When you're in Geneva, or anywhere on the lake, you just have to enjoy one meal, at least, with the most celebrated fish from those waters - the omble cheva- lier, known to us here, less grandly, as the arctic charr (or char). Well, barely known to us in this country at all, which is a pity. Lately, in Geneva, a dish of grilled omble chevalier was hugely enjoyed in the home of a resident. It was a graceful fish (one each), beautifully tinted with pink undersides, the red spots lightly distributed, each fish under a pound weight. Like a delicate and more shapely trout. It is one of the salmonidae, or course. Later we were told that it was from a fish farm. And, too late, it was learned that there is a hotel or restaurant only a few miles away which advertises itself as serving the noble fish from the depths of the lake.
According to a book by Karel Peel, published by Grund (French version), there are two kinds, one migratory, mostly in Arctic regions though not entirely so, and the sedentary, to be found in lakes in Ireland, England, Scotland and in Scandinavia.
Anyway, the Irish dimension is well and scientifically covered in a paper published in 1997 by D. T. G. Quigley and K. Flannery, on, to give it the scientific name salvelinue alpinus. There is a lovely couple of lines which state that the recent discovery of the fish in Lough Anscaul in Kerry "demonstrates that the species can remain undetected for at least 10,000 years (i.e. since the last Ice Age). "The paper quotes Kevin Whelan of the Burrishoole Salmon Agency as describing charr as "enigmatic, mysterious creatures which are often present in fair abundance but, due to their preference for deep water, are rarely encountered by anglers."
Indeed, even when the species is captured, it is quite possible that many anglers do not recognise it, the paper goes on to state. Quigley and Flannery recall that Icelandic charr were inadvertently introduced to the Burrishoole and Crumlin system in 1970. Much detail is given of the subsequent adventures of these newcomers, but none of the Crumlin releases were ever recaptured. Some releases from Burrishoole, were, with a few exceptions, not seen again until 1986. Mayo lakes have indigenous charr, and eutrophication may account for vanishing charr in Ennell and Owel in the Midlands.
"It deserves special protection, the paper urges." It was here long before us. Y