Fish

I’ll never forget the first time I tasted really fresh fish – what a revelation! Tim, who is now my husband, cooked fresh plaice for me the first evening I came to Ballymaloe (the way to a girls heart and all that!). My home was in a little village called Cullohill in Co. Laois and when I was a child the bus travelling from Dublin to Cork dropped off fish every Thursday evening (ready for Friday!) at the shop in our village. It was usually whiting and smoked haddock and occasionally, when we were lucky, some plaice. Plaice was our great favourite; we looked forward to it, dipped in seasoned flour and cooked in a little butter in the pan. I now know that the ‘grand name’ for that method is à la meunière, but to me then it was simply fried plaice. We thought it was delicious – that was until I tasted really fresh plaice! It was incredible, I simply couldn’t believe that it was the same fish. The sad thing is, there must be lots of people, particularly those living far from the sea, who still have never tasted really fresh fish and so can’t quite appreciate what all the excitement is about. It’s not until you taste fish in season, fresh from the sea that you suddenly realize how exquisite it can be.