Page 28 - foodservice Magazine August 2018

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PRODUCE
LIGURIAN HOLIDAY
BACK FROM A TRIP TO THE MEDITERRANEAN, JOHN SUSMAN REMINISCES ABOUT ITALIAN SEAFOOD CULTURE AND THE PREVALENCE OF WILD CAUGHT FISH IN BOTH SHOPS AND RESTAURANTS.
It’s 8:00pm on a Wednesday evening during the summer holidays and we are the only people in the restaurant. The weather is
a perfect 28˚C and the clear blue sky has another 90 minutes of sunlight before it sets over the Ligurian coast of northern Italy.
The town of Rapallo is NOT the über- luxurious Portofino nor the more modest but still exotic Santa Margherita. But it is still a marquee coastal city on the Italian Riviera.
The restaurants in Rappallo are populated more by locals than tourists. This particular restaurant is attached to a still-open fish shop, bustling with eager shoppers haggling over
all manner of creatures from the local Mediterranean waters, some of which had arrived in the shop in the preceding few hours.
Knowing from experience that wild seafood in this part of the world is highly revered, I had visited the shop-restaurant earlier in the day to put dibs on the best of the catch that had come in the previous night (and some that morning), to be served for dinner.
Simply displayed on a bed of ice were anchovies, scampi, red prawns, mussels, clams and a range of whole fish from gurnard and John Dory to the famed local speciality, orata (sea bream). Beautiful slabs of Mediterranean bluefin and swordfish were royally displayed on giant pieces of Carrera marble at the top of the display, standing proudly as the crowning glory of the offering.
The bustle at the fish shop is something akin to the Boxing Day sales we are used to in Australia. It’s not only hungry punters in this ruck but a swag of local chefs who are jostling to get their hands on the best seafood.
I spy a local bistro cook sizing up a Michelin chef who had grabbed a punnet of Santa Margherita red prawns he believed was his. An argument ensues and the bistro cook is only placated through the intervention of the fishmonger who declares that the last of the red prawns is to be divided between them
John Susman is the director of the seafood industry agency Fishtales. For more views, insights and understanding of the seafood industry visit thefishtale.com.au.
both. This argument is not about privilege or price but supply. At nearly $80 AUD per kilo, this stoush had me thinking that the bistro cook must have a ready market or a serious prawn loving regular diner to behave in that manner.
Sure, there is plenty of farmed seafood available from mussels and oysters to salmon, bream and turbot but it is the wild seafood that has the crowds in a frenzy.
Despite my lack of fish shop buying technique, my morning venture to the store bore fruit, as I secured one of only three orata, a swag of red prawns (prior to the battle between the cook and the chef), a brace of scampi, some baby octopus and some local purple sea urchin.
I’d asked for them to be set aside for dinner that evening and had a matter-of-fact discussion with the fishmonger about how