Forgotten Fish

…We have to know that this would change the way we eat fish, and that the industry needs the cooperation of consumers to support that. Until we understand that endless, on-demand choice isn’t compatible with harvesting a natural resource, we will not be able to change anything on a large scale. Being less selective about what we eat, and allowing our diets to be guided by the diversity and abundance in our fisheries, is a good start. Eat more megrim, eat more spider crab, eat more witch, whiting and scad. Eat more of the phenomenal variety of things we catch. Simply, ‘eat what we catch,’ feels like a good mantra to abide by. The responsibility for change is in the hands of many. Of forward thinking fishermen like Tom McClure, voluntarily adapting practices at his own cost for the better of the environment; to shoppers asking for something different at the fishmongers; to chefs being adaptable with menus and utilising what small scale suppliers can provide; to organisations like Seafood Cornwall undertaking vital research into carbon output, mesh sizes, and fish stocks. And finally to policy makers, who really hold the cards. All of those mentioned can play a role in pressuring governments into action. This is a joint responsibility and encompasses a range of complex issues, not just environmental but social, that will only be solved with cooperation, and an open and inclusive dialogue. Food, and sitting down to eat it together, it seems, can act very well as a leveller, and bring people together and ideas into perspective. Strange Catch was a great example of that, and I look forward to taking part in more events like it, to collectively address issues surrounding the industry I’ve grown up around, and am passionate about defending, challenging, changing, and remaining a part of. Huge credit to @seafoodcornwall , @williamcranford @rebeccamcdonaldstudio and @helengilchrist for bringing these ideas to the fore and delivering them in a way that resonated with a new audience. Thanks also to Andy and @nathanderoz for lending their insight and decades of industry experience to the proceedings. And to Andrew, for showing us all how his catch should be enjoyed!

Strange Catch… A couple of weeks back we hosted lunch @argoenewlyn in collaboration with @seafoodcornwall to celebrate two locally abundant species that are hugely underrated in the UK. In light of supply chain issues following Brexit and the pandemic, Seafood Cornwall last year launched a fantastic campaign to increase domestic consumption of megrim sole and spider crab. On the day, a menu of whole crabs from @lobsterman56 and simply grilled megs championed their work on the plate. We welcomed some incredible voices from a variety of backgrounds, and an engaged debate yielded at times difficult conversations on several pressing challenges. I have no doubt, that from the perspective of Cornish fishing, many involved parties are working hard to understand and overcome these challenges, but there remain some uncomfortable realities about the way we currently fish, and how those practices impact on the environment. Ranging from ocean plastics to carbon emissions, the issues are complex and very real, but often the answers to the problems are not simple. There are vibrant fishing communities here, built around what is at present still an industrial system, nonetheless supporting countless jobs, thriving independent enterprise, and the cultural identity of towns that have been tied to the sea for centuries. Myriad operations, both large scale and small, contribute to the whole that is our fishing industry. There are markets at the mercy of supply and demand; complex supply chains - as in all food systems - that convey product to plate, there to mediate seasonal abundance and challenging weather, satisfy a diverse range of consumer needs, and support highly developed logistics networks. These all currently rely on an economy of scale to function, to support livelihoods, and to feed people on a vast scale. If we are to move towards a more artisan model, a direction that with careful consideration I believe we could and should begin to look towards, it is not something that can happen overnight, however desperate the need for change. Please read on…

An alternative menu///A long period of no posts this summer whilst all efforts were focussed into the opening of @argoenewlyn I always wanted to take the same ethos into the opening of the restaurant as I had into Forgotten Fish, and our menus at Argoe over the last 4 months have featured many of the things I had before been discovering and selling to other restaurants. The scope has definitely widened a little though, and in line with that, the purpose of Forgotten Fish has evolved too. It feels just as important to promote a varied and open approach to fish sourcing as a whole, not just the weird stuff. Whilst not necessarily forgotten, species like megrim and spider crab are massively under used in this country, and there have been some great initiatives lately to try to change that. As well as what has been featured in the media, there are others - witches, sand soles, dabs, flounder, horse mackerel, whiting, that although not abundant, are often landed by the local inshore fleets. They have been regular fixtures on our menus from the start, and a pleasure to cook with. Focussing on how things are caught, and how fresh they are, rather than what they’re called or what they look like, is a great way to eat better fish. The waters off our coasts contain a vast array of species, and that diversity should be reflected in what ends up on our plates. By focussing on the bigger picture instead of over promoting any one species, I think we can begin to support an industry where consumer demand more accurately reflects what is being caught. It definitely feels like supporting the right kind of fishing practices, and taking responsibility for the whole of a vessels catch, regardless of species, is the way to go. This menu is a combination of all of the above, and a kind of greatest hits of the bits that most of the industry has forgotten about. Bycatch, offcuts, the unloved and under-utilised, ray tails, hake throats, pollock collars, all the best bits. An entire menu of #forgottenfish. In other news, I’ll be on @bbccountryfile this Sunday talking about fish waste and hake kokotxas!

