From sea to plate...

Just come back from a week in cornwall where the weather can only be described as glorious - I mean come on, vest tops in the UK in october, must be a minor miracle. We hired a cottage in Mevagissey a lovely little fishing village not too far from St Austel. Anyway I have to say that my husband (Mark) and I were probably more excited about the proximity of our cottage to several pubs and the abundance of fresh fish and seafood rather than the usual holiday agenda of relax, relax relax. And cornwall did not let us down... not only did we try all of the local pubs and found a reasonable range of real ales, but we also had the opportunity to buy fish from the quayside and try our hand at fishing and have a go at foraging - all in all a culinary holiday was had.

So where to start - well, foraging for one. As a surprise Mark had booked both of us on a foraging day course in Lostwithiel. Not fungi foraging, or roadkill foraging but hedge plants. The day was a real eye-opener to what ingredients are available in and around most houses. Some notable examples include sorrel (lovely citrusy and acidic flavour great with fish), hedge garlic (lovely big green leaves with a punchy garlic flavour), winter cress (often found near water) and lovage. I'm certainly not going to suggest that you have a go at foraging without taking a course and buying yourselves some really good books. The golden rule of the day for us was "only pick at waist height" - I didn't understand why until the forager explained about dog walkers - eeuurrrgh. So what did we do with our free foraging bounty. Used Rick Steins book, bought some gurnard and had a lovely pan fried gurnard fillet with sorrel sauce and some leaves in a salad - delicious.

Onto the fishing. First things first, Mark and I were not about to try to hire a boat ourselves - having suffered 2 boat related disasters in south africa. Oh no, instead we booked ourselves on a 2 hour mackerel fishing trip with 5 others. The trip was fantastic, hot hot sunshine, a good bunch of people on board, up close with a pod of dolphins and then the fishing. After explaining to the main man that I really thought I'd be awful at fishing, by the end of the trip I'd caught 4 fish (to everybody else's 12-20) and had a fantastic time. So laden with our carrier bag of super fresh mackerel we hot footed it back to the cottage where Mark re-created the chainsaw massacre in the kitchen. Result was a salad of fresh grilled mackerel with lemon juice and pepper and some fillets coated in garlic and breadcrumbs and pan fried. All eaten within 90 minutes of catching the fish.

Mackerel has some great childhood memories of camping trips in south wales where as a family we'd head to saundersfoot and buy mackerel from the quayside and enjoy it grilled once we got back to the campsite. Even then as a child of 8-13 years old, there was no squeamishness about dealing with fresh mackerel, and between my brother, me and parents we had a bit of a mackerel processing line in the tent.

Well thats it for now, autumn is closing in, so my attention is turning towards pickles, chutneys and preserves - must go and sterilise some jars.

Cath