reLAKSation 324. Callander McDowell
Bone of contention: According to the Observer newspaper, celebrity cookery school, Leiths, is running a series of courses in the run up to Christmas on how to carve turkey. This is because the art of carving a turkey is being lost as more and more consumers shy away from the delicate task of cutting meat off the bone and are buying their poultry already deboned.
Sales of boneless poultry have soared in the past year by 38 per cent with Tesco expecting to sell a fifth (about 220,000) of all its turkeys and geese this Christmas as ‘crowns’ with the legs removed. Sainsbury’s report a similar surge in demand for poultry with all the tricky bones taken out. They expect to sell 40,000 of their 'Taste the Difference' turkey crowns, an increase of 40 per cent on last Christmas.
The supermarkets are also adapting to this changing consumer demand by extending ranges of Easy-carve poultry. Tesco claim orders have risen by 24 per cent this year.
Tesco say that these changes reflect today’s fast food culture together with the demise of the traditional home cooked Sunday roast. They say that hardly anyone under 50 knows how to carve any more and most people are gripped with fear at the prospect of having to butcher the Christmas dinner.
Of course, this changing trend is of no real surprise. Fish consumption has been affected in much the same way. Whilst the retail sector, especially the traditional independent fishmongers, take much delight in putting on an impressive display on their fish counters that includes much whole fish, the thought of even touching a whole fish deters many people from buying fresh fish. If the public shies away from having to deal with the well defined bones found in poultry, then the possible presence of the much smaller bones in fish translates into a major obstacle to fish purchase.
Some supermarkets are trying to convert consumers with fixed weight boneless portions and easy to cook packaging but in many cases the damage has already been done in that consumers have already established a negative image of fish and never even consider visiting the fish counter to see if the offerings have changed. Whilst the celebrity chefs continue to promote their vision of fish, it is not what the consumer really wants. Whether we like it or not, the future is all about easy to carve and easy to cook and this is what the industry needs to increasingly address.
How much the culture has changed can be illustrated by a letter from a small organic turkey producer which was published in the Daily Mail. The owner of a small holding producing just 70 organic and free range turkeys rues that fact that many potential customers shun these birds because they are not shrunk wrapped when sold! Surely, a sign of the times!
Overindulge: In the run up to Christmas, the Daily Mail has been
helpfully providing its readers with advice on doing everything in moderation,
especially about how much to eat and drink over Christmas. In one piece they
consider the perils of eating smoked salmon to excess.
They say that whilst we are being told that oily fish helps reduce the risk of heart disease, we are also warned that it can contain pollutants. They add that high salt in smoked salmon can raise blood pressure whilst smoked food may be carcinogenic.
The Dail Mail provides advice form Dr Beckie Lang of the Medical Research Council who suggests that two 140g portions a week are fine for most people.
It seems to us, at Callander McDowell, that the Daily Mail is somewhat confused between smoked and fresh salmon. 280g of smoked salmon seems a lot of smoked salmon for most people to be eating a week. Whilst we don’t think that there is any problem eating as much smoked salmon as this, it is unlikely that many people sit down to eat 140g of smoked salmon in one go. It’s more likely to be served in smaller portions as part of a starter rather than a main course. This is reflected in the size of packaging in which smoked salmon is sold. These typically range between 100g and 200g. Of course, we will now be inundated with examples of recipes using much larger quantities of smoked salmon, but the real issue is not whether smoked salmon is eaten in quantity or not but on the advice about salmon consumption that often appears in the media.
Not long ago, the aquaculture industry launched the new Aquaculture Information Bureau providing the media with up to date and accurate information about our industry but it is becoming increasingly clear that there is also a need for a similar source of information for the consumer. For example, such a consumer-friendly source could answer some of the concerns about eating salmon, about sustainability, about farming etc.
There is already the ‘Salmon of the Americas’ who try to answer some of these concerns but their target audience is in the US. There was talk about setting up a similar ‘Salmon of Europe’ organisation but this didn’t materialise. Instead, we need a much more targeted approach focusing on individual geographic markets. The UK is an obvious example. As well as providing consumers with clear and accurate information, the information can also be directed at those journalists and media that are all too ready to publish helpful hints without conducting the proper background research.