Had a great evening session cutting kokotxas for @bratrestaurant a couple of weeks back, joined by @_michaeleddy_ and @callummitchell - great friends and huge creative talents with a deep respect and fascination for the place we all grew up and still call home. We talked Newlyn history, fish and sustainability while Mikey pointed his lenses at me, recording on film and 16mm. This is the start of a project that will document @argoenewlyn and FF as they develop, but more than that it felt like a start to a conversation that I hope can be an ongoing one: preserving a side of Newlyn we have all admired but witnessed change over the years. There are voices, faces and stories to be recorded here, and as artists who have devoted their craft to documenting West Cornwall, these two are well placed to represent them. The modern Newlyn school. I look forward to sharing more results of that collaboration, and I think that in celebrating a connection to the past and the heritage we have here, we can map out ways forward for sustainable and positive future for Cornish fisheries, not just in terms of the environment but in the communities that have built up around our industry. As a bonus, I finally have some documentation of the cutting process of these Cornish kokotxas, on the menu at Brat and Climpson’s Arch and available retail through @hendersontohome . Take a look at my stories for a short clip of the cutting in action.

A couple of my favourite Forgotten Fish. After some great engagement with my last post, now feels like a good time to share a little more about what will be going on @argoenewlyn this winter. From November to March each year, the restaurant will transform into a cookery school and residency space, offering workshops around fish cookery and sustainability, as well as hosting a varied programme of pop ups that will connect visiting chefs with the incredible fish we have access to here. Sustainable fishing is alive and well in Newlyn, and there are many who stand starkly opposed to the kind of industrialised practice that we rightly should be challenging. We want to support those fishermen and fisheries and show others how they can do the same in the choices they make when they buy, cook and eat fish. Teaching and cooking with this incredible produce right in the heart of the community responsible for putting it on the table feels like the best way to do this, and I’m looking forward to inviting people into our space to share my experiences and insight into the local industry. As Forgotten Fish evolved during these first two years, I began to feel strongly that as well as processing and offering wholesale supply, there was a huge opportunity to make advances in waste reduction by educating to a wider audience the causes of that waste, as well as actions they can take to support sustainability in Cornish fisheries. Forgotten Fish Kitchen, in collaboration with @argoenewlyn will champion that approach. We’re looking for people to join us at Argoe, front and back of house. If these kinds of ideas, and working with beautiful Cornish produce right by the sea sound good to you, or you know of anyone that might suit, we’d love to hear from you! [email protected]

Little red boat, Newlyn Harbour. So, Seaspiracy, a bit slow to respond to this one. My first thoughts on some of the responses I’ve read since is that they have been infinitely more balanced and pragmatic than the extreme and over simplified narrative of the film. Perhaps we should be grateful for that dialogue at least. There are clearly important things to take away here. It shows harrowing scenes that no one watching would condone, or want to support through the food choices they make. I couldn’t agree more on the takedown of salmon and prawn farming, and having avoided both for some time, have always been shocked that it has taken so long to raise public awareness of the devastating effect they have on the environment. Harmful subsidies and policies that serve to only degrade our marine environments and support poor practice have no place anywhere. Marine conservation areas are undoubtedly a good thing. But what I ultimately question is the connection these issues have to the fishing industry as I know it. The film failed to make some key distinctions, and the proposed solution didn’t seem to match the problems depicted. The mythical ‘little red boat chugging out of the harbour’ does exist. It might not be Captain Birdseye at the wheel, but there are countless small vessels fishing in Cornwall using low impact methods with little to no bycatch, skippered by compassionate advocates for the environments they make their living from. It’s easy to make a documentary that promotes boycotting the consumption of fish when you choose to completely omit success stories that don’t support your narrative. There is work to be done in even the most sustainable fisheries, we can always get better, my own business came into being to address practices in the industry I don’t agree with. But going vegan won’t solve the problem. I feel more empowered to create change from within than to ignore the issues and propose unrealistic solutions from the outside. The world isn’t going to stop eating fish. But we could get used to eating better fish, the right fish, more parts of that fish, and understanding fully the change we can help to create when we choose to do so.

