We always seem to eat fish on a Friday. I'm not quite sure why; it's certainly not a religious thing, but probably reflects that Friday is the day when the fishmonger has the best stuff on his slab. Anyway, we were spoiled rotten living in Devon, having such good fresh fish right on the doorstep. It was wonderful to be on such good terms with the guys in the fish market that they would keep back a hake for me, knowing that I would always buy it if they had one. But more often than not, the Spanish would have snaffled all the hake before it got beyond the wholesale market. So we'd slum it with line caught mackerel or stiff fresh sea bass.
Moving inland to Oxford, we were still spoiled rotten by the fishmongers, this time in Oxford's Covered Market, but given that the mostly gown not town clientele had more disposable income then your average Plymouthian, hake was more often replaced by coley or ling in my shopping basket. Oh well, they can both take a lot of chili and ginger, as can we!
Now that we've moved to France, although a good couple of hours from both the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, the fish is once again excellent. Our nearest small town has one fishmonger and the bigger place has three. Alas it is still mostly quite beyond our meagre weekly budget. Back to the lieu noir. But every now and then there are the tiniest, sweetest mussels to be had. And at only €2.20 a kilo that's only just over a Euro a portion. Add half an onion, a few cloves from the last remaining heads of garlic, a half glass of wine - we'd only drink it anyway - a big bunch of parsley from the garden and that's a perfect, perfect bowl of moules. All it needs is chips, homemade in a frying pan on the stove top so not really chips, but I was reusing the oil from the previous day's onion bhaji, and a big bowl of salad. It shows how ghastly the spring has been that we are still eating Rouge de Grenoble winter lettuces which are yet to show any sign of hearting up or bolting in the first week of June.
I don't understand why more people don't eat mussels. Yes, they can be a bit fiddly to scrub and de-beard; but doing it while chatting and hopefully being fed crisps and wine makes it no chore at all, but signifies the start of the Weekend. Once cleaned, the cooking takes no time at all. About the time it takes to whizz outside, cut a couple of lettuces and a bunch of parsley, dash back inside, give the mussel pan a shake, wash and spin the lettuces, give the pan another shake, and drop the salad in a bowl.
Nothing beats eating with your fingers either, picking the shells one by one from the cooking pan, pulling out the meat and the occasional tiny crab, before dropping the empty shells into a another bowl. Chips are on the side and may just as well be eaten with the fingers, too. Perfect.
Rest assured we do use cutlery for the salad. And don't drink from the bottle.
If only I could grow some onions, more main crop potatoes and plant a vineyard we'd have the frugal life sorted. Today's task is scrub the empty mussel shells before crushing them and adding to the compost heap. The archaeologist in me gets a certain thrill from turning over the cabbage patch and finding old bits of shell.
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