Episode 5 Floyd on Fish

Posing as a fisherman in my ultimate country kit,

I walked through Somerset on this crisp morning

looking for my lunch, which I hoped would be pike in a creamy red pepper sauce.

Sounds delicious, doesn't it?

Notice I scan the water like a heron for the signs of a shoal of roach,

and where there's roach, there'll be pike.

I've got more chance of being struck by lightning than catching pike.

So rather than go hungry, I've enlisted some specialist help.

Here we go. This is the tense bit, isn't it?

You can easily drop it, you see.

When are you going to give him the gum? You have. My goodness, it's big fish, isn't it? Yeah.

Boy-oh-boy-oh-boy.

You aren't going to believe this but this is not set up in anyway.

It's real, we're actually catching fish. It's unbelievable.

That's his head.

You don't seem to be applying any... You're letting him tire himself out.

You're not forcing him to do anything, is that the technique?

Well... You're letting him go back a bit.

I'm anxious to land it, it's me first pike this morning.

Ooh... Oh, yes, indeed.

Try and make a special effort to land him...

HE MUTTERS

Just keep him...

Wind up. Wind up. Straight up. Wow.

Yes, that's 10lbs, 11lbs. It may be more.

Well done, well done!

That could be, that could be 12 or 14lbs. Splendid.

Well, this one's going to have quite dangerous teeth. He's very...

How nice. That's splendid.

This fine specimen is far too big for my lunch.

I haven't got the heart to kill a fish of that size.

Let's put it back and catch another. This is my biggest pike, 16.5lbs.

We'll put him back to fight another day.

Mind you, our French neighbours aren't so sentimental.

They'd have had that beauty skinned and pounded into quenelle

before you could say, "Bon appetit!"

And even the medieval monks would not have been

so compassionate, for on Fridays, they feasted on fish.

Refectory tables groaned with pewter platters piled high with

braised carp, fried perch, steamed tench, stewed eels and baked pike.

You all thought I was a complete and utter poser

but I have actually caught one and you can't do any better than that.

It is quite... Whoops!

Let it go a bit, right. Such a little fish.

How can they say that to me on the first ever pike I have caught?

Colin is saying it is only a little one.

It is a Jack, isn't it? Like the first one actually. Yes.

But they are very lively. Yes, they are.

I do think he is ready to come in actually. Ah! I have lost him.

Argh! He is gone! Oh, dear! My absolute moment of glory is ruined.

I want to go home! I hate fishing! Oh, I have had enough! Cheerio!

Oh, heavens above.

I will just have to show you a photograph of a pike at this rate,

which, by the way, is on page 27 of my new cookery book.

He is definitely taking it though. He has run across to the other side.

I think we are about ready now. Mind your head.

There is another one moved over there. There's another one we just disturbed.

Well, well, well. This is called playing the fish, isn't it?

You tire it so that you don't bust... It's only a small one.

Yes, because what would be the biggest one you could expect to get?

We have had them 20lb. What is this one going to be, about 4-5lb?

This is about 4lb. Maybe four or five. What a handsome-looking thing.

But they are evil, aren't they? They can be, yes!

Put your hands anywhere near their mouth, yes, they could do a lot...

Oh, possibly six.

A little bit bigger than I thought he was actually. Well, well, well.

Is there a size limit that you can... Yes, there is, yes.

21 inches long. So that is well over... Nose to the tip of the tail.

So he is well over... Yes. ..the limit for taking.

Great! Thanks to Colin and Malcolm's skill, we have got the lunch

and the right size too. What a fine morning it has been.

The excitement and the fresh air have given me quite an appetite.

I think it is time for a spot of breakfast

and a glass of cider or two before I get back to the hot kitchen to cook.

Are you both married by the way? Yes.

Do you get into trouble with the wives? No, I think we are both fortunate.

Glad to have us out the way sometimes. Yes!

Colin and I get out regularly.

There is this big secret you are keeping from me

about how you can spend so much time fishing.

