The _Eal_ is of two sorts, salt-water _Eals_ and fresh-water _Eals_; these again are distinguished into yellow bellied _Eals_ and silver bellied _Eals_; I never eat better _Eals_ in no part of the world that I have been in, than are here. They that have no mind or leasure to take them, may buy of an _Indian_ half a dozen silver bellied _Eals_ as big as those we usually give 8 pence or 12 pence a piece for at _London_, for three pence or a groat. There is several wayes of cooking them, some love them roasted, others baked, and many will have them fryed; but they please my palate best when they are boiled, a common way it is to boil them in half water, half wine with the bottom of a manchet, a fagot of Parsley, and a little winter savory, when they are boiled they take them out and break the bread in the broth, and put to it three or four spoonfuls of yest, and a piece of sweet butter, this they pour to their _Eals_ laid upon sippets and so serve it up. I fancie my way better which is this, after the _Eals_ are fley’d and washt I fill their bellies with Nutmeg grated and Cloves a little bruised, and sow them up with a needle and thred, then I stick a Clove here and there in their sides about an inch asunder, [p. 112.] making holes for them with a bodkin, this done I wind them up in a wreath and put them into a kettle with half water and half white wine-vinegar, so much as will rise four fingers above the _Eals_, in midst of the _Eals_ I put the bottom of a penny white loaf, and a fagot of these herbs following, Parsley one handful, a little sweet Marjoram, Peniroyal and Savory, a branch of Rosemary, bind them up with a thred, and when they are boiled enough take out the _Eals_ and pull out the threds that their bellies were sowed up with, turn out the Nutmeg and Cloves, put the _Eals_ in a dish with butter and vinegar upon a chafing-dish with coals to keep warm, then put into the broth three or four spoonfuls of good Ale-yeast with the juice of half a Lemmon; but before you put in your yeast beat it in a porringer with some of the broth, then break the crust of bread very small and mingle it well together with the broth, pour it into a deep dish and garnish it with the other half of the Lemmon, and so serve them up to the Table in two dishes. The _Frost fish_ is little bigger than a _Gudgeon_ and are taken in fresh brooks; when the waters are frozen they make a hole in the Ice about half a yard or yard wide, to which the fish repair in great numbers, where with [p. 113.] small nets bound to a hoop about the bigness of a firkin-hoop with a staff fastned to it they lade them out of the hole. I have not done with the fish yet, being willing to let you know all of them that are to be seen and catch’d in the Sea and fresh waters in _New-England_, and because I will not tire your patience overmuch, having no occasion to enlarge my discourse, I shall only name them and so conclude.