Sole Frite

Appearing in a vast number of Whistler menus (including 2 July 1877) is ‘sole frite’. Mrs Beeton has a great deal to say on the subject of fish, from practical tips to a complete section on the “Natural History of fishes” in which, among other things, she praises “how simply, how wonderfully, the Supreme Being adapted certain means to the attainment of certain ends.” (it will be noted that this was published two years after On the origins of species) as well as running through the role of the fish in human history from the Greeks onward.  But I fear we both digress…