Читать книгу Tony & Giorgio - Tony Allan, Giorgio Locatelli - Страница 26

Fashion has a lot to do with what fish we eat. In the Eighties, farmed salmon was all the rage. I always thought that was a pity, because it meant we were losing our seasons. In the old days, every ingredient had its time. For strawberries, it was June; Stilton was only ever properly ready at Christmas; and you had to wait until late spring for the start of the salmon season. But by the Eighties everyone was lapping up farmed salmon all year round.

Then we all went sea bass mad. It was sea bass for breakfast, sea bass for lunch and sea bass for dinner. By the Nineties, recession had set in and sea bass was tossed aside. Instead, we all started eating peasant food like cod, mash and lentils.

As the economy started picking up again, and Sir Terence Conran began to open his massive restaurants, the sea bass came back. Tuna was big, scallops were on every menu and langoustines became the new glamour food. Fish and chips made a comeback, too, although I’m not convinced that they ever really went away.

If I were picking favourites, I’d have to go for scallops. This isn’t just because I grow them but because they really are the king of shellfish - more so, even, than lobster. The big scallops we get are like tournedos (small fillets of beef). You can cook them like a fillet steak, or even make scallop Rossini with a garnish of truffle and foie gras. The flavour of a scallop is like nothing else, but if you really want to get the most out of it, then eat it raw. Unbelievable!

Wild Scottish salmon is probably the world’s most wonderful fish, and large sea bass is great too, with its clean-flavoured, snow-white flesh and distinctive silver-grey skin, which crisps wonderfully when pan fried or roasted. Halibut, too, is majestic, but it can go one way or the other. Only one out of ten halibut is really good, but when you get a good one it’s magic, mainly because of the texture of the flesh. When you bite into halibut, it doesn’t flake; instead it’s chewy, almost like meat.

Then there is eel. The best meal I ever had was in Portugal at a beach bar called Antonio’s. They had just had a lot of flooding in the area and the marshes were full of eels. So the old man got one of these eels, chopped a chunk off it and marinated it in olive oil, oregano and sea salt for two days. Then he just banged it on the barbecue. It was magnificent. The flesh was succulent and the skin all crisp and crunchy. Throw in a bottle of Vinho Verde and you’re in heaven.