I take it you are just millionaires. THEY CHUCKLE

No. That would be the job of the century that!

Poor as a church mouse. Yeah, we know...

We are just enthusiastic about our hobby.

Other things have got to take a back seat.

It is not a hobby, it is a passion with you then.

It is. Very much a passion. It has to be. We cannot resist a nice day.

What is your dream?

You must have lots of sort of ambition in this

for the biggest pike, the biggest tench.

It is not necessarily the biggest, you are not hunting the biggest, are you?

What is it that you dream of doing? It is the company, it is the environment.

You are with nature, you are competing your wits against nature.

We have been fortunate today, but days can be when you won't

catch fish, they just don't want to feed and they won't feed.

I think you are being modest.

I think you have then watching the river very carefully,

watching the migration if that is what roach do.

You are using years and years of country lore and understanding,

aren't you? Even that side of it alone... It could still fox you.

Yes, it could still fox you.

I think that you, for me, have relived some of my most

important and imagined boyhood moments.

I told you earlier that I spent months and years trying to

catch a pike when I was 12, 14, 15 in this area and I never did.

You have brought back for me all the wonderful memories that are

associated with fishing - farmhouse cheddar cheese and cider and stuff.

For my part at least, I'd like to say to you both,

thanks very much for a really wonderful day. It has been magical.

We have enjoyed it.

It seems to be a terrible thing to do to your family, but I always

wanted my mother-in-law on one of my programmes

and it's taken me 25 years to catch her, actually!

When I was a small boy I tried to catch a pike.

I didn't. It's taken all of this time to catch this fish.

In the Loire, in France, pike is an esteemed gastronomic delight.

A beautiful pike - brochet de cannelle,

or pike steamed with paprika sauce.

What do we do with it? Practically nothing, although my fine fisherman friends eat it all the time.

I'm going to show you how to cook this magnificent beast, and the first thing to do is cut him.

It's already been gutted. We're going to take a superb fillet off.

Run the knife, hopefully, up the bone... I'm sorry.

I have just done that completely the wrong way round.

You must always fillet a fish from its head and run with the flow of the fish.

This is actually a live programme.

We do borrow kitchens, we do come in,

we don't take things out of the oven and say, "This is already cooked."

In the passion of the moment, I made a rick.

But I'll do it properly from here on in, and before I do that, I'm going to have a little slurp.

I'm nervous, hot, tired and making mistakes. Please excuse me.

Anyway, all that said, I've now got the fillet we're looking for, OK?

A perfect fillet, cut from the flow of the fish.

PHONE RINGS

The telephone's ringing, but that's because we're in a real restaurant

and people are booking tables.

The other ingredients I'm going to use are red peppers, onions,

garlic, fennel, fresh parsley,

my veloute - it's a kind of a roux really.

It's butter and flour thickened with a little water.

I'm going to use that to thicken my sauce, which is going to be made from my fish stock here,

which is made from the head of the pike poached in water.

And my red pepper sauce, which is peppers poached in a little fish stock and liquidized.

I did those in advance to make this a sensible lesson.

I'm going to finish off the sauce with some double cream - you know what that looks like -

and supreme egg yolk at the end.

OK.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go over to the stove and start cooking.

I do want you to forgive me for doing the unforgivable and cutting the fish the wrong way round.

So, there we are. I'm back at the piano, which is what we gastronauts call a cooker.

Sorry for the cock-up earlier, but now to the business of the pike,

a fish which some people just throw to their cats, or even throw back into the river.

If you'll come back to the stove, I'll show you what we're doing.

As with all fish, if you're poaching them, the liquid must be still.

This is cooking, it's not bubbling away. Bubbling destroys the fish.

It's been on for a little while. Stick your finger in. It's firm.

We can go over to the sauce now, which is the most important bit.

Our little red pepper sauce. Add in a teaspoonful...

You've got to come close here

because the director always makes us do it again if people aren't seeing what's happening.

Our veloute is thickening that sauce.