I’m opening a restaurant! It feels right to do this now, it feels right to do it here. I really love Cornwall. I love Newlyn. And it turns out despite years of thinking I wanted to do anything but, I love working with fish too. It creeps into your bones over time. Before you know it, wherever you are in the world, you’re searching for the fish market, it becomes an obsession that runs through everything you do. Through Forgotten Fish my perspective on being part of that industry has also changed, and I feel there is an opportunity to do something a little different, to help promote initiatives that change Cornish fishing for the better. I will continue to do that @argoenewlyn . It will be a restaurant in the heart of Newlyn that is built on the fishing heritage of this harbour. A simple restaurant like you would find in a Spanish or French port, a window onto the fishing community of our town and the incredible produce we have here. Cornish fish. Natural wine. Warm welcome. I look forward to seeing you there.

There’s nothing quite like a just landed sardine. Not a scale missing, no blushing gills, rigour not yet set in. They almost don’t look real, and we couldn’t be better placed in Newlyn to enjoy this Cornish gold at its best, just minutes from the sea. To be able to go for an evening walk and watch the ring netters fishing in the bay, when you know you could be packing, cooking or eating them the next day, is quite special. Newlyn’s fishing heritage and preserved industrial character distinguish it from other harbours that have lost something of their identity to tourism and development. Not here. That fishing heritage remains. I’ve got some exciting news to share in the next few days, keep an eye out for more soon...

Kokotxas. These compact triangles of flesh show the hidden potential in forgotten cuts. Found on the underside of a hake, the throat essentially, in the Basque region of Spain they are revered for their uniquely gelatinous texture and delicate flavour. ///I’ve searched for figures on the value of this tiny bite to the Spanish fishing fleet, who cut them at sea, but come up blank. What I do know is that a selling price of €60/k is standard, and based on an annual catch three times the UK, they probably represent not insubstantial worth to Spanish fishermen. Spain’s premiere supplier of kokotxas, Paco Ferreres - ‘El Rey de Kokotxas’, sells over 200k of them every week! This remains an untapped resource in Cornwall however, where kokotxas are unknown to fishermen, fishmongers, and processors. ///It takes around 100k of whole fish to produce 1k of kokotxas, which gives some idea of how labour intensive the process is. But there is value in that time. Over 12 000 tonnes of MSC certified hake was landed into Newlyn in 2019, around half of which were prime size fish for extracting kokotxas, this could represent around 60 tonnes of high value fish going to waste annually - which seems environmentally, economically, and gastronomically illogical. ///Here in the UK it takes someone like @tomos_pp @bratrestaurant to give them a deserved place on the menu. I first sent a box from Cornwall to London to feature on the menu of a collaboration between Brat and @elkano_jatetxea , the Basque temple of seafood where I first tried kokotxas. It still feels unreal to be supplying Brat and I am proud to see these Cornish delicacies as a constant fixture at one of the best restaurants in the country. Tomos’ approach of serving unrivalled produce in a way that genuinely puts the ingredient first, I think is the perfect celebration of the kokotxa, and his support for Forgotten Fish has been instrumental in enabling me to pursue other goals for the business. ///This is blue sky thinking, and there would no doubt be barriers to making it reality, but given the potential here for flavour, and revenue, perhaps kokotxas should become a staple of the Cornish hake fishery?

