When I was a child ...

We have them in Sicily too..they are called 'neonata',and they are made into 'fishballs' and mixed as you describe above,fried and eaten with some bread.

Not common these days,as it is considered ecologically damaging to eat them (as they are too immature to reproduce)....there is a short fixed 'season' when they can be legally caught and eaten.

Yuk. I love seafood of most descriptions but couldn't like whitebat.

From wikipedia:

New Zealand whitebait are the juvenile of certain galaxiids which mature and live as adults in rivers with native forest surrounds. The eggs of these galaxiids are swept down to the ocean where they hatch and the young fry then move back up their home rivers as whitebait. They are much smaller than Chinese or British whitebait.
The most common whitebait species in New Zealand is the common galaxias or inanga, which lays its eggs during spring tides in Autumn on the banks of a river amongst grasses that are flooded by the tide. >The next spring tide causes the eggs to hatch into larvae which are then flushed down to the sea with the outgoing tide where they form part of the ocean's plankton mass. After six months the developed juveniles return to rivers and move upstream to live in fresh water. The other galaxiid species identified with whitebait in New Zealand are the climbing galaxias or koaro, and the species group called kokopu.

Galaxiids are small freshwater fish, not eels.

lupecal, the English for those neonata is glass eels. The Italian for what English speakers call whitebait (litle slivers of immature fish, smaller than anchovies, typically dusted with flour and fried whole) is gianchetti or bianchetti.

Ozzie - they're a little bit like squid, but more delicate in texture and with a little more flavour.
I suppose they're the fishy(ish) equivalent of pate de fois gras.

Vinny - nice to see you've made your way here at last.
We can be quite as subversive in our way as YC. (The Mods are too afraid of accusations of ageism to do the dirty on us - so far at least.)

Thanks Vinny

Whatever they are called,I like them!

I did tast them Go_2, but the texture ddn't appeal.

i love that you have found 'whitebaite', i too grew up in nz, we went out very early in the morning, and sat waiting for the change of tide and the catch, here in australia, whitebait - and i get very excited at the word - are smelts, battered and deep fried, what we would call a baby sardine, not quite the same. i used to work in an italian restaurant in wellington, il casino, the whitebait were flash fried in butter, a bit of white wine, salt & pepper - yum

Yes, the same in England - like baby sardines.
But I guess I lucked out in Seville as I haven't found them elsewhere on my travels here.
(I really do feel I'm being looked after on all my travels, as 'magic' things just seem to fall into my lap. :>))

I don't understand how you cooked the glass eels, go_2. You scrambled the eggs and the glass eels wtogether, having add a spoonful of flour to the mix?

In any case, I'm sorry to hear they fell into your lap.