Jottage from Lancaster - A Tale of 2 Veggies

When Hugh calls his book River Cottage Everyday, you sort of assume that these recipes are good for, well, every day. And indeed they are in so many ways. Especially if you have fennel seeds, coriander and cumin as well as rapeseed oil and tins of white beans just there in your cupboard. (As an aside, I cleaned out my food cupboard completely yesterday and tracked down 4 bottles of wine vinegar, 3 bottles of soy sauce and an embarrassingly large amount of cocoa - don't ask). 


However, the sticking point for me isn't always the more obscure cuts of meat as we have a very good butcher nearby. It's the fish and the less obvious veg. I am a stranger to buying fish that aren't in packets (see my previous blog on this) and we don't have the big supermarkets up the road to sell us the likes of okra, durian and those big white radish things. But then I remembered that Sainsburys had opened a big new branch at Morecambe and I was sure that not only would they have a fish counter, but they would sell the amazing choice of veg I was looking for. Sainsburys do have a shop in Lancaster which isn't too bad, but it's an old branch and quite suffocatingly stuffed too full with narrow aisles added to which it's only half the size of most modern big box grocery stores. I haven't shopped there in years because I just don't like it somehow. The Morecambe one is big with wide aisles and free parking (unlike Lancaster). So off we go for a Saturday morning shop. 

'May contain bones'

It was built on the old Morecambe football ground - Christie Park. Surprisingly, the car park was barely a quarter full and the shop had a few desultory people wheeling trolleys around but it was almost empty. I went straight to the fish counter ready to be taught how to buy fish. I saw some Tilapia and I had heard of that but it was apparent that Zoe - who was our server for the day, didn't want us to buy it. I came away with a tiny piece of boneless, skinless haddock ('warning - may contain bones') and 2 rainbow trout - which I thought was really adventurous. Zoe confided in us that although she worked at Morecambe she shopped in Sainsburys in Lancaster. This seemed rather strange but it soon became apparent why she had decided to work in one store every day and yet she travelled the 6 miles to shop in another.

Not one fennel bulb - but TWO!

Celeriac

Sainsburys executives must have swept up the dross from the ruins of Christie Park and judged from the wrappers strewn about exactly how to stock their brand new store. Fruit and veg took up less of the floor space than crisps; and yoghurt selection was dwarfed by the seeming miles of aisles of beer. The shop actually had a very minimal stock of food we might want to eat - in fact much less than our tiny local Tesco. Increasingly furious about this, I flounced about desperately trying to find fennel and celeriac. I have to confess that John did find the fennel eventually but celeriac, a vegetable that is after all in season here, eluded us. Celeriac-less we ended up in afternoon in the pouring rain at Booths in Windermere buying the knobbly veg. Hugh will have us eating celeriac and fennel if not every day, then certainly every week so we will need to find some good stockists of these 2 worthy vegetables for next time.


Our little trip to Morecambe Sainsburys  ended at the till with a very pretty little girl and her dad behind us. They were buying 2 big cardboard boxes of pizza, a Fruit Shoot and a 6 pack of lager. I don't think we will be going there again. 

Jottage from Lancaster - A Fishy Dilemma

Fish as a subject is something I don't think too much about. Whilst being vaguely aware that eating fish is good for you, we don't actually do it much. I always have this resolution in mind to eat it once or twice a week, but I can't say that I have ever kept to it. 


I don't really know much about buying fish or cooking it. But I was very tempted by the Foil Baked Fish with Fennel, Ginger and Chili, even though the picture in River Cottage Everyday looks to me as if the fish is raw but the veggies cooked. I cooked it and it was blissfully easy to make and really succulent. Buoyed up by the triumph I thought I would try another fish recipe from the book. I had in mind Fried Fish Fillets with Herbs and Lemon. However I had forgotten that I had finished off my ancient little bottle of capers for the lamb chops with garlic, thyme and capers (really scrumptious), and so I had to remember to buy some more. But I had totally forgotten and the chances of the local village shop having some were so minimal that it just wasn't worth getting the car out. So I was searching for another recipe and the foil baked fish is probably the best I can do - but I don't have any fennel. So I might substitute tomatoes - or I might just try roast fish fillets with roast potatoes.


But those dilemmas are nothing compared to actually buying a bit of fish. Ever keen to expand my culinary knowledge, yesterday I got round to reading the Fish Forever preamble to the fish recipe section of River Cottage Everyday. And here I first encountered what I should have known before; Hugh has a real thing about fish. I know he goes fishing as I have seen him do it on the telly - and I now know he is deeply concerned about all sorts of fishing-related issues. So it was with some hesitation that I stood in front of the fish display at Marks and Spencer (I know I should have gone to a proper fishmonger but yesterday just wasn't the time or the place). There seemed to be a bewildering amount of choice and I was desperately trying to remember Hugh's list of fish to avoid/fish to eat more of. All I could remember was that cod-bad and mackerel-good.

Packet of sole, lemon

In the end I came back with a pack of lemon sole and with some trepidation turned to page 138 to see if it was on the black list. In fact it didn't mention sole of any kind - good, bad or indifferent (although Megrim and Witch, members of the sole family, are, suprisingly, good). So I turned to the website www.fishonline.org which Hugh assures us (on page 139) is 'very easy to use'. I found myself well out of my comfort zone here as I typed in 'lemon sole'. I was very confused to find that there were no results found. Perhaps this was some kind of fish that didn't really exist - a kind of chicken kiev of fish - a ready-meal I didn't need to prepare in any way. But no, this 'very easy' website wants to to put in 'sole, lemon' (note the all-important comma which is a vital part of this creature's name otherwise 'no results found'). Hmmm - not such an easy site then. But then it got more complex as there are 3 sole, lemons. 2 of them were probably OK and one was rated as a no-no; 'based on available information these species should probably not be considered sustainable at this time'. Ah.

Forever Fish (albeit fuzzy)

All I knew from the packet was that it was caught in the North Atlantic but it was labelled 'Fish Forever' which is some new kind of M and S initiative to keep up fish stocks (so they say). But on the M and S website it says 'Lemon sole has not been certified by MSC'. So what does that mean? Does MSC mean the Marine Conservation Society with a bit of a typo? In which case it may be that it doesn't quite meet up to the standards of someone like Hugh? I have no idea what it means, but it seems to me that if you are buying fish, because the situation with fish stocks and fishing methods changes all the time, you are better befriending a good fishmonger and keeping away from supermarkets. 

Fish Forever

Meanwhile I haven't considered buying the River Cottage Fish yet - but even now I am thinking that maybe one day....