The Food Programme: Elvers

Formerly a cheap and popular dish, the elver is now in short supply and has started to appear on the menus of upmarket restaurants commanding a price comparable with that of caviar. Sheila Dillon explores the history and tradition of elver fishing around the Severn and Wye, now under threat. She finds out what is being done to protect this precious and shrinking resource and wonders, given its rarity, whether we should really be eating elver at all.