You’ve probably never thought twice about why your local grocery store stocks salmon but not eel. Maybe you assumed it’s a cultural preference — a matter of taste. But the real reason is far stranger, and far more revealing. It turns out that the absence of eel and loach on Western plates has nothing to do with flavor and everything to do with ancient religious loopholes, medieval class snobbery, and a whole lot of theological gymnastics.
Dogma bends to cultural desire — but only for the powerful.
Let’s start with the obvious: both Judaism and Islam explicitly forbid eating scaleless fish. The Hebrew Bible is clear: “Whatever has fins and scales, you may eat. But anything that does not have fins and scales, you shall not eat.” That rules out eels, catfish, and loaches. Islam follows suit — though with a twist. Sunni scholars allow scaleless fish from the sea, citing the Quran’s permission for “the game of the sea.” Shia scholars, however, ban all scaleless fish, period. So the humble eel is caught in a theological crossfire that has lasted centuries.
But Christianity? That’s where it gets interesting. Jesus himself seemed to overturn the dietary laws in the Gospel of Mark: “It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you, but what comes out.” Paul later doubled down: “All food is clean.” So theoretically, Christians could eat anything. And they did — except for eels and loaches. Why?
Because theology is just a fancy way of saying “we want what we want.” The medieval Church found a loophole for one scaleless fish: the lamprey. Lampreys have seven gill openings, and medieval theologians decided that seven represented the seven virtues. So lampreys were declared “holy fish” — fit for kings. In 1953, Queen Elizabeth II received a 20-pound lamprey pie for her coronation, decorated with seven crosses. The same people who banned eels as “unclean” happily devoured a parasitic, jawless creature because it had the right number of holes.
Meanwhile, the mud loach — a fish that burrows in mud and feeds on detritus — was condemned not by scripture, but by class. The 14th-century Benedictine dietary guide forbade monks from eating loach, calling it “symbolic of soul corruption.” For the nobility, loach was “servant food.” It wasn’t about taste or health; it was about signaling status. Diet is the most intimate form of class warfare — and the poor always lose.
So the next time you wonder why eel is a delicacy in East Asia but virtually unknown in the West, remember: it’s not because they taste better. It’s because a bunch of dead theologians and medieval aristocrats decided that some fish are “clean” and some are “dirty” — and that decision has echoed through centuries of cuisine, shaping what millions of people eat today. Your plate is a history book. And the chapters are written in blood, scripture, and snobbery.
FAQ
Q: What question would a skeptic ask?
A: Isn't it just that eels don't live in Europe? Actually, eels are native to European rivers, but they were rarely eaten because of religious and class stigmas. The lamprey, a similar fish, was eaten by royalty because theologians found a loophole.
Q: What's the practical implication?
A: Understanding that food taboos are often arbitrary and rooted in power dynamics helps us question our own dietary biases. It also explains why certain ingredients are hard to find in global cuisines — it's not supply, it's history.
Q: What's the contrarian take?
A: Maybe the West's rejection of eel and loach is actually a rational health choice — scaleless fish are more prone to parasites. But that argument conveniently ignores the lamprey, which is far more parasitic than any eel. The real reason is theological, not hygienic.