Gone Fishing
ALTHOUGH we are surrounded by water in Ireland we don’t feel the love for our fish as deeply as other countries with the riches that accompany vast coastlines. Historically, fish was something the Catholic Church said you should eat on a Friday, but only really as a substitute for meat, so Friday’s fish had penitential rather than indulgent associations. When I was growing up in the 80s my dad would roam the local Offaly rivers and brooks catching brown and rainbow trout. The treatment it got was a very thorough frying and if he was feeling exotic, a bit of lemon juice. It was simple and delicious, though as kids we took it for granted. Even though it was coming from a few hundred metres away, preparing fish felt alien, something we were a little unsure of. Maybe the feeling that cooking fish was scary led Ireland to embrace processed fish products; orange fish fingers and the rather more sophisticated Donegal Catch breaded frozen fish pieces that fulfilled every family’s Friday obligation. But our appetite for fish is resurging. Niall Sabongi is a chef who runs a sustainable seafood wholesales. He also owns Klaw and Klaw Poké, two casual dining spots in Dublin, and the bright and bustling Seafood Café where we met, as well as running a sustainable seafood wholesale company. He wants to change our attitudes towards fish. I asked him why he thinks we haven’t always taken advantage of the seas and oceans around us. He points to the famine of the 1840s. Exploitation of our seas by the British was one thing, but the loss of generations of fish-related technical skill and knowledge, through death and emigration, was far more detrimental to the industry.
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CHAR — ISSUE ONE
