Flat fish are overdue a starring role in the seafood line-up
Credit: Xanthe Clay
What’s in a name? The sweet sound of the cash till ringing, or so say the fish marketeers. With this in mind, megrim, one of the biggest catches of the South West, is being renamed Cornish sole by Seafood Cornwall, part of the Cornish Fish Producers’ Organisation. The aim is to make them more appetising to us, by combining the wholesome connotations of the fisherfolk of the South West with a familiar, if technically inaccurate, word – sole.
No, megrim isn’t a real sole, being from the same family as turbot and brill, although not in their league gastronomically. The one true sole is the Dover sole, and slip sole which is a small Dover sole. Lemon sole isn’t a sole either, but a relative of halibut and dab. To be fair, Dover sole hasn’t got much to do with Dover since it’s fished from Scotland to the Mediterranean.