Trout and salmon are the fish we eat from our rivers and loughs. There are others which we, oddly, class as coarse fish: perch, pike, for example. Both are much prized for the table by Europeans. (Of the Lough Neagh pollan, a delicious sort of freshwater herring much enjoyed in the North in its heyday, we should make an exception.) And eels mostly for export.
The eclat given to perch around the large Lac Leman in Switzerland is a perpetual source of articles in the newspapers there. Mostly grumbles. Where are the fries of yesteryear, asks one writer? For you never see, he says, a bone, never the whole fish on your plate. The filet de perche is a neatly folded small piece of fish flesh about the size of a large sardine. You get about a dozen in a full serving. Delicious indeed, but, complains one writer, what lies behind the description filets du lac? What lake?, he asks suspiciously. It could be lake La Lodoga or Lake Erie or some unknown Irish water. Another writer suggests that there should be an AOC - i.e. a guarantee of place of origin as is done with wine - so that you know when you are in fact eating perch from Lac Leman and not something that arrives frozen from abroad.
In fact, the lake is producing a good supply of perch, it is officially stated. A professional fisherman would normally expect an average of 50 kilos of fish a day in his nets, but this year the haul often amounts to 80 kilos.
As for pike, they are often laid out as the centrepiece on the buffet table on a big occasion in Europe, perhaps especially in Eastern Europe.
"Speak for yourself," (some Irish hotelier or restaurant chef is going to write). "We regularly serve perch, if not pike".
Waiting.