It’s that time of year again. Another month and yet another seasonal, seafood delicacy has arrived crawling its way into the pots and nets of the South West Under 10 metre boats that ply their trade along the coasts of Devon & Cornwall. Social media has been abuzz recently with fishermen eagerly delivering pots onto… Read More A Seasonal Risotto of Spider Crab

Heading North, alongside the Aberdeenshire coastline, the weather casts a predictably “Dreich” and “Dour” picture. Swollen, cumbersome, leaden clouds balloon grotesquely and seamlessly downwards into a stark slate-grey sheet, occasionally picked out in white, as crests rise and fall in the seemingly, boundless expanse that is the Northern North Sea. Thirty miles further on from… Read More Fishing for the Future

When Guy Dorrell made contact with me and suggested we met over a pint to discuss his Community Supported Fishery in Wandsworth, SW18, I couldn’t help but conjure up an image of a few brightly painted day boats tied up on a sparkling Thames by Wandsworth Bridge, unloading their gleaming catch amidst a cloud of… Read More An Urban Fishery

The European Eel (Anguilla anguilla); a creature shrouded in mystery and folklore. Their methods of capture invoking such ancient terminology as babbing, pritching and fyke netting. A wandering, serpentine, oceanic, catadrome, migrating in the early part of its life, from a vast Sargassum-fronded nursery in the North Atlantic, to its ultimate freshwater residence in the lakes,… Read More Eel Appeal

One of the most enjoyable aspects, I’ve discovered, of writing about food that inspires you, is the added dimension of seasonality. Wild food especially, affords you the chance to inject a huge amount of enthusiasm into a subject, knowing full well that the time frame for its enjoyment is potentially limited. In our local Suffolk… Read More #Sprats

It’s all too easy sitting here in a warm office, Labradors by my feet, waxing lyrical and enthusiastically eulogizing about the abundance of amazing produce that our inshore waters harbour. It’s only marginally more strenuous to drive to the plethora of local fishmongers and restaurants to sample what bounty the shallow seas of our coastline have… Read More Is there a Catch?

The Deben Estuary in East Suffolk, holds fond appeal for me, as many hours of my youth were spent afloat on her brisk and effervescent, tidal waters steaming to and from the local fishing marks. Crewing for Doug Goodall aboard Swallow II, whether long-lining for Cod during the winter months or potting for Crab and… Read More Suffolk Silver

Last weekend in East Suffolk we enjoyed one of the region’s premier gastronomic events, in the shape of the Aldeburgh Food Festival at Snape Maltings on the banks of the massively picturesque, tidal River Alde. Now an eagerly anticipated annual event, it has become the culinary epicentre of the East coast each September and has proved to be an excellent and exciting… Read More Smoked Salmon – Re-styled

One particular species of shellfish which I have always found, not only extremely good value and delicious, but also a lot of fun to catch, is the Brown or Common Shrimp (Crangon crangon). I have managed over the years to enthuse my children enough to enjoy this particular summer, seashore pastime and if well prepared, it can… Read More Shrimps at Sunrise