Fish

The rain & wind continues. There seems no end of it. Still there’s no damage except a little water in the laundry room, & the rags seem to be restraining that, so I shouldn’t complain.

We got along to the fishmonger's yesterday. I nervously asked if they had any halibut. There was none in the window but last time I’d bought some it had come frozen. Sure enough he did. It had just come in. He proceeded to produce the most enormous fillet. I blanched, fearing he expected me to buy the lot. Halibut is a very expensive fish in England.

“Now, how much do you want?” he asked.

I relaxed & told him.

“That’ll be £9.20,” he said. As this is far more than most of his customers pay for enough fish for two for one day, he went on to add, “It’s cheap compared to fillet steak.” On that I had to agree & I’d much prefer halibut any day. It’s very rare I enjoy a beef steak of any cut – in a Beef Wellington being the bit exception.

Later on, we were mentioning this to our friends down in the village pub. The manager duly piped up if we ever want some again we should come to him. He could get it cheaper. I think he’s just so shocked at realising his clientele appreciate top end food. He’s a bit of a gourmet, & I suspect a gourmand too. He would like to raise the standard of food in the pub to something a bit more upmarket but everyone keeps telling him there’s no market here. At last we’d given him evidence that the locals do like top quality food too. And we now know where to buy those top quality ingredients – at the pub! Admittedly I suspect it will be another year before I spend so much on fish! At that sort of price it has to be a treat item.

What amazes us about halibut is that in Canada, where we’d enjoyed it most before, it came over as something dirt cheap. There, in Vancouver, we’d had halibut fish fingers with railway sleeper chips! It seemed to be regarded as just an everyday sort of fish, a bit like we tend to think of cod or haddock.