The Food Mill

In The Classic Italian Cook Book I gave a recipe for fish soup. Part of the recipe requires that the heads be separated from the fish, cooked in a flavor base of olive oil, onion, garlic, parsley, wine, and tomatoes, and then mashed through a food mill. A few years after publication, a man telephoned to say he had a complaint about my fish soup recipe: Although it was very tasty, it was full of little bones. “Little bones?” I asked. “Did you follow the instructions?” “Of course,” he replied, “even to pureeing the heads.” “You pureed them through a food mill?” I inquired. “I don’t have a food mill,” he said. “I put them in the blender.”