A Combination of Wilful and Unconscious Plagiarism

In the water a red mullet is not red. It is pale pink with strong orange stripes running down its length. Once out of the water, those stripes slowly fade and the skin takes on its familiar pinkish-red colour. When it is no longer fresh, or if it is badly handled – still a too familiar phenomenon for what is now, rightly, one of our most highly prized fish – it loses colour and reverts to a dull pink.

In the days when red mullet were plentiful and moderately priced, I never tired of cooking them, and served them in many different ways. I deep-fried thin slices of aubergine and sandwiched red mullet fillets inside them with a little tomato sauce. I cooked the very small ones whole and served them on little toasts spread with anchovy butter. The most popular dish of all was red mullet fillets with citrus fruits, olive oil and saffron mashed potatoes, or ‘safmash’ for short.