I cannot speak from experience being allergic to most kinds of fish but I have been told that pike is a very bony fish. It is possible to make a nice dish out of one but it takes a lot of preparation and some culinary skill. I gather that in a monastery pike was reserved for the abbot and his table guests whilst the brothers ate carp. When trying to locate where a monastery was sited I have found looking for the remains of a carp pond can provide a useful clue as this was often the one feature that survived the zeal of some of Henry VIII's agents. Most had one which provided food for fast days including Fridays but these carp were fed and fattened up (early fish farming) and the cooks usually had special recipies . Much the same seems to apply to the carp eaten by some Eastern Europeans at Christmas. I gather that the sort of wild carp that WW2 folk might be able to catch would be rather different and that eating one boiled was rather like a plate of warm cotton wool full of needles.
