To say that eels have an image problem is like describing Mike Tyson as a little stocky. The eel is dismissed as the David Gest of the fish world. Aristotle wondered if they were created from mud, given the way they appeared in previously dry lakes. When jellied, their most common form in England, eels can look like the contents of a Petri dish a scientist last checked in 1972. If a waiter asks: “Would you like the eels or the ... ” queasy diners stop him and say: “I'll have whatever dish it is you're about to name next.”

But the eel is woefully maligned. Cuteness isn't everything. Ask the Japanese, who prize the flavour of eels, or unagi, and devour them grilled on the Day of the Ox in July to combat lethargy and to give stamina to endure the summer heat. In more gastronomically adventurous nations, elvers — the eel's young — are so highly prized (and highly priced) that France yesterday put on trial two fishermen for poaching them and thereby threatening Europe's endangered eel stocks.

Nor have eels always been so shunned in England. King Henry I evidently didn't regard them as prank food, famously dying of “a surfeit of eels”, or possibly lampreys, a sort of wannabe eel — though there is little to choose between eels and lampreys lookswise; except, maybe, to other eels and lampreys. Not that it is entirely clear how eels actually reproduce, just that the mysterious process starts and ends in the Sargasso Sea, with a 3,000-mile-long swim in between.

Royalty recognises the majesty of eels. Henry III once feasted on 15,000 eels. The present Queen received a 42lb lamprey pie for her Coronation. Something for the Prince of Wales to look forward to!