You'll notice throughout the shows that sometimes we use veloutes

and sometimes we use egg yolks to thicken sauces.

Today, we're going to use the veloute and enrich it with the egg yolk.

The gas is low. No real bubbling must take place otherwise it's going to separate.

Stir it round. OK, we can let that reduce a little.

Now, if only one of my assistants - they've gone away - can find my...

BANGING AND CRASHING

That noise was just the cameramen tripping over their equipment. It's a very hot, tight kitchen.

We're going to take out our fillet, slip it into this elegant plate. I always insist on white things.

The fish is the star, the plate is the extra. I'll say that a lot.

Taste the sauce. Coming quite good.

Actually, it is nice, but it needs to be reduced a little more.

A little grind of pepper for seasoning purposes.

And now I've got to turn it down because we're going to add the egg yolk, not for thickening,

but for flavouring this particular dish, and that mustn't bubble,

otherwise you'll get scrambled eggs.

So, one egg yolk in. Plop! Come on in. Then whisk like mad.

Don't give it chance to congeal into lumps.

You don't want scrambled eggs. You want a smooth sauce,

which, I'm pleased to say, we've achieved.

We'll, what the French would call "nappe", which is a lovely word, we're gonna coat the fish.

And you see the importance of the right plate here.

That beautiful light pink...

salmon pink sauce,

covered with a little bit of parsley.

And there, my freshwater gastronauts,

you have what the French call, "brochet a la canotiere,"

which means, "the pike cooked by the wife of the pike fisherman."

Isn't that pretty? And what a wonderful way to celebrate spring.

What a wonderful way to celebrate fresh-water fish.

You can do this with perch, trout,

you can do it with carp, with pike. You can do it with anything.

There's only one thing to do. In one little mouthful...

For you fishermen, who might catch a pike and throw it back or feed it

to your cat or say it's inedible as it's full of bones,

you are wrong.

This fish is almost as fine as a bass. And that is saying something.

It's a beautiful firm-fleshed fish,

with this delicate sauce I prepared. I almost caught the fish myself.

I can tell you, you can have a fine gastronomic delight.

MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH

'OK, we take the point, Floyd can't cast. Most people can't afford to eat salmon let alone fish for it.

'I've got it all here on the River Exe.

'And Derek Bowdler, unlike my producer, is a courteous man who explains everything with patience.'

Perhaps years trying to catch a salmon and they lose it in a minute. Yesterday, we were pike-fishing,

and we actually caught pike and today we've got salmon.

As it comes back towards us, wind. Keep bending the rod and wind. This is just so exciting.

Now, so that we don't have any problems with this, I want to get this as quickly as possible. OK.

He wants to run. You keep a good bend in the rod, keep it up, now he's off again.

He's like a train, an express train.

Look at that! You'll have to move, cameraman. Keep the rod down, that's right.

Wind. Wind...hello.

Your clutch has slipped a little bit. That's it.

There we go.

We're in trouble now.

Could I just take it for a sec? Yeah.

There we are. I think we'll get him back just to get him under control.

He's a bugger, isn't he? He's a fighter, oh, he's gone. Damn!

We did our best.

Well, I'll be damned. Isn't that a shame? He's broken that. He's broken the lot. Good God.

That was a big fish too. Yes, it was.

OK, let's have a bash then. Right.

I know a lot about salmon from an eating point of view but fishing...

and catching them is where I'm entirely in your hands.

I've never put wadders on! We must be careful as we wade.

Actually we should point out that wading can be dangerous. Yes.

A quick slip and you've had it, haven't you?

Is this really...

Is salmon fishing really for a privileged few or is that a myth these days?

I think that's a myth these days. A few years ago, yes, it was,

but today, there is salmon fishing available almost right through the southwest waterside.

They've got a stretch of fishing down below.

That agonises me, the fact that you don't hit the trees on the other side.

The essential part is...

is to put that mineral right across in front of his nose. Yes.

That's not going to drive the fish away? No, it doesn't seem to disturb them at all.

