A bass, I have always thought, is a bass, but these days it is called sea bass — quite redundantly, since freshwater bass are not known in Europe. The bream of the sea, on the other hand, should be distinguished from the freshwater fish of the same name which is related to carp. Instead, it is usually referred to only by its colour — black, red or gilthead; but if it is described simply as ‘sea bream’, which I have seen recently on an expensive London restaurant menu, make sure you know which one you are getting. In North America sea bream is called porgy, a name by which it was presumably also once known in south-west England, judging by this delightful old ballad:
Me father was the keeper of the Eddystone Light,
And he slept with a mermaid one fine night;
From this union there came three —
A porpoise, and a porgy, and the other was me.
Bream is an attractive, stocky little fish — it seldom weighs much more than a pound — with a rather Roman nose.
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