Product Description

When her sons inherited their father’s childhood home, once a commercial building for storing and packing pilchards, in a Cornish fishing village, Lindsey Bareham thought it would be a nice idea to record some of the recipes and memories of this extraordinary place. It started as a notebook for her sons’ eyes only, with lists of favourite ways of cooking mackerel, monkfish and sole and how to make mayonnaise to go with the gift of a handsome crab or crayfish but then it took on its own momentum and became this very special book, full of recollections and anecdotes and fabulous holiday food.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53052 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

About the Author
Lindsey Bareham made her name as a restaurant critic and food writer. Twenty years of reviewing many of the best and some of the worst restaurants provided her with a unique background for cookery writing. She has written ten cookery books including A Celebration of Soup, The Big Red Book of Tomatoes and Just One Pot and she was the Evening Standard’s cookery columnist for seven years. She is now a freelance food writer and broadcaster, regularly contributing to Saga magazine, the Mail on Sunday and Radio 4.

Customer Reviews

Far more than just a cookbook about fish......
......this publication owes its existence to a property called 'The Fish Store', in 'Mousehole' (an idyllic fishing village, in Cornwall), and nostalgia...sometimes tinged with sadness....spanning three generations.

'There is something about Cornwall that gets under the skin and hooks you for life'....
.......a fishy pun but so, so accurate, if my experience is anything to go by!

'This book started out as a tribute to the memories of a remarkable house with an interesting background, but took its own momentum, telling the story of my own on-off and on-again relationship with the Fish Store and the village of Mousehole..
Although the recipes are all associated with the Fish Store, it isn't necessary to be by the sea in Cornwall to enjoy cooking them.........LB/August 2005'

Starting out as a 'notebook', it is truly wonderful that Lindsey went on to produce this marvellous book for all of us to savour!
Not only does it record her first impression of the village, (maybe not surprisingly, the unrelenting call of the numerous seagulls as they compete to be loudest) and the undeniable beauty of the area, but also tracks her inevitable progress with preparing and cooking with fish and the influence of her mother-in-law.......Betty.

'....it was obvious from the way that she (Betty) shopped and organised her kitchen and the pencilled notes in her cookbooks that she was the best kind of inquisitive self-taught cook. She liked things done properly, responding to the seasons and adapting her cooking to what was available and whom she had to feed.
This style of cooking and eating, when everyone mucks in and the preparation is just as convivial as the eating, had a huge effect on me and it is the essence of the Fish Store cookbook........'

And, as well as an inspiring collection of fish recipes, there are super ideas for al fresco lunches, hearty autumn/winter meals, and puddings.

410 matt pages, split over main chapters:-

FISH p37
SEAFOOD p134
EGGS p167
CHICKEN p175
LAMB p193
VEGETABLES p211
PUDDINGS p343

with a 35 page introduction - really a potted history of the Fish Store and a mini geography of the village - and, as it is today, written with that special and descriptive LB flair:-

'These days, the Fish Store is one big open-plan living space with three large windows looking out to sea.
We watch the fishing boats chugging past as the transforming light plays tricks with the view. On sunny days the magical light turns the sea into shimmering gold and in the winter, when the storm winds howl across the bay, the dark, angry sea is covered with white horses.
I love the place whatever the weather and whatever the time of year, but when the sun streams through the open front door and there is the promise of a crab picnic and fresh fish for supper, there is nowhere I would rather be. ....'

....and with Christmas just around the corner, (at the time of writing this review)....

'Christmas is a special time in Mousehole.
The harbour is filled with floating lights and a Celtic cross twinkles from St Clement's Isle - a small rocky island where once an ancient hermit was said to live - which lies a few hundred yards from the shore.
The night before Christmas Eve is celebrated as `Tom Bawcott's Eve' in the pub, when a humongous 'Stargazy Pie', the legendary Mousehole pie with pilchards poking through the top, is served to patrons of the Ship Inn on the quayside.
With the Fish Store windows open wide, we can hear the open-air carol service in the harbour as we sit by the fire and look out to sea with delicious cooking smells whirling round the barn-like room.........'

And with such atmospheric writing throughout, not too dissimilar to that of the late and great, Elizabeth David, Lindsey shows much more than just great culinary talent.

