Its 6.30am and we are about to start our journey to Tuscany to teach at Le Rotelle for the third time over July. I am leaving the grey drizzling skies of London for the Tuscan sun. It will take us four days to get there as we are driving down and making a few stops to make travelling with two small active boys as painless as possible! Can’t wait to get there, to unpack and go to the market for the fruit, vegetables and cheeses. Even our children know that there will be juicy greengages, watermelons and figs to enjoy that we don’t have here. Will write more from Tuscany.
Slow Food are holding Slow Fish Week in Genova from 4th to 7th May and to celebrate this and draw attention to it we are having our own Slow Fish Week. It will be a great fish menu at Caffe Caldesi and special fish cookery lessons at La Cucina Caldesi.
As a member of Slow Food I was sent details about the show in Genova, I would love to have gone but don’t have the time right now. Instead Jo Hynes, Manager of the cookery school, Gregorio Piazza, Head Chef and I have researched ‘good’ fish to create the menu.
It is not as straight forward as I originally thought, you can’t just say I won’t eat cod anymore, but instead you have to be aware where it is from and how it was caught. Some cod is fine to eat.
The other hugely important factor is that we should all be eating different types of fish and like choosing wine, instead of always going for Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio we should be trying lesser known wines and fish. This would stop us overfishing one type such as cod. We have now been experimenting with pollack (delicious and a perfect substitute for cod) and guernard (ugly but tastes great and who ever said fish had to be pretty).
In Italy so many recipes I find use cuttlefish. They are similar to squid and baby cuttlefish make a wonderful stew. If people think its squid they will order it in their droves but as soon as you write cuttlefish on the menu they think of grannie’s budgie!
It’ll be an interesting week as I wait for the customer reaction. To be ethically sound, its going to cost us and then in turn the customer so we will see who puts their money where they mouth is! Some of the first catch arrive today so I am keen to see if I can taste a difference in the wild fish rather than the farmed varieties.
For further information look at www.slowfood.com and next time you are buying fish ask the fishmonger for something other than the usual culprits.
