Bus to Looe today just to buy fresh fish from Simply Fish

We bought one whole line-caught pollock, two haddock fillets, and four large mackerel, and had them filleted. All this cost £17.20. I can fillet but always make a mess of butterflying the mackerel, so easier by far for them to do it. If you look exactly what we bought…

I can confidently say that we will get six meals for two people out of it, all with generous portions. So that makes it about £1.40 per portion. If you add in a few potatoes and say some green beans and a couple of lemons that means that each of the superb meals will cost say £1.80 per person. Now, on this basis I defy anyone to tell me that it is cheaper and better to buy ready-made. Academics will tell you that poorer people resort to ready meals because they are cheaper and more convenient. Absolute nonsense. With my experience in the fresh food industry, and a lifetime of cooking 2 and 3 course meals every day, I can only say that grannies did know best. We just have to get back to encouraging everyone to buy and cook fresh food. Not only will this be better in all kinds of ways for them, it will throw a much needed boost to our suppliers and independent shops. Oh, I forgot to mention, we eat one of the fish meals straight away and freeze the rest. It comes out of the freezer just as it went in tasting of newly caught fish from our local waters.