Whitebait is not a species but a preparation: the tiny, translucent, silver juveniles of small schooling fish, dredged in seasoned flour and deep-fried whole — heads, tails, bones and all — into a crisp, brittle tangle eaten by the forkful with a squeeze of lemon. In Britain and the Mediterranean the fry are usually the young of herring, sprat and anchovy; in New Zealand the name means something quite different — the delicate glassy fry of native galaxiid fish, bound into a pale, custardy fritter that is one of the country's most prized and expensive foods. In every tradition whitebait is the same idea: an entire little fish, so young and soft that it is eaten bones and all, turned into a savoury, faintly briny, deep-fried delicacy.