Placed at the tip of an islet in the Loire, upstream from Blois, the net dances to the rhythm of violent jolts. “ A mustache! », Guess, enthusiastically, Sylvain Arnoult grabbing the stitches. As the sun begins to rise above the moving mirror of the river, the tattooed hands of the freshwater fisherman brave the December cold to hoist the catfish into his long flat boat. Looking straight into the tiny eyes of this slimy greenish giant, whose massive flat head opens a gaping mouth lined with raspy lips and long barbels, it’s hard to exclaim: ” We would eat ! » And yet…
“It suffers from a bad mouth offence, but it is a delicious fish, whose dorsal flesh, divided into two large boneless fillets, resembles that of monkfish”, assures Christophe Hay, two-star chef at La Maison d’à Côté, in Montlivault (Loir-et-Cher), contemplating the catch of 30 kilos by his fisherman accomplice (with a record catfish of 2.58 meters, for more than 100 kilograms). The largest freshwater fish in Eurasia, originating from central Europe and introduced to France at the end of the 19th centuryand century, would one of the noblest children of Neptune be worth?
“Fermentation, drying, salting, smoking… We use all the techniques to enhance each part of the fish”, Ambroise Voreux, chef at La Cabane à matelot.
Demonstration at noon, at Christophe Hay’s restaurant, with a round of catfish, gently steamed with agastache (a plant with an anise flavor), accompanied by a variety of corn grown by the chef. Both firm and soft, the pearly flesh of the “monster” that has colonized the Loire since the second half of the 1970s reveals a juicy finesse.
As proud as when he won, in his adolescence, the Center region coarse fishing championship, the butcher’s son, who grew up on the border of Beauce and Perche, is proud to have converted his customers to the delights of this big catfish. Just like the multitude of Loire fish whose preparations he reinvents to the rhythm of the catches of Sylvain Arnoult, one of some twenty-five professional fishermen evolving on the longest wild river in Europe.
On the menu, over the seasons, classics such as pike or zander (whose firm, flaky flesh is reminiscent of that of a sea fish), migratory species such as mullet, shad, eel or lamprey ( salmon is prohibited from fishing), but also forgotten ones such as carp, bream, barbel, roach, bleak… Newcomers also invite themselves to his table, such as white grass, past ponds of Asia to those of Sologne before settling in the Loire, or the asp, a silvery predator of the cyprinidae family, originating, like the catfish, from the Danube basin, more and more present in the river since the 2000s .
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