L’Horrible

John Dory with Clams

Appears in

Published 2018

About

A maligned and misunderstood fish is the John Dory. It has never been considered much of a looker. ‘Nowadays this fish is not always easy to find – as they are ugly they do not tempt the timid customer, but some fishmongers do keep them’, observed Eliza Acton in her Modern Cookery for Private Families in 1845. Elizabeth David reports that it was sometimes known in France as l’horrible, which seems an unkind slur on a magnificent fish.

If there were such a thing as a happy-looking fish, the John Dory would not make the cut. It has a depressed and angry countenance. It probably looks even worse in the water. Although on the slab it looks like a flat fish, the dory is a travelling predator and swims upright, conspicuous from the side, round and almost gold in colour (hence the ‘dorée’ of its name), but almost invisible head on. From this discreet if ominous presence, the dory catches its prey by means of a mouth that alarmingly telescopes out from its body to almost twice its length.