Freezer Geezer

The Food Standards Agency has decided to act on the recommendations of their European overlords and implement Regulation (EC) No 853/2004, which states that ‘all fish to be consumed raw or almost raw are to be subjected to freezing to kill parasites’. On the face of it, this is rather annoying, mainly because we managed perfectly well without any such legislation before. Raw fish and, by extension, raw meat such as steak tartare have long been a healthy and harmless part of our diet.

Secretly, however, and exceptionally, I am rather grateful for this ‘nanny knows best’ ruling. At home, I quite often eat slices of raw mackerel with wasabi and soy sauce. In my restaurants I have served raw tuna, scallops, salmon, mackerel, sea bass and goodness knows what else for decades. I have, of course, always been very careful. I have always used fish of the most pristine freshness and been extremely zealous in my habits of hygiene. Such habits have stood the test of time but they have been inconvenient. I never used to make any raw fish an à la carte item as I could never guarantee the supply. Furthermore, any tuna that I did not sell on the first day I felt obliged to serve cooked, never – or at least not for twenty years – my preferred option.