The menu being the domain of the lady of the house, it would behoove every lady to know a fish for all seasons.
Thankfully, the Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy gives us a handy cheat sheet:
Candlemas Quarter: Lobster, crabs, craw-fish, guard-fish, mackerel, bream, barbell, roach, shad or alloc, lamprey or lamper-eels, dace, bleak, prawns and horse mackerel.
I had to look a few of these up, so I will save you the trouble on interpretation for the less common fish.
Guard-fish = garfish (sometimes called a sea needle) which is a brackish Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean or Baltic Sea fish. Those of you who are fans of River Monsters will recognize the gar name as one who did some damage to the very sexy Jeremy Wade.
Bream is a generic name for freshwater an marine fish, this likely referred to the common bream caught in the UK that has a compressed silvery body. According to some online comments, it tastes very similar to sea bass.
Barbell = barbel, a type of small carp-like freshwater fish preferring rocky bottom, slow moving waters. Barbel roe is poisonous.
Roach = a common fish in rivers, lakes and ponds throughout the UK. By the 1900s, this would be considered a “coarse” fish that fell out of favor with cooks, but was a popular fish to be raised in home ponds for eating. Similar to dace, which was found in swifter rivers and streams but also described as a”coarse” meal.
Midsummer Quarter: Turbots and trouts, soals, grigs, and shafflings and glout, tenes, salmon, dolphin, flying-fish, sheep-head, tollis, sturgeon, scale, chub, lobsters and crabs.
Grig is a small eel. Although, the term can also be used for a grasshopper or cricket which I assume is related to the phrase merry as a grig (for their happy chirping, I think)
Shafflings and glout are also eels, mostly found in the Thames
Sheep-head or sheepshead are a medium sized saltwater fish found in the Atlantic said to be “surprisingly light” or tasting like shrimp
Michaelmas Quarter: Cod and haddock, coal-fish, white and pouting hake, lyng, tuske and mullet, weaver, gurnet, rocket, herrings, sprats, soals, flounders, plaise, dabs and smeare dabs, eels, chars, scate, thornback and homlyn, kinson, oysters and scollops, salmon, sea perch and carp, pike, tench, and sea tench.
Pouting fish are part of the hake family, with pouty lips.
Weaver = weevers (weeverfish) are long, mainly brown in color, with poisonous spines on dorsal fins and gills. They are sand burying fish, and a common ingredient for bouillabaisse.
Gurnet is most commonly known as a gurnard or scorpionfish
Plaise = Plaice, a flatfish from Irish, Mediterranean and Barents Sea and the Northeast Atlantic, loves the sandy/muddy bottoms. Popularly used in fish and chips.
Christmas Quarter: Dorey, brile, gudgeons, gellin, smelts crouch, perch anchovy and loach, scallop and wilks, periwinkles, cockles, mussels, geare, bearbet and hollebet.
Dorey = dory is a deep-sea fish said to be a popular fish to eat.
For more on culinary fishes: http://goodfishbadfish.com.au
