Why are we afraid of fish?

I love a fish cake! I love fish n chips!

But otherwise no no no no no...I went to visit my girlfriend's family in Spain and they laid out this buffet for us and it was mostly fish. Possibly my worst nightmare, crab legs just sprawled across the table, no thanks :) I had lamb and potatoes instead with a few cruzcampo!
 
I just don't like. Not a fan of the texture, the taste of fresh white fish is fine but it not robust, somewhat bland, salty, or earthy. Fish like salmon have a potent aftertaste that I don't find pleasant, also oily, and a lingering feeling of rotting seaweed.

Fish just aren't suitable for many cooking techniques I enjoy like slow cooking. Reheating rarely works with fish. Preparation and technique are often harder.

I am not fussy. I eat almost anything. I just far prefer other meats. Not just the usually beef-chicken, but I far prefer things like grouse, pigeon, lamb, goat, venison, goose, pheasant, duck, rabbit, hare, wild boar, horse, elk, buffalo, kangaroo. I also prefer things like lizard, snake, crocodile, etc.

Plus there are a load of great game meats in parts of the world, various mountain goats etc.

With all that greatness on land why bother with fish?

And yes, I do eat fish occasionally, there re just so many other better protein sources.
 
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I have fish pretty much every day (often for breakfast - honey smoked mackerel and eggs oh yes!!!!). I love it! I could almost give up meat for fish. Almost. :p
 
Cambofrog said:
I agree. Even if you buy a a fillet that is supposedly deboned, it can't always be trusted.

If I find a single bone in a fish, I'm always paranoid after that, and it spoils the dish for me.

Strangely, I've never found any bones in canned or frozen fish.
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Same here,love fish and could eat fish 3 times a day if they 100% had no bones.

Had a bad experience with some fish and got a bone stuck down my throat many years ago,the only fish i eat now is breaded or tuna :)
 
I eat loads of fish, good for you, cheap, tasty.
Same with offal.

I know so many people who don't like fish on the bones, I love it, theres a skill to eating it without getting bones but it's not difficult to master.

Don't see how it's a class issue, most people buy their meat from budget supermarkets (tesco, asda etc.) so they can't care that much about meat class warfare.
 
I don't eat enough fish but wish I did. I do love it and if I go to a restaurant I always have a gander at the fish section, unfortunately I think my love of red meat is just too strong.
 
D.P. said:
I just don't like. Not a fan of the texture, the taste of fresh white fish is fine but it not robust, somewhat bland, salty, or earthy. Fish like salmon have a potent aftertaste that I don't find pleasant, also oily, and a lingering feeling of rotting seaweed.

Fish just aren't suitable for many cooking techniques I enjoy like slow cooking. Reheating rarely works with fish. Preparation and technique are often harder.

I am not fussy. I eat almost anything. I just far prefer other meats. Not just the usually beef-chicken, but I far prefer things like grouse, pigeon, lamb, goat, venison, goose, pheasant, duck, rabbit, hare, wild boar, horse, elk, buffalo, kangaroo. I also prefer things like lizard, snake, crocodile, etc.

Plus there are a load of great game meats in parts of the world, various mountain goats etc.

With all that greatness on land why bother with fish?

And yes, I do eat fish occasionally, there re just so many other better protein sources.
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Fair enough on preference as it seems you clearly like your dark meat.

As you can see fish is a lot more delicate.

As for you think "preparation is a lot harder", well, this is the secret. It's easy, you don't, at all. Just don't prepare it. Seriously, there is no preparation needed really, it is best eaten fresh, as fresh as possible, raw if you want so there is nothing to prepare? It's not like you need to gut it and descale it yourself (even I can do that and have done that, its not difficult), you can buy fillets these days that you can just eat so what is difficult to prepare? The worst thing you can do is over prepare it because it is delicate.

Because it is so delicate you don't need to marinate it either, any flavour will be easily absorb so there is no waiting time for the flavour to be absorbed by the meat.

I also disagree the "all that greatness on land why bother with fish", because fish is great, it is just different. Fish is not better than beef and beef isn't better than fish. They are just different and both excellent.

Now, I am not picky, REALLY not picky :p give me fish, snails, beef, toad, jellyfish, anything and I will eat it. :D

Granted that some fish are more tricky to eat than others, some have more flesh, some have more bone to meat ratio but they are all lovely. That soft and moist texture, knowing it is full of protein and good fats, it really is the best meat in my opinion.
 
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I love fish and will eat it cooked/raw. I’ll eat anything that comes out of the sea including squid ink. I could eat fish/seafood seven days a week.
 
