Fine forecast for Fal Fish Fest!

Rick Stein's Fish and Chips, along with the Greenbank Hotel, has agreed to sponsor Falmouth's second two day fish festival which will form part of this year's 10-day Fal River Festival.

Taking place on Sunday 29th and Monday 30th May, organisers are expecting over 10,000 people to attend the two-day fish festival, which will feature a wide range of stalls and cooking demonstrations. The fish festival will be a great opportunity to showcase some of the fantastic seafood that is caught around our coast. The theme of the festival is all about getting people to try fish dishes which they would not normally eat.

Schedule of events:

Sunday 29th May

10am :: Fal Fish Festival Day 1
11am :: Rick Stein to open festival
11.15am :: Paul Ripley Demo (Rick Stein's Fish and Chips)
11.55am :: Black Rock Jazz Band
1.15pm :: Fiona Were (The Greenbank)
1.55pm :: Squash Box Theatre presents "The Sea Show"
2.30pm :: Black Rock Jazz Band
3.10pm :: Paul Trudgian fish monger demo (Fish for Thought)
3.50pm :: Fish Auction (In aid of the Fishermen's Mission)
4.05 :: Squash Box Theatre presents "The Sea Show"
5pm :: Quijada - Latino-Cuban band
6pm :: Day 1 of the Fal Fish Festival ends


Monday 30th May

10am :: Fal Fish Festival Day 2
11am :: Miles Lavers Seaweed Demo (Foods Wild)
11.40am :: Squash Box Theatre presents "The Sea Show"
12.15pm :: Jumping Out Duo
12.50pm :: Annie Sibert (My Fish Kitchen)
1.30pm :: Arty Williams/Catherine Murden (The Cove/St Austell Brewery)
2.10pm :: Jumping Out Duo
3pm :: Nick Hodges (St Michael's Hotel)
3.40pm :: Fish Auction (In aid of the Fishermen's Mission)
3.55pm :: Vistar Das (Indaba)
5pm :: Fal Fish Festival ends

Show kitchen inspired by Nathan Outlaw at Cornwall Food & Drink festival.

The Mobile Chefs Kitchen Is Here! - The long awaited, totally portable working kitchen designed and hand-built by Simply Wood is now complete and ready for its first outing! The kitchen has been cleverly designed so that it can be set-up and packed away quickly and efficiently by the Simply Wood team and comprises of two chefs islands, two ovens, hobs and a couple of fridges.

The first showing of the Chefs kitchen will be in the food & drink tent at the Dartington Food Fair (28th - 30th May) where both islands will be in use for all three days with a wide range of chefs and local producers showing off their skills to a food loving audience.

"This is a new venture for us," says designer Mark Trewin. "I visited the Cornwall Food and Drink show last September in Truro and saw the now 2 michellin star chef Nathan Outlaw at work on what was a very basic looking kitchen. Immediately I saw the potential for something really stunning up there and made contact with the event organisers to see if they would be interested in us sponsoring the 2011 festival. They were and we've been working hard on the design ever since!"

With more contact made within the Southwest food & drink industry, including Taste of The West and the Royal Cornwall Show, Mark and the team are already signed up to be main sponsors of five foodie events in 2011 alone, where the new kitchen will take pride of place in the Chefs cooking theatre.

Courtesy of Simply Wood Kitchens, Bude, Cornwall.

Eat more hake! - you've heard it here before- now Seafish agree!

Catches of Northern hake, landed around the UK, are looking plentiful this season – so Seafish, the authority on seafood, is urging consumers to try this excellent whitefish.


Hake used to be a familiar fish to Britons but seems to have fallen from favour at a time when availability is very good. We only spent £1.5 million on chilled hake in supermarkets in the past year, compared to £124 million on chilled cod (Nielsen retail figures for 52 weeks leading up to 16 April 2011).


Dr Paul Williams, Seafish Chief Executive, said: “With properties similar to cod and haddock, hake is an excellent species to try and it‟s very good value for money. We are lucky in the UK that the quality and supply of hake is great – so I‟d encourage consumers to widen their range of seafood to include hake this summer.”


