How many times have you ordered sole in a US restaurant or fish market?

How may times have you eaten sole in the US?

Whatever your answer to the first question, your answer to the second is most probably zero or near-zero.

It turns out that true sole is limited to Dover sole or channel sole, harvested only in the English channel. In the US we have no sole, only flounder. In fresh form, you will only have had sole in a fine restaurant which flies it in from overseas.

Oh well. If English sole is the sole sole, so be it. Let them keep their single sole, we have all kinds of flounder.

Ruth Spears reports that most fish sold as sole in the US is yellowtail flounder. Lemon sole is really Atlantic winter flounder. Gray sole is really witch flounder. Rex sole is a small Pacific flounder, Petrale sole a large Pacific flounder.

Julia Child mentions additional entries, similar to sole or flounder: summer flounder or fluke, whiting or silver hake, pollack or Boston blue-fish.

Is this confusing? Perhaps, but not for the cook because, in Julia’s thoroughly democratic litany, all "soles" are treated equally. They are generally poached in white wine and coated with a "lovely, creamy sauce made from the poaching liquid." The basic method and numerous variations are described in Escoffier, Child (Mastering, Volume I) and James Beard.

The flounder fillets may also be stacked and treated as a thicker fillet. (See recipes in Salmon, Baked Fillets, and Anyfish sections.)

Whatever the method, the delicate flounder or sole, as any fish, should not be overcooked, which it seems to be most of the time. 

The true Dover or channel sole no doubt demands special treatment, but this is not an ordinary ingredient and is outside the scope of this book.