A Fish Supper
I love my neighbour, I’d be stupid not to. His name is Greg and he cleverly caught the pictured four and a half pound snapper on the Hauraki Gulf on Sunday.
He and his cousin went out at dawn, apparently pausing somewhere about 40 minutes from our houses, to pull up ten fish and casually make their way home again.
Yesterday, on Labour Day Monday, Greg made a fragrant bed of manuka shavings, rubbed the biggest of the catch with brown sugar and salt, and smoked it.
We ate the fish still warm from the smoker with dill potatoes, bread and butter and a salad of greens from my garden.
It was a wonderful meal; the fish was moist, perfectly flaky with just the right hint of smokiness.
In New Zealand we are so close to where our food comes from we sometimes take it for granted.
We shouldn’t, we are blessed with the best food in the world. Wild, farmed or cultivated, we have enviable standards of production, a stunning range and seasonal freshness.
But one doesn’t just have to hunt and gather for the good stuff, our supermarkets, green grocers, butchers, bakers and fish mongers are a treat.
For a comparison and a reason to thank our lucky stars go and see Food Inc, an American documentary that seeks to highlight the underbelly of US food production and agricultural processes. It’s a frightening portrayal if indeed it is a fair and accurate one, well worth a look.
Tags: 100% pure, Food Inc, Fresh, New Zealand, Produce