Fishy Friday II

 Let's hear it for hake! goujons, dipped in egg and rolled in panko breadcrumbs......

 along with mackerel fillets, dipped in egg, dredged with flour and a few pots of mayo+one finely chopped gherkin+one crushed clove garlic+lemon juice.........

 shallow fry pan for both  lots of fish........

and an end of meal sloe gin treat.

Let's hear it for the spiders!

Extract form an article in the Independent - and Newlyn has its fair share of boats that fish for those sweeter-than-sweet meat spiders.

"Seek out spider crab in Britain, though, and you'll probably struggle. Unless you've eaten at specialist fish restaurants such as Mitch Tonks' Seahorse in Dartmouth, Nathan Outlaw in North Cornwall or Tom Aikens in London, most Brits are as likely to have tasted the sweet tender flesh of spider crab as they are to have eaten jellied eels or snails".  All three chefs are no strangers to Newlyn of course.

As the article go on to say; "Although the waters around our island are teeming with these crustaceans, we seem to prefer to stick to the imported tuna and farmed salmon to which we're accustomed. More than half of our spider crabs are whisked straight to Spain and France while they're still alive, without even touching British soil" - as can be sen from the lorry above, bound for Portugal.

Tiz a fishy Friday tiz is.

There's more than one way to catch fish, it's high water and a local angler chances his arm for bass on the beach......

while one of three seals patrols the area just in front of the fish market looking for scraps.......

good to see slipper-skipper Don willing to turn his hand while the good ship Filadelfia is away in Holland having a new winch.......

destined for the London restaurant scene no doubt - follow those tags........

time for a smile from Mr Thomas and Mr Tonkin........

before getting back to collecting bass scales........

and recording overal length.......

the Scillies are in the news today........

and a very busy market scene with many of the small boats landing to the market.......

make 'em smile and they might just pay more for your fish......

looking more like koi carp, red mullet and not enough of them for the inshore trawler Jessica Grace......

who have put out wanted notices at sea for big John Dorys too........

plenty of data collecting from CEFAS this morning......

best pollack in the West........

not forgetting the finest stripey mackerel.

Police over Penzance as Queen arrives by train.

A police helicopter hovers over the town centre as the Queen arrives at Penzance railway station before she travels to the Scillys for the day.

No6 makes it dish No4!

Photo courtesy of No6 Padstow.

Paul Ainsworth from the No6 restaurant in Padstow just scrapes in to the Great British Menu final with his pudding dish. The judges gave him two nines and two tens for his fairground celebration dish.


Watch the final episode before the street party itself with its finalist's dishes at the historic Leadenhall Market.

African fishermen's plea as exploitation threatens livelihoods

© Phil Lockley 2011.

Small-boat fishermen from across Africa may be financially wiped out if bulk fishing off their shores by European boats continues, industry leaders across the South West have been told.  Fisherman from Cape Verde, Mauritania and Senegal were part of a delegation to visit Westcountry colleagues in an effort to spread warnings about their plight. A spokesman from Greenpeace, which organised the African Voices' trip to Newlyn Harbour, said: "The disastrous effects of overfishing by European fleets aren't confined to our continent's waters. Destructive European Union vessels are now exploiting the waters of the world's poorest nations, threatening ecosystems and depriving local fishermen of their livelihoods and the food security of their communities."

The delegation met Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon before taking in a tour of Newlyn market and exploring inshore vessels. An open meeting held later at the Fishermen's Mission allowed local seafarers to share their experiences. Celestino Oliveira, from Cape Verde, said: "Yes, our fishermen need to get together, but we must also focus our attention on fish suppliers and European retailers, supermarkets, right down to the people who eat those fish. "In reforming the Common Fisheries Policy in 2013 please don't forget us – look upon sustainability and the effects of your actions before you fish in our waters.
"You need to make money, our governments sign agreements with the EU, you rightfully wish to eat those fish. So why is it that our countries are signing those licences? Because monies coming as a result are vital to underdeveloped economies. "We have no resources to police your boats – the problem is not the licences issued in good faith, but the amount of illegal and unreported fishing that takes place as a result. "We are allowed to take 32,000 tons of tuna per year, but that represents just a quarter of the stocks we had available in the 1980s – yet to us tuna fishing provides jobs for a significant proportion of the country's population. So three-quarters of the stocks on which to fish have disappeared in the last 30 years."


Newlyn fish merchant Nick Howell talked of the Cornish handline mackerel fishermen's plight 30 years ago, fighting against large pelagic trawlers from Scotland, describing it as a parallel to the African Voices. He said: "What if we (in the UK) could never eat another fish? We would survive and move immediately to another protein source – fish is just another choice on the plate. "But those countries would literally starve as fish is at least 60 per cent of their protein, and 80 per cent of those entire communities are directly involved with small-scale fishing."


Newlyn small boat fisherman and boatbuilder Peter Downing said: "Your governments must get their act together. I have been to Gambia many times over the past 20 years, watched your fishermen and fish markets dwindle, and have seen the bigger boats come into your waters and take prime fish.
"The local markets and fishing communities are really suffering."

Genetics comes to a fish slab near you!

This is the lead paragraph from an article in the New York Times published recentlly - coinciding with moves in Brussels to use genetic or DNA testing to prove the provenance of fish in your local supermarket, restaurant or shop!

"Scientists aiming their gene sequencers at commercial seafood are discovering rampant labeling fraud in supermarket coolers and restaurant tables: cheap fish is often substituted for expensive fillets, and overfished species are passed off as fish whose numbers are plentiful."

Read the full article here.