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Blistered scrunt

Blistered scrunt is a seafood dish popular in the northeast, particularly in coastal areas of Caldos and Alsetia. There are some variations in preparation, but all consist of fillets of scrunt eel basted in onion sauce and cooked on a grate until the flesh breaks into large white blisters, then served with a sauce made of beer and sardines.

It may be found most of the year, but is most plentiful and popular in the spring, when great schools of scrunt (q.v.) move from deeper waters to the estuaries and lower rivers for spawning.

Scrunt eels

Scrunt eels are creatures of northern seas, and come in three varieties: Black scrunt, great scrunt, and cold scrunt.

Black scrunt, which grow to between two and three feet in length and change from silvery gray to blue-black as they age, are the most numerous. Schools of thousands or even tens of thousands may be found in river estuaries in the spring, during spawning season, though the rest of the year they are somewhat more dispersed in deeper waters. Black scrunt are known for their delicious flesh, and are popularly served as “blistered scrunt” (q.v.)

Great scrunt exist in schools of a dozen or less, but grow up to 15 feet in length.  They have been reported to attack sailors and fishermen they find in the water, and have large knifelike teeth.

Cold scrunt grow to a size slightly smaller than black scrunt, and are just as delicious, but are rarely show up in fishing nets. They live most of the year far out at sea, but in winter they may be found in schools of hundreds migrating up rivers to spawn in the ice.  They are known for their magical abilities to project intense cold to stun prey and ward off predators, and to swim though solid ice as if it were liquid water, at least for short lengths.