My Mum was a very good cook (actually latterly Dad was pretty good too, but this is about a memory of childhood). My sisters and I have very distinct memories of how Norma prepared white fish like sole or halibut. One way was to poach it on a dinner plate in milk then use it in a fish pie or pudding, using the milk in the sauce. But the one that sticks out, that we’ve actually talked about on and off for the last couple of decades, was breading fish fillets in orange crumbs of some sort. We all remember it vividly – we even associate the same recipe with our Grandma Reid making it too, although that may be a slightly less clear memory; if ever my Dad mentioned his mother cooking something, my Mum would snort derisively and say, “Your mother? Cook? Ha!”
I think we all liked these orange fillets well enough, certainly none of us has complained while discussing it. A couple of years ago, I finally found a box of the breading, Ruskoline in a store and brought it home. LIke all childhood memories, it hadn’t quite stood the test of time. You know, you go to your high school reunion only to discover the classrooms and halls are much smaller that you remember. Well, same idea – while the fish breaded in Ruskoline tasted the same, clearly we had amplified the orange-ness of it in our memories. Turned out to be more of a pale coral. Ah well.
Last Thursday the fish van came by as usual (see previous posts), and I bought several halibut fillets. Just as I was paying, the fish monger (there’s a word we simply don’t get to use as often as we should) asked if I wanted some breading with my order and produced a baggie of virulent orange crumbs. I mean electric orange. OMG! We were right all along! Those fillets of our youth were orange!
So last night I had electric orange fish, just like when I was little, along with courgette and tomatoes from my cousin’s allotment in Kent. Childhood memories live on. *As an aside, he didn’t charge me for said crumbs, it’s just all part of the service of having a fish van pull up outside your house once a week with fish caught that morning in the North Sea.
(*Ignore the broken fillet – it tasted deelish.)