Sat 04 Apr 2007Former rejects seen as very good catchesAnother Life:As plant plankton doubles and
redoubles across a sunlit sea, setting in train a hectic
replenishment of ocean life, it is good - if quite incredibly
overdue - to find Europe preparing to ban the dumping at sea of
billions of inconveniently dead and mangled fish. The admission by
the EU Fisheries Commissioner, Joe Borg, that discarding unwanted
catches is "morally wrong" comes after decades of expert
confirmation and outrage at the waste of marine life.News of his intentions found me, as it happens, chewing on my
share of the tail of Lophius piscatorius and wondering again just
at what point the fearsomely dentured angler ceased to be discarded
as a "trash fish" and became the delicious "monkfish" of modern
cuisine.