A Christmas tale: The Daily Telegraph reports that the surprise hit on the supermarket fish counter this Christmas is carp. According to Waitrose, sales are already up 50 per cent on last year. The reason for this increased demand is the number of Eastern Europeans now living in Britain who are searching for a seasonal taste of home. Traditionally, carp is eaten at Christmas or New Year in many Eastern European countries. The Daily Telegraph spoke to an au pair, Joanna Pietrzykowska who said that in her family, carp is eaten as the culmination of a traditional 12 course meat free feast on Christmas Eve. The fish is usually served cold covered in aspic.
Whilst sales may be on the increase due to the influx of recent immigrants, the demand for carp is not new. There was an earlier wave of Eastern European immigration to the UK following the 2nd World War where large numbers settled in the UK’s industrial north. In common with other immigrants, they lived in close proximity and maintained their traditions and culture including eating carp, which tended to be sourced from specialist suppliers. These previous immigrant communities have proved to be a focus for the latest arrivals and as a result, the local Polish communities have noticeably grown. Until very recently, Waitrose has been southern based and therefore would not have seen the local demand for this fish. Waitrose are not the only supermarket to respond to this growing demand for carp at Christmas, as Tesco and Morrison’s are also putting the fish on their fish counters.
However, it is not just the expanding Polish community that have an interest in carp. Celebrity cook Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall featured carp in his latest TV series which looked at alternative sustainable fish species. The accompanying cookbook to the TV series appears even more popular and has received rave reviews in the press. The London Evening Standard described the book as definitive, authoritative and inspirational. Unfortunately, whilst it well may fit these descriptive terms, it is not accurate, at least not in relation to carp.
Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall describes in his book how carp are not native to Britain but were introduced by the Romans during their occupation. However he is just a little wrong. About a thousand years wrong in total.
Drawing attention to this error may be considered to be ‘nit-picking’ but the history of carp is actually the history of fish farming and therefore fundamental to our existence. Of all fish, carp should have the pride of place in our industry. From its natural environment around the Aural Sea and the River Danube, carp have spread around the world because of the ease in which they can be reared in enclosed ponds.
According to historians, carp spread through Southern Europe with the spread of the Christian Church. The Church calendar meant that about a third of the days of the year were days on which no red meat could be eaten. Thus the only food that could be eaten came from cold blooded animals such as fish. In order to supply the large Church houses with a regular supply of fish, wild fish were caught and stored in specially dug ponds.
Christian travellers on the Silk Road subsequently noticed that carp bred in the shallows of the flood plains of the Danube and that young fish if kept in ponds could be grown larger. This knowledge was passed on through the Church and as a result carp spread through Europe from one Monastic House to another.
Yet, it seems that the Church was not responsible for bringing carp to Britain. Monastic Houses and well as other estates had fishponds in which wild caught fish were stored. These fish ponds were considered something of a status symbol as can be illustrated by Franklin in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales who brags about his fishponds to fellow travellers. There is quite a bit of documentary evidence relating to fishponds that appeared in Medieval Britain but although these describe various fish species, not one mentions carp.
It is not until the fourteenth century that carp first appears in the written records with its appearance in the accounts of the royal kitchen. Carp is then mentioned by Juliana Berners writing in the Book of St Albans in 1496 although an earlier version might have written towards the beginning of the century. Dame Juliana writes that she knows little of carp as ‘there be but few in England’. After this date, references to carp appear increasingly frequently in the contemporary literature.
It seems that someone brought carp over from the continent (wrapped in wet moss) to improve the production of their ponds. This was a deliberate commercial decision rather than being associated with the Church. In fact, the Monastic Houses don’t seem to have acquired carp until very late on, almost just before the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry the Eighth.
Carp were quickly seen to add value to fishponds so by the end of the sixteenth century carp were the most popular fish to be kept in fishponds. In 1600, John Taverner wrote a treatise about growing carp, most of which is as valid now as the day it was written.
Sadly, the rise of industrialised fishing and improved transportation meant that carp fell out of favour with the population as plentiful supplies of fresh marine fish found their way to urban markets. It then evolved into a sport fish and was adopted by anglers as a prized catch.
Whilst carp fell out of favour in Britain, it is still grown in many parts of the world for their flesh. In China, it is supposed to bring good luck if it is served at a wedding. In the Baltic States, it is traditional to eat carp at New Year where it too is thought to bring luck whilst in other parts of Eastern Europe it is a feature of the Christmas festivities.
With such a history and tradition, it is no wonder it is the most farmed fish in the world.
Happy Christmas to all.