The latter really begins with general 'fish information', and associated recipes, in the following chapters:-

Oily Fish
Flat Fish
Flaky Fish
Inshore Fish
Fish without Bones
Crab, Lobster and Crayfish
Limpets, Winkles, Mussels, Scallops and Squid

Preparing, filleting, butterfly-filleting, dealing with a live crab, (crayfish and lobster), buying, dressing and picking cooked crab.......it is all here.

Each chapter has a title page listing any sub-sections, and the recipes.
Each recipe is well laid out with the title, number of servings, an opening note, the list of ingredients and a clear method.
A concise index winds up this work, ahead of sincere acknowledgments.

A small taste of the 'Fishy Recipes' within:-

Grilled Herring Fillets with Dijon Mustard
Stargazy Pie
Marinated Mackerel Sushi
Asian Fish in a Packet with Basmati Rice
Lemon Sole à la Meunière
Smoked Haddock Mornay
Huss with Lemon and Parsley
Fish Stock
Cod with White Beans
Roast Haddock with a Potato Crust
Party Fish Pie
Kedgeree
Snotched Red Mullet with Garlic Butter
Braised John Dory with Sorrel
Roast Monkfish Tail with Garlic and Onion
Crab and Cucumber Linguine
Lobster with Mayonnaise
Thai Mussels

(Alternative fish types are given and variations, if applicable.)

Other recipes include:-

James Bond's Scrambled Eggs
Mayonnaise
Quiche Lorraine
Pot-roasted Chicken with Onions
A Simple Chicken Curry
Vietnamese Chicken Salad
Arabian Shepherd's Pie
Desert Lamb with brown Rice Pilaff
Potato Pithiviers
Spinach Gratin
Cornish Pasty
Sweetcorn Chowder
Roast Tomato Soup with Saffron and Honey
Garlic Bread
Oven Ratatouille
Sloe Gin
Christmas Baked Apples with Run Butter
Tarte Tatin
Lavender Pears with White Wine
Red Plums with Port
Roast Peaches with Amaretti
Treacle Tart
Crème Caramel
Egg Custard for Pouring

Not forgetting, at this time of year......

'Christmas Baked Apples with Rum Butter'

......simply Delicious, (intentionally with a capital 'D'!)

This delightful book finishes with a list of 'Local Shops and Suppliers' (current at 2006), a bibliography and a concise index.

On the slightly negative side it does contain only a handful of pictures, mainly of Mousehole, past and present, with just a sprinkling of finished dishes.........along with the charming black and white line drawings, from Lindsey's son, Henry John, which open each chapter.
However, it is very easy to forgive this as one reads and is transported to an idyllic Cornish village, called Mousehole.

Inspirational.
What a beautiful and inspirational book this is! So much more than a cookbook.. The book covers not only fish recipes, as you might have expected from the title, ('The Fish Store' is the name of the building which was once a working Pilchard factory and the author's husband's childhood home), but all sorts of (particularly Cornish inspired) well loved family recipes inspired by the variety of mostly locally found fresh ingrediants from Cornish Lamb,to Chicken, Aubergine, Beetroot, Strawberries, Blackberries, Gooseberries & even Sloes to name but a meagre few and every one whether simple or unusual (& usually both!) steeped both in the anecdotal history included with every dish, & the love of great tasting, fresh, British food.

I only recieved my copy of the book today ~ and I'm looking foward to getting to know it well & to reading more of the intriguing family & local Cornish history imbued throughout the book (the first thirty-two pages are devoted to the combined family and local history which makes this book so special) & experimenting with some of the simple & straightfoward recipes contained within.

The character of the book is further embelished by beautiful photo's & simple line drawings drawn by Lyndsey Bareham's son, & I love the haphazard grouping of food types combined with a clear outline enabling you to find a recipe for any type of food you care to mention from fish and seafood, to nettles & jam.

I have n't read any of Lyndsey's previous books, but plan to investigate them further. This book is particularly relevent to me because of it's personal history content & that of the Cornish land & sea which I visited recently and became enchanted by.

I highly recommend this book, both as a wonderful array of delightful recipes, (unpretensious recipes which in every case allow the inate qualities of the simple fresh ingrediants to shine), and as a piece of heritage which is a testimony to our culture & that of our food which is so strongly evident in this enchanting part of our land.

family food
another excellent book from LB with her distinctive style a mix of jane grigson and elizabeth david. Very family orientated with a back story of life in Mousehole,and a focus on fresh ingredients especially fish. Not a challenging book, comfortable and reliable. But what at temperature should you cook the game chips(p.218)??