Hake, known as „merluza‟ in Spain, is a Spanish favourite and since the Spanish have the highest per capita consumption of seafood in Europe, they should know what they‟re talking about.


Dr Williams continued: “In addition to tasting great, the Omega-3 content for hake is surprisingly high for a whitefish. It is the 12th highest source of Omega-3 in a table published by Seafish, from a total of 41 species tested.”


The latest ICES (scientific) advice for Northern European hake, the stock landed in the UK, is favourable for its sustainability. The Seafish Responsible Sourcing Guide to hake is available here.

Mitch Tonks (right) guides England rugby player Matt Dawson  cooking hake down the quay in Newlyn.

Mitch Tonks, fishmonger, food writer and restaurateur, is a big fan of hake:

“Hake is a great favourite in Spain and a lot of ours is exported; we should definitely eat more of it here, it is a lovely whitefish, a real treat to get hold of a chunk as its flesh is soft and delicious. Snap it up when you can.”


Hake can grow quite large, like cod, and can be processed into fillets and steaks and is available filleted or frozen. In Cornwall, the traditional dish of hake and onions‟ is still popular.

Prime hake on Newlyn fish auction - prices are now very competitive.

Best availability for UK-landed hake is May until September.

Hugh and the DJ.

Courtesy of ThisisDorset.

Dorset chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s campaigning Channel 4 series Hugh’s Fish Fight won the Features BAFTA at this year's awards.

The show beat off competition from programmes such as Come Dine With Me, Mary Queen Of Shops and Pineapple Dance Studios.

Fearnley-Whittingstall joked: “Given the amazing competition, it’s nice to know that there are so many fish on the Bafta juries" - the fish man just doesn't look too comfortable in that DJ though!.

Dinner at Heston Blumenthal.

Dinner (now where have I just seen a fork for an 'i' before?!) - a unique dining experience at the other end of the scale and country..........

complete with source of inspiration for the Dinner menu - a time when quotas were definitely not in force on the high seas from whence the fish came........

with oyster, scallops and mackerel all featuring on the starters menu.......

and turbot and cod making the main Dinner dish list.


Heston features (along with Jamie O) in Hartsman's Zeitgeist food guide just published - inspired by Harry Beck's iconic London Underground map that has been copied all over the world.

Down Chapel Street and turn left - Untitled.

Never far from a fish connection in Penzance.......

check out Newlyn artist, Jason Walker at the Stoneman Gallery.......

or press the unprepossessing door buzzer and live the dream at the Artist Residence Hotel.......

a message for anyone with paintings to spare from Barnes Thomas Auctioneers........

after turning left at the Admiral Benbow and housed in the old Zero Nightclub (which was previously the Co-op dairy stables) the restaurant and Tapas bar Untitled headed up by local chef Robert Wright  appear.....

with a choice of eating preferences...........

head for the bar at the entrance where you will be shown to a cosy corner at ground level.......

around the old nightclub dance floor......

where the spirits of late-night revellers still manifest themselves.......

while you choose from a tapas menu spattered and peppered with flavours, textures (and check out the steps leading upstairs to the restaurant proper where until recently Michael Riemenschnieder held court)........

and combinations to please plenty of palates.......

served in small ceramic earthenware dishes........

on the way out in the entrance vestibule, one of several eclectic objects can be found.......

a ceramic developing tank for rolls of 35mm Kodak film no less.

Support your local fishermen- it's a fishy Saturday!

Plenty of trade with the bigger yachts at this time of year......

while there are bottoms to be scrubbed with the punts........

any old shoes.........

something to chill those beers for the BBQ ce soir........

the Sennen smile, what you get for a morning's work that produced 70Kg of mackerel - them Sennen boys a'coming round here stealing our fish!.......

those blues contrast nicely with the orange leggings.......

another bottom that needs a scrub.......

how many men does it take to take ice.........

quality first - slush ice boxes on the punt........

but it's still an uphill struggle........

put it in the diary.......

great to see! - our local restaurants taking advantage of good mackerel supplies........

At Source,  Penzance's only Mac Pin outlet from HFW's mac-bap campaign...... 

while the Blue Snappa goes one better and has locally caught hake and grey mullet on their Specials board.