Devilled Whitebait

Whitebait are unique to Britain, in that no-one else eats these tiny fish, heads, tails and guts included. Neither do whitebait really exist as fish in a distinct scientific sense, for they are tiddlers of the herring family, usually sprats or herrings, sometimes shad. Greenwich became the venue for whitebait dinners in the eighteenth century, and fashionable Londoners would go there in the summer months to eat vast plates of deep-fried fish, caught in shoals in the Thames off Blackwall.