Don't overcook it
Cornwall’s natural beauty and the ever-changing sea view gets under your skin.
I walked alone into a fisherman’s pub in Newlyn — Cornwall’s last bastion of fair dinkum fishing ports on a Friday night in January. I had done a dry run at 10am when a sedate looking grey-haired gentleman was reading the paper in a booth by the window and a friendly barmaid assured me I would be welcome that night.
‘We’re open from 10 ’til 10,’ she says. ‘And everyone is welcome.’
I’m a country girl from a cold mountain town in New South Wales so I’m not so naive to think that everyone is welcome so therefore everyone will be included in the chat like a native West Penwithian.
Friday night at the fisherman’s pub is not for the faint-hearted.
I’ve been told variously that it takes from three generations to an unbroken 16th century bloodline to be considered local, truly Cornish. Other people dismiss this with a wave and a ‘everyone comes from somewhere else’ and several people with Cornish bona fides tell me their several times great grandfathers were shipwrecked on rocky Cornish shores. They stayed, spawning generations of prominent Cornish fisherfamilies. Of course the women they married were true Cornish, so that’s okay.
At the pub I’m struggling to get traction with the locals, it’s like pulling teeth. I ask a grizzly fisherman in a navy blue cap how he tells if bad weather is coming. He responds with ‘I look at the forecast.’
Granted, he did translate for me when half a dozen men downed their beers and called ‘cheers and gone!’ before heading out the door.
‘That’s a local saying?’ I ask.
‘They’re off on the boats,’ he tells me. I must have looked surprised. ‘They’ve gone fishing.’
It’s 7pm on a Friday night.
It’s tough going before Jane walks in and greets fisherman warmly, she’s his cousin. She’s there with her husband for a birthday drink before they get takeaway Chinese. She is straightforward and lovely in that suffer no fools Cornish way. If they like you and trust you, you’ll know more about them in 20 minutes than your best friend of 20 years.
Jane has nothing really to gain from talking to me (except maybe a boss mare’s sussing out of the new female in the mob) and yet because I’ve shown an interest in her life she’s opened up to me and despite being surrounded by family and friends she gives me her time.
Mousehole puts out the Christmas lights in welcome each year but sadly come January many of the homes are dark. ‘Have you seen Mousehole at night?’ the locals ask me as a way of illustrating the impact of secondhomers from upcountry.
Woman to woman we talk about input costs in fishing and farming, raising kids and continuity. We’re about the same age. She’s a fisherman’s wife and daughter and I’m of grazing stock so while our lives are different there are enough parallels for our conversation to make real sense.
I ask her about cooking fish — it’s my new year’s skillbuilding resolution. I’ve purchased some john dory from the fishmonger near the wharf, along with a handful of daffodils shipped in from the Scilly Islands. He tells me it’s his favourite fish. No opinion on the daffodils.
Jane talks me through the textures of and methods for each species. I tell her I’ve got some john dory in the fridge ready to go and she advises baked whole or, now that I’ve admitted I’ve had it filleted, carefully pan-fried in butter is the way to go.
I ask what it means to belong in Cornwall, to Cornwall. ‘Everything,’ she says. ‘Cornish people are always drawn back to Cornwall.’ She tells me it’s harder now with so many houses lying vacant, owned as they are by secondhomers from upcountry (anywhere east of West Cornwall). One of her daughters and her family lives with them and this return to intergenerational living arrangements is not uncommon.
She says another daughter came back to Cornwall to have her baby, even though she lived away. I nod and joke that I was worried about my NSW-born mother on a recent visit to Brisbane but I knew she wouldn’t die in Queensland. She had no idea of the places but got the joke.
It could be that Jane has given me the nod or just that he really wanted to tell me but needed the impetus but the grizzly fisherman relinquishes a tale before he heads off home. ‘So you’re not going to going to share your seafaring secrets with me,’ I tease him.
‘’ee’ll tell ye,’ he says, nodding to his mate. ‘’bout Lizard.’
In January, daffodils are shipped in with fish from the Scilly Islands and sold from a crate outside the fresh fish shop.
The oddly named Lizard is the point of land across Mounts Bay from Newlyn Harbour. It’s the heel to Lands End’s Cornish toe. The man comes from Mousehole up the way, the other fisherman told me. He said to the skipper we’ll not be going out today, look at the Lizard. The Newlyn-based skipper cursed and argued to no avail, the Mousehole man had spooked the crew. ‘When you can see Lizard clear like that it means bad weather’s coming.’ Sure enough, the weather rolled in and its boat and crew were safely in the harbour.
It’s time for me to go.
‘You’re off ’ome then,’ Jane says.
‘Yep, time to cook my john dory.’
The old fisherman’s mate does that Italian perfecto gesture. ‘Ahhh, john dory’, he says.
‘John dory,’ I agree. ‘The fisherman’s fish.’
‘Just don’t overcook it,’ Jane reminds me.
‘A good lesson in life — don’t overcook it,’ I say and she laughs and bids me goodnight and a good stay in Cornwall.