FISH OUT OF WATER

Fish?

What's the point?

Some cooks rave about fish. Not me.

To cook fish well, the ideal scenario is: take fish out of habitat, bang on head, cook on fire. Then it's the excitement of being Man the Hunter that adds to the taste experience. That, and a bit of wood smoke.

Everything else you do with fish, bar a squeeze of lemon, fucks it up, or fucks you up. All that filleting, gutting, skinning. You stand an above evens chance of slitting your own wrist unintentionally with a razor sharp knife, or impaling yourself on the creature's evil bones. Then the cooking has got to be ever so exactly just so. Overdo it, you get cardboard. Underdo it and you kill yourself, and all your guests. Leave a bone in; prepare yourself for a fun evening tracheotomy.

And for what? A slimy, white, unimpressive, largely tasteless, second-rate protein.

For years chefs have tried to disguise fish with sauces made of cream, cheese, white wine, Pernod, you name it. Suggestion: drink the sauce. Throw the fish away. Fish in sauce makes me gip anyhow. Slime in slime. Yuck. It just makes something bad worse.

There are, I know, people who eat fish out of a kind of guilt, persuading themselves somehow that the central nervous system of fish means they don't die in agony. Never have these people to dinner or deign to dine with them. Firstly, they are clearly stupid. Secondly, with hangups like that, you'll have a terrible evening. Thirdly, they'll play the liberal, though in fact these food fascists will bully you into eating - guess what - fish, probably with some awful guilt free salad.

Against the assuaging of guilt, a very short story. I once caught a tuna of 110 lbs. Yes, big. As big as quite a big small human. I am fourteen stone and relatively strong, but it took me 55 minutes of sweating and heaving to get this bastard alongside the boat. It took two fully grown men a good ten minutes with evil life threatening gaffs to get it inside the boat. The creature then thrashed about trying to bite anything in sight. One man then attacked the fish with an iron bar with shocking violence. It must have been another three or four minutes of savagery before the creature died. That day I witnessed a murder. And believe me, the victim did not go quietly. I saw absolutely no evidence to persuade me that that fish did not die in absolute agony. Have that with your fucking salad, fish eater! If fish is brain food, how come you haven't got any? If you did, you'd be eating meat.

I'd happily kill a fish if I wanted to eat one. But generally I don't. The honourable exceptions being Fish n Chips from a proper Fish n Chips establishment, and smoked salmon. When I die, skip the velvet on the coffin. Line it with smoked salmon. In case I get peckish. But there again, you could use a good pate, and I'd be equally happy.

Here, then, dear reader, is my simple but heartfelt culinary advice. Don't serve fish. Ever. Unless you run a chippy. Serve meat. Live life. Enjoy it. With blood from a decent steak running down your chin.