fishmongers in bournemouth

[brendan mc aleer]

i am travelling to bournemouth for a few days for a family visit. While i am there i feel it is a good opportunity to brush up on my butchery skills. does anybody know of a really good fishmongers that would have me observe or maybe get involved for a few days or somewhere really good to buy some seafood.

[ravelda]

Let me gett this straight - you want to learn butchery skills at a fish mongers?!

[beandork]

You'd be flat-out trying to find a fishmonger at all in this town.

Your best bet would be Fishworks in Christchurch, 10 minutes drive from Bournemouth, I think they function as a fishmonger as well as an eating outlet.

Try the fishmongers out on Mudeford Quay (15-20 min drive from Bournemouth) if you fiend for the getting-your-hands-on-the-still-twitching-catch thing.

Only other fishmonger I know of in the area is a place in Christchurch road near Pokesdown station, but their name escapes me and I haven't been in the place before, so can't really give you much information on that one.

[Tim Hayward]

You might want to think about Poole. Still a few reasonably active fishing boats there.

You could also venture west, deeper into Dorset and rootle around Weymouth (couple of commercial boats) or even Bridport (9 million posh foodies down for the weekend and one bewildered old git with a lobster pot).

I grew up in Bournemouth and rarely found decent fish without catching it myself. It's too near town so anything good gets chucked onto ice, into the back of the van and straight up to here where they know what to do with it. Unless things have really changed, the place on Mudeford Quay gets most of its stuff frozen, has a boat pull up every Sunday to please the tourists and mainly sells cups of IQF prawns and bait for the kids crabbing. I'd avoid it.

Beandork's right. If you want mongering skills go to Fishworks unless you fancy ending up in a shed on an industrial estate in Hamworthy with 20 illegal East Europeans, gutting Atlantic bycatch for the US cat food market.

I've learned more on dayboats than I have on land. Most of the captains are pretty good at the rudiments of gutting and filleting and there are some amazing fish to be had all along the coast. If it was me, I'd pack HFW's new fish book as bedtime reading, wrap up warm and hire a dayboat out of Poole or Mudeford.

Bass, conger, some bloody huge skate, gurnard and, of course, millions of mackerel depending on season.

What they won't tell you is that, for the really big stuff, when they don't have punters aboard, they tend to chum near the ends of the sewage outfall pipes. The big fish love the sandeels and the sandeels love the shit.

[Romaney O'Malley]

What they won't tell you is that, for the really big stuff, when they don't have punters aboard, they tend to chum near the ends of the sewage outfall pipes. The big fish love the sandeels and the sandeels love the shit.

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Charming

[brendan mc aleer]

thanks very much. have the fish book which ive been syudying. just want to put theory into practise. thanks for the advice.

[thom]

What they won't tell you is that, for the really big stuff, when they don't have punters aboard, they tend to chum near the ends of the sewage outfall pipes. The big fish love the sandeels and the sandeels love the shit.

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Charming

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Ah yes, there is nothing like learning more about the grim commercial realities of the seemingly quaint fishing industry to potential put you off fish. Luckily my constitution is pretty robust so in spite of completing a degree in Marine Biology at Liverpool University my appetite for all things fishy remains undiminished.

My favourite "dinner party disruptor" is to explain the concept of how shell-fish eat. Largely, they are filter-feeders. Therefore they whip through huge volumes of sea-water to gather enough sustenance to keep them going. In effect, they are "miniture-stuff-concentrating-machines".

Suddenly the idea that "Yes we pump the sea full of heavy metals, sewage and assorted pathogens and chemicals but don't worry it gets really, really diluted" doesn't sound so reassuring. These calcium encased little buggers are undoing all our "good" work!

And yes, at one point (though no longer I am assured) fishermen used to intensively farm mussels etc by siting them around sewage outflows where they would fatten up in record time like foie gras geese. For your average bivalve, which would clap it's shell with glee merely by chancing upon a particularly filling zooplankton, to be sited in a opaque "poo soup" which was thick with tasty organic matter was just one big party.

If it makes you feel any better they were eventually moved to clearer water or specialised cleaning pools to be "flushed out" before they entered the supply chain.

So that's alright then.

More moules mariniere anyone? No? Just me then...

Cheers

Thom