Species sheet · The Edible River
Common bream
A bronze platter hoovering the silt.
- Hot-smoked whole
- Fried after scoring the flanks every few millimetres
- Salted and dried, Volga-style
- In French
- Brème commune
- Scientific name
- Abramis brama
- In the water
- A schooling fish of slow European rivers, canals and lakes, in shoals over silty beds that it rummages head down.
- Season & buying
- Caught from spring to autumn; smoked or dried, it keeps all winter in eastern Europe.
- Common length
- ~40 cm
- How to identify it
- Very deep, flattened body, like a dish
Bronze to golden brown coat in adults
Small extendable mouth and a very long anal fin
On the plate
White, mild, slightly soft flesh with plenty of fine bones.
Avoid: Frying it unscored: the bones stay whole. Close-set cuts turn them crisp and harmless.
Its mouth extends downward like a tube to suck up buried larvae, leaving small craters in the mud.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
