HUGH’S FISH FIGHT EPISODE ONE REVIEW
Posted by Stelios Theocharous January 12, 2011 - 6:09 pm
Courtesy of Channel 4
I am quite impressed that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has chosen this topic, I might also add that I thought this should have been done well before his chicken campaign.
After watching it this morning on channel four online, I logged on to chippy-chat.co.uk to have a look what the industry was thinking and it seems that a lot of people think that it may show fish and chip shops in a negative light. I think its best to assure people that the fish and chip shop is not the criminal, they are a retail outlet that supply what customers want to eat and i would say 99% of customers know what they fancy before they even go to their local chippy.
Here is a breakdown of what I thought of the show..
Discards:
I think that this is a criminal activity, there are millions of starving people in the world and we have scientists telling the public not eat cod because it is unsustainable and imagine if the real amount of cod was being caught how much cheaper it would be for the public to buy as an alternative to meat and poultry.
Holy Mackerel …
Im going to just lay this out there, this was the most pointless thing of the show. Why choose a fish to make us sell less cod when there is crabs and seagulls eating discards from the boats??? also Hugh is a chef, so you would think that egg and flour would be great for pan frying but to actually cook it in a commercial frying range, come on…! If you do fancy trying mackerel let me suggest a way to do it, dust it in seasoned flour and then batter lightly in a batter mix, this will protect the delicate fish and also decrease the leakage from the fish and it shouldn’t spoil your oil oh and do us a favour and lob the bun in the bin…
What Next?
Well, we will have to see what episode two brings, but I do think Hugh needs to embrace the supermarkets rather than trying to annoy the supermarkets, they have the power to change laws in their favour and they can change peoples buying habits with their huge marketing spend.
Come back to read episode two review…
Well summed up. It didnt show us in too bad a light. Customers do want either cod or Haddock in the main. I cant see that changing.
There is meant to be a piece on the sale of panga by fish and chip shops on Dispatches on saturday night as part of the season also. We shall see.
I can’t even get any sense of why Mackerel was even on the program. A total distraction from the issue IMO! The Quota system sucks and that’s the end of the story. Limited fishing days are the way forward, a boat only is allowed to fish so many days a year but it lands all its catch. Should we not e mail the minister in charge of fishing?
Richard Benyon MP
6 Cheap Street,
Newbury,
RG14 5DD
Tel: 01635 551070
Fax: 01635 569690
Email: richard@richardbenyon.com
Agree with the way you have summarized it, discards are criminal and perhaps someone should take the EU on for excessive waste, let’s buy from a lower base and sell at an attactive price where more people can afford to buy more and we would see more gainful employment of ALL RESOURCES and people eating the RDA quota of fish also.
As for the bun the bin is the best place for it, or is he asking one of the great big chains to add it to their menu?
20,000 tons of discard per week, off the shores of Britain was quoted, how does that compare with the butter mountains we had in the past.
What a difference that additional supply would have in the market.
Are there any grants or super subsidizes paid to other countries fishermen because of the quota’s or are their better off than Britain’s?
How can we get the quota details from every other country involved?
With the state of our debt in this country. Why do we throw good dead fish away, how can this conserve fish stocks. Then we have to buy imported fish from other countries for us to eat. This is madness!
Hugh is against fish farming, because natural fish are caught to feed the farmed fish. If the fish were wild they would be eating natural fish any way, and probably more of it. Does this mean he is against organic farmed cod, which has been pushed by so many as sustainable.
Pangus, river cobbler, Vietnamese cat fish or Basas is produced in one of the most polluted rivers in the world, and the fish have chemicals in them, but this is sold in super markets as sustainable. What is wrong with British Fish.
Fantastic summary Stelios.
I can’t believe that this goes on unabated
And the bun is a joke. Is it trying to be a magnet for chavs???
Keep up the good work