OUTLOOK / TRAVEL
OUTLOOK / TRAVEL
In association with Latvian Tourism Development Agency www.latvia.traveL
Text and photos by UGis Olte
A round mouth
Fly to Riga with airBaltic from
€39
ONE WAY
under a narrow wooden weir “A lamprey isn’t a fish, a lamprey is a roundmouth!” shouted sexy tropical island reality show participant Kristīne at her not-too-bright camping associate Andrītis. A speckled cartilaginous fish similar to the lamprey – which the third Latvian on the island, Jānis, had lured from the warm sea – was frying in a primitive way on the campfire before them. Calling a lamprey a fish is a historical mistake that is just as widespread as the view that a frog is the wife of a toad. All told, this animal has almost three eyes,
80 / AIRBALTIC.COM
no backbone and its mouth is masked in the depths of an impressive sucker crater. How can that be a fish? However, no matter how history may have been distorted, one truth has been correct throughout the ages – if creatures similar to the lamprey are found anywhere, then Latvians will eat them. Even on a tropical island. This characteristic of eating everything that nature provides – otherwise you might not survive the winter – is not typical of all northerners. Latvian
fishermen say that if an Estonian happens to catch a lamprey, then he won’t eat it, but will instead sell it to a Latvian. One either despises this creature, which tastes like the love child of a herring and a rabbit, or loves it so much that one is prepared to even eat its head! Aside from Latvia, lamprey is rarely offered as a dish in European restaurants, except for in Portugal and the south of France. However, the lamprey in the latter two countries are huge monsters that live in the salty Atlantic Ocean, eat everything they come across and need to be stewed for quite a long time. Latvian lampreys, in contrast, are no fatter than a thumb, live in the much less salty waters of the Baltic Sea on a diet of herring, and can be prepared quicker than a mediumcooked steak! The moment is fast approaching when – as every autumn at the Riga Central Market – barrels of lamprey will appear on the counters next to mountains of orange Norwegian salmon, cod, carp, trout and their roe, and piles of countless smoked products. To a stranger’s eye, this may not be a particularly inviting scene. There, in a place where other sea creatures have long ago found their peace, the lampreys will be writhing and moving about for at least a week. The price will be high as well, just like that of the Norwegian salmon, which at least looks like a fish. I am one of those Latvians who love lamprey to the depths of their hearts (the lampreys’ hearts, not mine), which is why I’m prepared to help dispel first-timers’ natural fear of the strange and the unknown, so that visitors can at least get to the level of “I’d like to try a lamprey after all”. It’s the end of August and a bleak day, almost the beginning of autumn. I’m driving north away from Riga and, looking over to the left from the highway to Salacgrīva, I can’t make out where the sky starts and where the sea ends on the horizon. Bright scattered clouds are moving inland quickly, fleeing away from those that have darkened the horizon. Lamprey enjoy this type of weather, as do their human catchers. By nightfall, I have to be at the third lamprey weir in Salacgrīva, where fisherman Valdis Celmiņs will be commencing his 24-hour shift. He has promised to reveal how the lamprey are fished. The weir is an ancient and effective lamprey-fishing
tool. Under a narrow wooden footbridge that has been built across the entire Salaca River, the fishermen fasten net-like traps into a square frame. These are called puņģi in Latvian, with the rougher netting on the outside and a finer netted cylinder in the middle. The traps are placed into the river, one after the other, so that the flowing water squeezes through the larger eyes of the net. The lamprey, swimming against the current, get through this, but after they let the current push them back a little, they’re done for. Once they’ve got into the fine-meshed cylinder, they won’t find a way out. It’s already dark at nine o’clock. Half a kilometre from the main road, I am by the shores of the Salaca River and standing on the carefully constructed weir. The pole construction, cut from small fir trees, looks like the skeleton of a huge centipede from which the meat has been stripped by the current. Valdis’ shift has just begun. One man per weir is quite enough, but even so, Valdis’ dog Edžus eagerly offers to help out. The little dog has obviously been here before and has no fear of falling into the water from the narrow footbridge. There’s not that much to do while there’s no snow or ice. Put in the fish baskets and take a look every four hours, dislodging any river weeds that may have got caught among the vertical poles of the weir. One can’t delay with this seemingly trivial task. Any rubbish that catches along the half-metre poles sunk into the riverbed increases the force with which the current presses onto the weir. If the wooden construction doesn’t withstand the pressure, then the fishing season is over. There’s more work to do in the winter, when you also have to chip the ice away from the poles.
Ancient creature The lamprey is an ancient creature. Something similar to it was already moving about 350 million years ago in the seas of the Late Devonian period. That was even before the days of the dinosaurs, at a time when the first water creatures were just crawling out onto dry land. This is why the lamprey looks and behaves so uniquely. The river lamprey is born in a river, where it feeds as a young larva on anything that’s smaller than its own mouth – mainly detritus and micro-organisms –
BALTIC OUTLOOK / OCTOBER 2013 / 81