All was going remarkably well, until one damp Sunday evening in Honfleur.
Being a harbour town it was obvious that we needed fish and chips. Being a
tourist town on a wet Sunday evening in November it soon became obvious that
finding fish and chips was not going to be the easy task we first thought.
Eventually, however, we found an open restaurant in our price range that had
food we (ok - she) recognised and approved of.
The fish on the menu was Colin, something I didn't recognise. "What sort of
fish is Colin?" I asked, only to receive a bemused look. "It's... Colin" said
the waitress (all done in English, I hasten to add). None the wiser, I ordered
it, and since then Colin has been our inexpensive fish of choice.
But what sort of fish is Colin?
Colin
Colin is one of the French names for hake (Merluccius merluccius), the
others being merlu and saumon blanc. However the name Colin may also be used
for lieu noir (coley/saithe) or lieu jaune (pollack). They are all fish from
the wider cod family and it's not easy to tell what species you're being sold,
especially once it has been cooked. In a fishmonger's (and probably a
supermarket) the common name might have the Latin name as well, but in
restaurants it could be whatever sea caught fish with firm white flesh was
cheapest in the market that day.
Sometimes Colin
That means that (unwittingly) my question "what sort of fish is Colin" was valid. It just didn't sound clever.
No comments:
Post a Comment