Two years in, and after some pretty challenging times for the industry, now feels like a good point at which to reflect on Forgotten Fish. /// Since gifting a small package of bycatch anchovies to @picaricoworldwide in February 2019, the project has repurposed 1113.25k of offcuts, byproduct and unwanted catch, directing it back into the supply chain at 24 restaurants, and onto a plate instead of a gut bin. 162 deliveries in, it has spiralled and evolved in ways I hadn’t imagined, and begun an obsession with questioning what could be possible if we reframed value in the seafood supply chain. In terms of wholesale, a tonne of fish is not a large volume; countless pallets leave Newlyn every day, destined for foreign markets and the rest of the UK, totalling tens or hundreds of tonnes, a story paralleled in other ports around our coast. However when you consider that some of the cuts I deal with weigh only 25g, and that I worked single handedly in my spare time, over a tonne feels like quite a lot of fish. /// That a project undertaken on such a small scale could alone offer this modest improvement to the efficiency of the system, illuminates the potential for the wider scale uptake of similar schemes in other places; at ports; at processors; in restaurant and home kitchens; at sea, and across the industry. I was limited by time, space, money, energy, sometimes motivation, and worked with just @trelawneyfish for access to processing ‘waste’, and owing to the current situation, shipped nothing for months at a time. /// In spite of these limitations, this achievement sends a positive message about the potential of new thinking, in an industry that doesn’t often lean that way. I plan to continue to broadcast that message, and it feels good to have contributed towards a conversation seeking to challenge the status quo, in the company of others championing that too @mcmasterchef @pesky_fish @restaurant.sem @eatnative @foodchain__ @cabritogoatmeat amongst many others. Despite the prominence of other challenges in this industry at the moment, the problem of food waste has not gone away. The good news is there are definitely encouraging efforts being made to change that.

‘All this beautiful fish around ‘ere and you’re eatin’ mergies!’ The things I take home to cook and the oddities I cut out of conventional fish are a constant source of bemusement for the guys I work with. Mergy is the nickname for the lesser spotted dogfish, or morgay, in local dialect - from the Cornish and Welsh for sea - ‘Mor’ and dog - ‘Ci’. I’d love to know what makes certain fish ‘beautiful’ and others worthless in people’s perception. What metric do we most commonly use to judge the eating experience of different species? It certainly doesn’t seem to be guided by taste, or texture. So much is missed out on because tradition and habit largely decide on what fish we buy and eat. Here it’s marinated in sherry vinegar, sweet smoked paprika, garlic, cumin, bay and salt for a couple of days, then tossed in flour and deep fried. When raw it seems like it could be tough, but yields to a soft a moist texture when cooked and takes well to the strong flavours of the marinade. Preserving meat or fish ‘en adobo’ is a centuries old technique that originates in Andalusia. More commonly in the freidurías of Cádiz, where local fish and seafood is marinated, coated in flour and deep fried, you would see ‘cazon en adobo’, which uses tope - a larger species of shark. It worked equally well with a mergy, and also interestingly tasted just as good after a week in the marinade as it did the next day, so it’s a useful way to prolong the shelf life of fresh fish. Assessment of stock levels varies depending on the source of the data, but generally this species is regarded as abundant and of low concern. One thing I can be certain of is that if they’re ending up in our nets in the numbers that they do, this is a better outcome than rotting on a quayside waiting to be bait for crabs. The processing sector generates enough inedible waste to have that more than covered. I’m determined to convince more people that fish like this are worth eating, and more than that, can be made delicious with very little effort or technical skill. Never a better time to challenge tradition.

//NEWLYN// Had a great pre lockdown 2 evening yesterday to round off a few months of really making the most of what’s on our doorstep. The sea, a vibrant and genuine fishing port, art galleries, cafes, restaurants, pubs, fishmongers, butchers, grocers, a cheese shop, a wine bar, and an awesome community of people. Locals were out in force last night to show their support. A couple of glasses @lovetts_newlyn and then food and a film @newlynfilmhouse . Feeling fortunate that such inspired and welcoming people have chosen to run their businesses in our town, and thinking of friends, chefs and others whose very purpose is to welcome and to entertain, having to close their doors again at a time when they need trade the most. Not long to wait this time round though, get out and support local business again as soon as possible, and until then, order takeaways, buy meal vouchers, spend your money with people who care, and do whatever you can to make sure community gems like these will be here for the future. @mackerelskyseafoodbar @newlynexchange @lovetts_newlyn @newlynfilmhouse @tottipizzashop @shop_local_penzance