I think, if you get into a small pool that...

you must separate wading and fishing because they're two different things.

If you disturb the water too much, then you're going to drag the fish.

That is one thing you've got to be very careful about.

Well, I hope that had a few casts on it. Would you like a go? Well...um...

I'd rather have a go of watching those trees being uplifted

but the equipment's a bit expensive to lose!

Right. We will try here a little bit. OK.

Eek! Can you feel it getting deeper? Yes, I can.

I should just keep out slightly

because it does shove away quite deep.

Oopsie.

Once I had lost that salmon and whatever

he thought Derek didn't tell me, though I heard him mutter something

about a turnip top - I imagine some kind of fishing expression -

we all knew that we had lost the golden opportunity for the day.

We didn't get another bite and I, like so many other fishermen before

me, had to resort to the fishmonger to complete the day's schedule,

and a cognac here in Dartmouth, purely for medicinal

reasons of course, after being up to my neck in the Exe, calms the nerves that are

still tingling from the thrill of that salmon going like a train AWAY.

They say that salmon is the king of fish, so to cook the king of fish, we ought to ask one of the queens

of British cookery, and I'm sure foodies will need no introduction

to Joyce Molyneux here, who is one of the best cooks in the land.

She's operating in Dartmouth. What are you going to do with the salmon? I thought we'd do it two ways.

A classic way, served simply with Hollandaise, cooked with a little white wine and seasoning,

which is just a very simple, classic way of cooking it.

The other alternative is salmon in pastry, which is an old favourite of the Perry-Smith family of cooks,

and I think it's a delightful way as well.

Incidentally, I'll tell you how to make the sauce because we've got it ready to make life easier.

We'll let you know how that happens. What are you doing now?

A bit of salt and pepper on these, tossed lightly in butter, pour a little white wine on, cover and cook,

as lightly as possible. Fine, you go ahead with that.

Do you think that salmon of all fish needs to be slightly undercooked?

There's been a revolution in cooking, which came from France and is now firmly with us here.

And fish needs to be slightly undercooked. Yes.

It is preferable to be slightly undercooked, it's just nice to eat, you get more of a taste of the fish.

I've got a little melted butter in a copper tray there,

on a solid hot stove.

And that's going to cook away for... Just very gently start it off.

I shall turn them over with a fish knife, pour a little white wine over then put them in a cool oven.

Do you find that here by the sea, you've got access to every kind of fish, do people appreciate fish?

Yes, they do indeed. I think they actually appreciate unusual sorts of fish but we're most happy of course,

to serve the salmon that comes out of the Dart river here. It's lovely.

You feel that every salmon you serve has just come out of the river. Driven past the front of the shop.

It's gone past us! You may not have seen it, but there it is, it has gone past us.

A little white wine on that.

And some tinned foil. If you may.

Did you see that all right? That's just a drop of white wine.

There's a huge myth that you've got to swamp things in white wine.

You're just using wine there to get the natural juices from the fish to combine with that.

That juice is lovely to eat with the fish. You could just finish the juices off with cream.

It's nice to have the natural juices because you have the lovely salmon flavour with the Hollandaise sauce.

We'll cover that with tinfoil.

And we're just going to pop it in the oven here. There's been a radical change towards cooking and eating

throughout the country in the last ten or 15 years. People are more interested but I have a feeling

that they're over-complicating things and they're not following the basic principles.

They're too eager about having a piece of salmon just because it's salmon, then covering it with cream,

when in fact, they would be better off with a very simple but fresh herring. Yes, indeed.

There isn't anything nicer than fresh herring, it's so lovely and moist. I think it's absolutely delicious.

There isn't anything nicer than fresh herring, it's so lovely and moist. I think it's absolutely delicious.

Perhaps sometimes people feel that the more they add to fish, or the more they do with things,

the better it's going to become, and it isn't always so. It's like...

