvers, in a season that lasts only a few days (the larvae will only enter waters at the right temperature), is now rigorously controlled. Once a local delicacy, most of them are exported to the Asian market. The Severn, England’s longest river, is one of the major elver rivers. (No, this is NOT dirty spaghetti).
As for mature eels, they’re mostly eaten now in a jellied form (the eel is naturally gelatinous, or slimy. Yum).
There are still establishments in London where you can sample the classic Victorian triad of eel, pie, and mash. 
For an unbiased account of what jellied eels taste like at this pie shop, still around today, you can visit the Desperately Seeking Root Beer blog, written by an expatriate Californian.
Here’s even more eely deliciousness, an authentic sixteenth century recipe for Fish and Fruit Pie and an account of cooking it here:
With that, Fish Pies: to instruct the person who will be doing this job–because not everyone is a master of it–he should get his fish, that is, good bellies of tuna, good big filets of carp, good big fresh eels–and of all that he should get the quantity that is needed for the number of pies that he is ordered to make; take all of it and cut it into good-sized pieces and set it to cook in a good clean cauldron appropriate in size for the amount you have; when it is cooked, take it out onto fine tables which are good and clean, and cull through all your fish to remove any scales or bones, then chop it up well. Get good candied figs, prunes and dates and slice these up small, to the size of small dice; get pinenuts and have them cleaned thoroughly and get candied raisins and clean them well so there are no seeds left; of all of this take an amount proper for the amount of the fish filling you are making, wash it well in white wine, then mix it in with your fish in a fine pan. Then get another pan which is good and clean in which you will clarify good fine oil; when it is clarified put enough of that oil into your filling for that amount of it, then set it on hot coals to heat up, and stir it continuously with a good spoon. Then get good spice powder and put in a reasonable amount of it, and a lot of sugar. Then order your pastry cook to make large or small pie shells for you, and they should be covered.
What’s the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten? And if you’ve eaten eels, we want to hear all about it.
Lithuanians eat eels too. There’s usually some cold eel at our Christmas eve dinners. Although some people rave about how good it is, I’ve never summoned up the courage to try it. I don’t like head cheese, either.
My husband and I did a long weekend in Norway. We went to a good restaurant and ordered a chef’s surprise dinner. Early courses included some very fresh and delicious seafood. The main course was reindeer. It was very good, too.
I haven’t been brave enough to try eel yet. Haggis? Check! Blood pudding? Check! Steak and kidney pie? Check! Escargot? Check! (although all you really taste is the garlic butter) Alligator? Check! Rattlesnake? Check! Crawfish? Check!
Some other oddities I have tried on my travels :
Fried locusts
Fried grasshoppers
Madagascar cockroaches
A number of other dishes in India for which I cannot remember the names and did not ask the ingredients!
Elena–(smoked) reindeer–yes.
Louisa–I’ve had haggis, black pudding, steak and kidney pie, crawfish, escargots, alligator (that was deep fried and basically I think all deep fried tastes alike). In retrospect the weirdest food I ever had, and in honor of what would have been her 96th birthday was my dear mum’s Gray Dinner. Boiled cod and potatoes with a sauce made from the water the fish had boiled in with (incongruously) fresh parsley. Because you don’t serve green vegetables with fish apparently. And why waste that watery goodness?
I have had smoked eel and it was heavenly. I don’t think I would touch jellied eel or eel pie with your 10 foot pole, however.
The strangest thing I’ve eaten is pickled, sliced lamb brains. I inadvertently helped myself to some at a dim tapas buffet restaurant in Venezuela thinking it was smoked fish pieces (see above–I looove smoked fish). When I returned to the table and realized my ghastly mistake, and ascertained what the heck was actually on my plate, I felt honor bound to take a bite or two. After all, I had put the wretched things on my plate. Blech. Rather tasteless with a mushy smooth texture.
You’re a braver woman than I, Liz! Just eating brains seems sort of … wrong.
When I think of eels, I think of the large number of English royals and peers who have died (choked) from eating them! eel is my favorite kind of sushi. I like both the cooked Unagi and the raw Anago.
I’m a fairly adventurous eater, so I’m not quite sure what counts as the strangest thing I’ve ever eaten: chocolate covered scorpion (from Fortnum and Mason!), durian (certainly the nastiest thing to ever pass my lips; mango with an aftertaste of poo), cockles, rattlesnake, kangaroo, emu, blood pudding, tripe…
The one time I ate eel was in the First Class cabin flying from Sydney to Auckland, as part of the salad course. I wasn’t terribly keen, but I reckoned I might as well try so I could at least say I’d had it. I don’t believe I finished the serving!