Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [3]
Compare this abundance with the choice of meat. How often do you come across an animal you have never heard of before? At least, heard of in culinary terms. For me, the answer is, ‘once’, and that was when I visited the strange shop of Monsieur Paul Corcellet in Paris – he had ready-prepared elephant’s trunk, python, crocodile and monkey for sale. Yet with fish one never seems to come to the end of perfectly reasonable possibilities.
To begin with, we eat too little of the best fish. We know about them, we may order them in restaurants on occasion, but we buy and cook them rarely. I am talking about sole, lobster, eel, scallops, oysters, clams, trout and salmon trout, monkfish or squid. We think they are too expensive, and go off and buy steak instead, or a large joint. Partly, this is convention. I read a statement one day which struck me as particularly foolish. The writer remarked that fish could not be served as a main course when men were present, as they needed steak or some other good red meat.
Why? The protein content of fish is as high as the protein content of meat. It is more easily digested, too – a point which concerns more men, I suspect, than women. And in the cooking of sole with its sauces, or of lobster, there is far more implied compliment to the guests than in grilling even the finest Scottish steak.
I suppose, too, that most of us grow up with the firm impression that fish means cod and plaice, overcooked and coated with greasy batter or coloured substances of unpleasant flavour. Certainly I was startled, when I first crossed the Channel, to find out that there were far more fish to eat than anyone had allowed me to believe. Later on, as we spent longish periods working in Europe, I discovered that many of the ‘exotic’ fish we had been enjoying swam in quantity and quality around the coasts of Great Britain, as well as in the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay, and off the Breton coast. Squid, for instance, and monkfish – two of the great delicacies of Italian and French cookery.
At the weekly stall in our local market at Montoire, forty-four miles north-west of Blois and 150 miles from the sea at Nantes, we can usually count between thirty and thirty-five different kinds of fish to buy. They are stiff-alive, as fishmongers say, with freshness. The owner’s wife, Madame Soarès, took our education in hand, persuaded us into trying new fish, and told us how to cook them. With gestures and vivid phrases, she described the sauces, the flavours, the pleasure we would have at supper that night.
I wish I could take our fishmongers in England to that stall in Montoire, and keep them there for a few months! Some of them have increased their range of fish to sell to our new communities of Chinese and Italians and so on, but few of them can tell a doubtful English customer how to cook these new creatures, or what they taste like. One has the idea that they have never tried them themselves at home. They lack the warm enthusiasm of Madame Soarès – ‘Here’s some parsley for you. Have a lemon, too. And why not buy a handful of shrimps – they’ll make a finish to the sauce! Extrà!’
The main fish authorities could be more help. They are anxious that we should eat more fish, it is true, but only more of the same few kinds. Their interest is in shifting the gluts of plaice and cod. They do not think of pointing out the special virtues of huss, let alone of the rarer John Dory. In the end it is up to the customers who enjoy good food to insist, and complain, and learn about fish, and complain again but more knowledgeably, so that things can be changed a little more rapidly.
Jane Grigson (1973)
CHOOSING, CLEANING & COOKING FISH
CHOOSING FISH
General advice – if you see a fish at the fishmonger’s that is strange to you, buy it, but do not expect much advice on how to cook it. Ask the