Don’t be fobbed off

There is plenty of life, as well as recent death, in a fish market. For its colour and noise and atmosphere the market by the Rialto bridge in Venice is as fascinating to me as a visit to the Scuola degli Schiavoni to see the Carpaccios. To buy, or just to admire, the fish landed on the Spanish Mediterranean coast I would highly recommend the Boqueria in Barcelona; and there is no better place than the wholesale market in Vigo to see the variety of Atlantic fish which are unloaded on to the quay throughout the night. Though I have never been to the famous market at Boulogne, a friend urged me to go to Lorient on the Brittany coast when I was staying nearby a few years ago. I remember cursing him as I lost my way in the town on a miserably wet morning before dawn, but I also recall the highlight of the market that day — a monster halibut, gaffed and strung up and looking like some sort of flying saucer.

The weight of this great flatfish was announced; it was, I think, about 200 lbs, though I have forgotten the exact figure. The Cook’s Encyclopaedia by Tom Stobart claims that a halibut may be 15 ft long and weigh as much as 1,300 lbs, though Alan Davidson, in North Atlantic Seafood, refers to a maximum size of 600–700 lbs. In either case, such a fish would make a lot of steaks, and a lot of money at around £7 a pound.

That Lorient fish was unlikely to have ended up on French tables; indeed it was something of a surprise that a halibut should have been caught so far south. The species is found mainly in north British and Arctic waters, and for that reason is seldom used in French cooking.