Trout

With the profusion of signs saying ‘Last Trout Farm Before Motorway’, the trout, that wonderful fine-fleshed fish of my youth, has become something of a gastronomic joke. And trout with almonds is clichéd beyond belief. What was a few years ago a treat has today become the lazy restaurateur’s token ‘fish dish’, and not only usually farmed but frozen as well. (Beware of restaurants that still have five ways of cooking trout and six of sole on menus that also offer ‘pheasant in port’ – in July – and duckling with marmalade, sorry I mean à l’orange.)