Tench (Tinca tinca) is a stocky, olive-green freshwater fish of the carp family, long a fixture of European pond culture and the traditional cooking of Central and Eastern Europe. Its small, deeply embedded scales, thick slime coat and blunt, red-eyed head make it unmistakable; its soft, white, sweetish flesh — sometimes tinged with the muddy "off" note of still water — is stewed, fried or baked in dishes from Czech Christmas tables to French pond-fish fries, though it has never crossed into the mainstream fish market the way carp and trout have.