Did you see Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s brilliant Fish Fight programmes on Channel 4? Hugh did an excellent job highlighting the horrific fact that half of all the fish caught in the North Sea are thrown back overboard dead. That’s a million tonnes of beautiful fish killed and dumped every year in the North Sea alone. Obscene isn’t it?
The fishermen hate it too. It’s all down to the quota* system devised and enforced by the EU. We all want to conserve our fish stocks, but the current system ain’t the way! This system is up for revision next year, so now is the time to join the fight and stop this insanity. We have joined www.fishfight.net and urge you to do the same.
The campaign is also about making other fish more fashionable to give exploited stock a chance to recover. Forget cod, haddock and plaice. Let’s revive fishy treats that have tempted us for centuries. Think about pollock, whiting, razor clams, squid and put them back on your table.
We are proud that almost all of the fish we serve is MSC** certified, sustainable and from our fine English coast. (We’re looking at how we can make that 100% whilst keeping you happy.) At The Tommyfield, we even have a daily catch which differs depending on what’s been caught. Today you could have snow crab, coley and mackerel, battered or grilled, served with chips or salad for example. At The Avalon try whole baked seabass with garlic and ginger, sautéed swiss chard, roast peppers, white radish and sesame or at The Stonhouse, tuck into seared Shetland scallops with warm sundried tomato and fennel salad and saffron sauce.
We are also joining Hugh's Mackerel Mission. Our popular fish and chips are now mackerel (except at the Avalon, where mackerel is a starter so we're using sustainable Cape Hake there). Come and try it, it's absolutely delicious and super healthy - providing your essential fatty acids and daily Omega-3.
What are you waiting for? Sign up, save the fish and pop to the pub to make a real difference to the future of our beautiful sea.
* The rules state fisherman are only allowed to bring back to shore a certain volume of each fish. The problem is that fishermen cannot perfectly control what they catch. So as soon as they’ve hit their quota limit on a specific species, it has to be thrown back to the sea. In order to make a living, they have to keep fishing to catch the other varieties they’re allowed to land. One proposed solution is to give the fishermen a limit on the number of days a vessel is at sea, rather than specifying how much of each fish they are allowed to bring back to land.
** MSC =Marine Stewardship Council