Re: skinning eels.
When I was a kid I caught a big fat eel off of the town dock on a drop line. I was so disgusted that I dragged it up the hill to the house and showed it to my grandmother, a salty old Cape Codder.
She knew what to do. She got a hammer and a nail, a paring knife and two sets of pliers. We went out back to the boatshed where she nailed the poor eel through the head to the door. She then cut all the way around its neck, behind the little fins, grabbed onto the flaps with the pliers and in one fell-swoop skinned it.
She fried the eel pieces in butter. The segments wriggled around when they were cooked. Very heavy memory that burned into my ten year-old mind forever. I miss her wisdom a lot.
dcc