Something smoked fishy

Hello. I was going to say good morning only, upon looking at the time, I notice that it’s nine minutes past midday. So good afternoon. Another year, another blog.

I’ve just got back. From whence I observe you enquiring. From walking in the English Winter rain (a rain that I had formerly described in my very first published book - ‘Buffalo & Breadfruit’ [2012] still on sale at Amazon et al).

Let me explain. It was raining. I knew that it was raining, but I had promised myself to buy fish today. Yesterday I had slow-cooked (for 5 hours) a pot of vegetables (white cabbage, carrots and potatoes chiefly, with a little rosemary, smoked paprika, white pepper, a ham stock cube and some chipotle). I looked forward to tasting it for lunch. I did, it was bland, even with the addition of cheese. Dinner, instead of my usual repeat of lunch, was cheese-on-toast with yellow mustard.

This morning I balked at the very notion of being faced with the very same bland slow-cooked mélange of vegetables for lunch. However I was loath to chuck the remaining meal in the ‘food waste’ container (to be picked up on Thursday morning), so I went through permutations of helpful additions to bring the meal back up to edible status. To curtail a more lengthy ramble - I decided on smoked fish as my final choice. Not tinned, or fish with copious chemical additions but real, and preferably locally smoked, fish.

Having a further choice of an edible meal which incorporated a very wet and cold 2 and a half mile walk, eat the almost inedible or cook something else, my stubbornness clicked in. Well, at the very least, it would be an adventure. Well, not quite so much an adventure as a two and a half mile walk in the rain and cold wind (see Facebook reel) there and back again, but it was worth the effort.

Not wanting to go too much over budget, I rejected the very nice, yellow looking, smoked haddock, didn’t fancy the Lowestoft kipper and preferred the smoked mackerel. However a whole smoked mackerel was not cheap, and too large. In the end I bought a smoked mackerel fillet, smoked on this very island.

Of course I didn’t stop at buying mackerel. I also bought some very fresh cod spine (aka cod loin, as opposed to the triangular shaped fillet) for cooking tomorrow. I’ve not been able to get fresh fish since before Christmas (3 weeks) and I have really been looking forward to having fresh fish as opposed to meat (mostly chicken as it’s the cheapest now), or just veg.

And it was superb.