Rigby's Encyclopaedia of the Herring

<p><strong>An all-in-one deep dive into the Atlantic herring and its far-reaching dominions.</strong></p><p>This book contains almost everything you didn't know you needed to know about Atlantic herrings. (Pacific and Baltic varieties are in there too.) Herrings make the world bigger: with spawnings seen from space, a trillion individuals make this one of the tastiest and most abundant vertebrates on Earth.</p><p>From 'A Beginning' to 'Zuiderzee', count the wars fought over herrings; don't forget Scotland vs the Holy Roman Empire. The herring's high-pitched farts were logged as Soviet submarines, and one herring joke featured in a Jonson play, four Shakespeare plays and the glorious, suppressed fantasia <em>Nashes Lenten Stuffe</em>. Herrings mock taxonomists; physically change with sea temperature and salinity; stuff predators full to bursting, then swim away.</p><p>The Great Sardine Litigation? The true history of kippers? Bloaters? Reds? Chopped herring? <em>Shuba</em>? All this and more. Between sustainable fishery genetics, sixteenth-century Bavaria's 'Herrings, herrings, stinking herrings', and Van Gogh's ear, every entry is a story, a comic journey, an adventure. Some even come with recipes.</p>