You feel they're paying... particularly in a restaurant, that they're paying a lot of money

so they want something that's been very well worked on, whereas, what they should be paying for

is the best ingredients cooked simply. And a great deal of love.

Love's the most marvellous thing. Fantastic, yes.

I was shocked the other day, I was at a point to point and we were all talking about Range Rovers...

and I was talking to a young lady, the wife of a well-known actor,

and she said, "The great thing was I went to cordon bleu, it was great," and I expressed my provocative views

about cordon bleu cooks.

And I put the idea that she could have in fact learnt just as much or more from her mother, and she said,

"Girls of my class don't have mothers who cook, we don't do such things." It's appalling.

It is. I'm sure it couldn't happen in France where it's, as you know, quite different.

In general, people are more interested in food nowadays.

This is a new thing. Before the war, one didn't talk about food. It was like not talking about sex.

Or death nowadays. Yes.

These unmentionable subjects, but now everybody enjoys food much more.

And perhaps it's gone to the other extreme with so many cookery books about. There's too much.

Too many colour supplements telling how us how we ought to live without going into the nitty-gritty.

Nitty-gritty as you said is the freshness, and the cooking... We are cooking aren't we? We are indeed!

How's that going on? We're going to try and get this out the oven if you don't mind staying with us a bit.

The thing about meeting one of these super cooks like Joyce

is that... Not quite ready. Not quite? In again for a second? A couple of minutes.

Can I show you what it means by "not quite"? That's a little too pink. You want it like that.

When it's all like that, it'll be ready. But a little pink in the centre. A little pink in the centre.

There we are. Another five minutes in the oven.

Joyce, you've done a marvellous job of that.

You've put Hollandaise over it and a little fennel to give it a hint of aniseed... Yes.

..which is nice. I'm looking forward to the first salmon of the season.

Splendid. You eat because I've got to explain to my fans -

hello, gastronauts, haven't seen you for a while.

The Hollandaise sauce is terribly simple, I do hope Joyce won't contradict me.

As long as you've got a food-processor, break in the yolks of three eggs into it,

whisk it up till they're frothy and then pour in a half pound pack of melted unsalted butter,

very slowly whizzing the food-processor the whole time.

It'll turn into a nice thick yellow custard which you can pour over salmon, hard-boiled eggs, asparagus,

new-boiled potatoes, anything you like.

It's a versatile sauce, very simple and it's brilliant.

See you in a minute.

Mm. Mm!

I think you know me well enough by now after the last five weeks, for me to let you into a little secret.

I'll quote the Bard who said, "A surfeit of the sweetest things,

"to the stomach a certain loathing brings."

Fish, I've had enough. I could murder a steak and kidney pie or even sausage and chips.

But Joyce, bless her heart, has made a wondrous dish of salmon and raisins and ginger. Oh, well.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends!

I'm glad you're enjoying it. Superb.

How precisely did you make it? Lots of people will want to know.

Good. The salmon is filleted and skinned and layered with a ginger and currant butter,

and wrapped in pastry and baked. Can I interrupt? Is that powdered, whole, or crystallised ginger?

Crystallised ginger. Crystallised.

Crystallised ginger or ginger out of syrup. It's an adaptation of a medieval recipe.

That's the origin of it. Wrapped in pastry and baked, then served in a herb and cream sauce,

which is delicious hot or cold.

The... Sorry to interrupt, we need to get the cameraman involved.

Clive, this sauce is too good to miss.

While he's looking at that, can you explain how the sauce is made?

A few shallots, sweated down in some butter,

chopped tarragon, chervil and parsley added, a little flour,

cream and finished off with mustard and lemon juice. Over a low heat?

Yes. You've been very good camera, and haven't I been gentle to you?

We'll get on with our eating. I don't know what we're doing next week, something really good,

probably tinned sardines. See you then. Bye now.

So, they've gone away. I get so bored with the lights and the heat.

You can't get on with the whole business, which is eating and drinking and enjoying yourself.

Subtitles by Rebecca Rahman and Laura Cole, BBC Broadcast - 2003