El Barbudo wrote:We don't want to fall into the trap of assuming that the French eat the same things in restaurants as they do at home. By that token, if you were a foreigner in Britain you'd think we lived on fatty curries and highly calorific pizza. Ah ... hang on ... As I explained here, there are some telling things you can find out from a French market.

El Barbudo wrote:We don't want to fall into the trap of assuming that the French eat the same things in restaurants as they do at home. By that token, if you were a foreigner in Britain you'd think we lived on fatty curries and highly calorific pizza. Ah ... hang on ... As I explained here, there are some telling things you can find out from a French market.

I beg to differ. Fish caught that afternoon in the crystal clear waters of the Okovango Delta, with a few drops of lemon juice added and lightly cooked in the harsh African sun (no artificial heat / fire) beats any fish I've ever had or am likely to have again.

Mintball wrote:As I explained here, there are some telling things you can find out from a French market. Collioure. Lovely. Monsieur McField and I, plus assorted others (one significant), spent a few very laid-back hours there. They know about fish there. Twas a shame to have to leave.

Mintball wrote:As I explained here, there are some telling things you can find out from a French market. Collioure. Lovely. Monsieur McField and I, plus assorted others (one significant), spent a few very laid-back hours there. They know about fish there. Twas a shame to have to leave.

'twas indeed a beautiful, if rather chilly afternoon topped off with a seafood meal in one of the smallest restaurants I've ever been in

Its on my "To go back to" list.

Pah!

Try pulling your own fish out of the sea and cooking it either on the boat or the beach. Or even better, take a mackerel that's still wriggling, dispatch it then take a fillet from each side, wash it in the sea, slice and serve with soy and wasabi. One of the best fish dishes I ever ate abroad was in Greece: fresh anchovies caught and tossed straight into flour and then into hot oil, whitebait stylee

Fish of the mackerel and herring families should be eaten as fresh as possible. All others benefit from either freezing (rays & shark) or at least given some time to firm up (bass, bream, cod, flatfish).

I've been meaning to ask you something...

In June when I was in Portugal I was dined out by someone in a beachfront restaurant on a sea bass between three of us - it was huge and laying on ice on the counter when we arrived, that mornings catch apparently - so big that we couldn't eat it all.

Last Saturday I was in Morrisons, yes I already know your answer, and they were advertising sea bass and I thought I'd have a fillet, but underneath the Sea Bass sign were three pathetic little fish no bigger than a freshwater trout, in fact there were also some trout on the ice and they were the same size.

Some mistake surely ?

Maybe in Portugal you had the E Crabtree of the bass world and in Morrisons the R Burrows?

Saw someone catch a nice (bigger than supermarket, but not huge) bass yesterday on Cromer pier.

Oh, Collioure sera toujours Collioure.

An absolutely wonderful place.

Just coming to the end of our fifth successive annual summer holiday here. I suspect we already know where we'll be holidaying next summer. Somehow, the stays are getting longer and longer.

No mistake at all, the bass and bream that you see on supermarket counters are farmed in the Easter Med (Greece & Turkey usually). The minimum landing size for UK bass (THERE IS NO SUCH FOOKING THING AS SEA BASS) is 36cm, I wouldn't retain a bass of less than 45cm simply because at 36cm it hasn't reached breeding age yet. The Supermarket fish are around 25cm but they are farmed, not wild-caught and that is not only reflected in the price - line caught would be at least £15 per kilo - but also the quality. Bass are predators, they hunt hard and are not beyond eating their own, so they need to be fit. Farmed bass don't need to hunt, some bloke drops pellets (usually made from halibut) into their pens a couple of times a day. The difference is obvious when you eat them, farmed bass have fatty, flabby flesh, wild bass are all muscle.

I love it when I tell people that I batter & deep fry bass and turbot and even better when I make fishcakes from them. The look on their face is priceless.