IN SEASON
The Lowdown on fi sh
MARK PUCKEY, HEAD CHEF LECTURER AT PADSTOW SEAFOOD SCHOOL HAS BEEN WORKING WITH RICK STEIN FOR THE LAST 13 YEARS. HE HAD HIS OWN BOAT TO CATCH MACKEREL IN WHEN HE WAS 7 YEARS OLD AND THE FIRST DISH HE LEARNT TO COOK WAS LOBSTER THERMIDOR. WHO BETTER TO TALK TO WHEN IT COMES TO FISH?
Can you give us an idea of what fi sh is in season and available in the South West in March? This is the best time of year, especially for fi shmongers because it’s coming into spawning season. There are up to 30 different species being landed off the Cornish coast. Although my favourite time of year for fi sh is the autumn when the water is colder and I fi nd that with certain species like mackerel the fl esh gets a lot fi rmer and
fattier
as opposed to soft and oily in the spring. Prime examples of what’s in season
right now include monkfi sh, lemon sole, Cornish hake, megrim sole and nice turbot although turbot have big roes - fi sh don’t all spawn at the same time though. The key is to have a look in the fi shmongers and if there are whole fi sh there have a look at them. All ‘prime’ fi sh, are gutted at sea. The little nick that’s always on the left hand side is where the guts have been taken out and you can normally see how big the roes are. If there is a really big roe you will be paying for eggs and the quality of the fi sh goes down, so the smaller the roe the better the fi sh is going to be.
Is there anything that should be off our menus?
I think that at this time of year plaice should be off our menus. They’re so full of roe in spawning season that we should take them off for a couple of months. From a sustainability point of view there are no problems in Cornwall with anything being overfi shed. We’ve got a lot of quotas in place, generally the fi shermen are in small boats and they’re governed by weather as much as they are by the Fisheries Ministry. The IFCA (Association of Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities) has also imposed their own
regulations on top of what’s been introduced nationally. The fi sh we have to avoid is the shark family, including skate.
10 | THE WEST COUNTRY FOODLOVER
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