I really like flakey white fish, steamed with some tartare sauce and some mash.
I think it's just a case of people not trying it enough.
 
For me it's three reasons:
- Expensive and hard to source
- Hard to cook well
- Hard to eat (bones and threat of dying..:p)

I would be willing to cook fish whole which is obviously fairly easy, but my girlfriend is very paranoid about choking on bones so it's just not worth the hassle.

The main reason though is the expense. Sure, you can get mackerel, cod, haddock etc. quite cheaply but anything more interesting and you may as well buy a steak. I'd love to cook sea bass but it's so damn expensive everywhere.

And I just can't understand why? :confused: As the OP says we are an island nation for crying out loud! It does annoy me as I'd be quite willing to eat fish 3-4 times a week otherwise. Even prawns are expensive! :(
 
I love fish. Bought a whole salmon for just over a tenner from Sainsburys for the New Year and it was fantastic.

I eat fish regularly, but I think I really ought to eat more shellfish, often overlooked.
 
Ricochet J said:
We're an island nation surrounded by sea and amazing varieties of fish. As a nation I don't think we eat enough of it.
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Given that our national dish is arguably fish and chips, I don't necessarily think we're scared of it as a nation.

It's probably fairer to say that we haven't truly embraced it into our culture as we've done with other ingredients.

Ricochet J said:
It can be cheap too. I just bought a whole fresh trout for £1.80! Plus fish is dead easy to make.
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And price certainly isn't the issue with fish - you could give it away and a large proportion of people still wouldn't eat it.

Ricochet J said:
What's the issue?
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Given that fish and seafood in general has always remained a popular choice for people dining out, that suggests to me that the taste of the product isn't the issue here.

I'd suggest that people opposed to the idea of eating fish on a regular basis simply don't like handing the raw ingredient, dealing with the smell in their kitchen afterwards and plenty of the steps in-between.

But what really puts a lot of people off eating fish is the sense of trepidation you get when eating it. Most people that have sworn off fish will have done it because they had a bad experience with a bone getting stuck in their mouth or throat.

And you certainly don't get that with many other sources of protein.

Glaucus said:
I cant find razor clams :( or chicken hearts :(
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Well, you won't find them in your average supermarket, but as someone who regularly buys online you appear to be looking in the wrong places.

Glaucus said:
then you have things like oysters, which have done a total 180 from poor protein packer to fashionable high end delicacy.
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That had very little to do with fashion.

It was originally the scarcity of a once freely-available product that drove prices through the roof and landed oysters firmly on the plates of the wealthy.

And once the famers worked out that they could make the same amount of money, if not more, from a much smaller market, oysters were destined to remain as a luxury item.

Obviously there's a lot more to do with it than that, but it certainly wasn't fashion that contributed to their rise as a delicacy. It may well be the driving force behing their status now, but it wasn't instrumental in bringing it about.

Glaucus said:
We follow the hird.
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Thora?

Glaucus said:
Heston is a great example as he changed so much, a few things have stuck (like double/triple cooked chips at gastro pubs) but most of it has died out at least in the publics interest and just seen as over the top.
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Heston has changed very little when compared with someone like Delia or even Jamie.

But yes, it is fair to say that triple-cooked chips are widely served in gastropubs now as a result of his name being attached to them. But it's also a way of drawing people in with a fashionable product and being able to charge more money for them as a result.

If you truly want to see how much of an effect a 'celebrity' chef can have on the way a nation eats, look at what Delia was doing in the late eighties/early nineties.
 
I do indeed like buying stuff online, however it's prohibited expensive without bulk buying due to postage.

There's a reason I used Heston and not someone like delia. Heston is recent and a massive name, most people won't know/remeber Delias influence.
 
Glaucus said:
I do indeed like buying stuff online, however it's prohibited expensive without bulk buying due to postage.
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You're Bristol-based, or thereabouts, aren't you?

I'm sure there must be a local fishmonger who will deliver them to your door. There's certainly someone in Bristol who supplies them to the restaurants.

Glaucus said:
There's a reason I used Heston and not someone like delia. Heston is recent and a massive name, most people won't know/remeber Delias influence.
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Yes, I appreciate he's a more recent name, but you make out like everyone is triple-cooking their chips of an evening and using dry-ice to make ice cream.

Granted he's had an influence, but it's fleeting and nowhere near as wide-ranging as someone like Delia or even Nigella, for that matter.

And were he to actually put some more effort into teaching people how to cook and stopped sodding about with making giant teapots, we might actually benefit from it as a nation.
 
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