Erikka Askeland: Eating seafood without a doctor could catch on

These are fine, for the most part. A bit cheaper too, if truth must be told. But that’s because I used to willingly spend a significant chunk of my wages each week at my wonderful local fishmonger’s.

Who needs money when you can trade it for a dozen pink langoustines that are still waving at you? Or some quiveringly plump scallops the size of a ping pong ball. I even enjoyed taking home a whole squid, then ripping its little eyes and brains out and those funny clear cartilage bits, my hands stained with gory, black ink.

Yet when the man in my life casually dropped that he did not like fish, his lips grimacing slightly at the mention, it wasn’t a deal breaker. His affliction is not uncommon. But I did start to wonder if he could really call himself a true citizen of a proud, seafaring nation. OK, so he grew up in the valleys, not the seaside, but it wasn’t Liechtenstein for heaven’s sake.

But his dislike for fish, it turns out, was actually buried deep in his psyche. He confessed that, as a child, his nan had told him how lucky they were to have such a good doctor, who had once saved his mother from choking on a fish bone. Which, in the unassailable logic of a child, impressed upon him that a) eating fish was dangerous unless b) you had a doctor, and a good one, close by.

Of course, part of the trick is to unearth these childhood beliefs and examine them in the cold light of adulthood. The same thing happened to me when I was struck by the dawning realisation that it was actually highly unlikely that the vitamins in the bread dough rise to the crust in the process of baking, and that instead this was probably a ruse my mum told me in order that she didn’t have to cut the crust off my sandwiches. To actually articulate such beliefs as a supposedly rational adult could make you sound foolish, but unless you scrutinise these things they can lurk behind your eyes for years as a faintly held prejudice.

So, I decided to feed him some fish.

The arguments for doing so are sound, despite a few downsides. Fish, especially some species like blue fin tuna, are being overfished while brill trawlers not only exploit the stock but ruin the seabed at the same time.

The sanctimony of the posh-boy TV chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall might make you want to sock him (actually I have a soft spot for him, so sue me) but his campaign to stop the wasteful practice of discards so as not to exceed the blunt instruments of EU quotas is compelling. Otherwise, eating fish makes you smarter and improves your eyesight. Fact(s). And dammit, well I actually find it quite tasty.

But I’m not going to buy it at a supermarket as there is something quite depressing about seeing some poor fish or filet draped listlessly in all that unforgiving plastic. I have got used to actually looking the thing straight in the eye – the clearer it looks, the fresher it is, of course.

So I happened by another fishmonger, closer to my new place. It’s different from my old favourite – where the first one has an array of different seafood and crustacea, mostly stored in giant yellow tubs of ice on the floor. The new one’s display window only seems to carry predominantly some vermillion-dyed haddock and salmon.

I choose the monkfish, the most expensive thing the fishmonger has got. Actually, I don’t mind paying £8 for some good fish, but in this part of town the fishmonger looked worried I was going to start a row.

I won’t leave you hanging. That, pan fried with a nice tangy green sauce, went over a treat. We will have it again and I might actually make the trek back to my old haunt for something special. And we won’t need a doctor nearby at all.