Lindsey Bareham - The Fish Store: Recipes and Recollections

W hen my sons inherited their fathers childhood home, a converted pilchard factory in a small Cornish fishing village, I thought it would be a good idea to record some of the recipes and memories associated with this unusual place. It started as a notebook for their eyes only but soon turned into a journal of stories and anecdotes about the comings and goings at the Fish Store and the changing life of Mousehole, an unspoilt fishing village just three miles west of Penzance in Mounts Bay, near the tip of Cornwall in West Penwith.

Ben John, Zach and Henrys father, was four when the family arrived from France to set up home in Mowzal, as the village name is pronounced, and he told colourful childhood stories of growing up in a small fishing village. In those days Mousehole was a working village, with cobblers, carpenters, masons, net- and crab-pot-makers, a butcher and baker, and the harbour was full of big fishing boats. The war years and rationing imposed limitations, but Betty, my sons paternal grandmother, taught herself to cook from the markets of Paris and knew how to make much out of little and bring variety to the abundance of fresh fish and crabs at her disposal. Then, as now, there were sorrel, wild watercress and blackberries for free and basic vegetables available from nearby inland farms.

There are photographs of the boys great-grandfather, the notorious bohemian early twentieth-century painter Augustus John, in the harbour. Ben has vivid memories of dreading the command to sit for a painting and then escaping to the rocks for a crab picnic and swim at Dicky Daniels Cove. Another branch of the John family also lived in Mousehole during the late forties and early fifties and returned years later when Zach and Henry were toddlers. I wanted to record the story of their great-uncle Caspar, when he was an admiral, steaming into the bay on an aircraft carrier, accompanied by a flotilla.

By the time Zach was born in 1978, the charms of the Fish Store and village life had entered my blood. Over the years I developed my own way of dealing with the generous supplies of seafood that came our way from local fisherman and began to introduce my own cooking style into the house. As our two sons grew up, we would spend at least a month in the summer at the Fish Store and often visit for Easter and Christmas, sometimes with family and friends.

One of the most enduring people to affect our visits is Royden Paynter. Royden has made lobster pots in the garage below the house since Henry was born in 1981, but his day job at Newlyn Fish Market sometimes results in the gift of a coolbox full of fish. He grows vegetables in an allotment on a south-facing slope overlooking the sea at the top of Raginnis Hill behind the Fish Store. These plots are notoriously prodigious and his gluts have been my good fortune, forcing me into experimentation and cooking with the seasons. In summer there are tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, wonderful new potatoes and a proliferation of runner beans, broad beans and peas. Beetroot, thanks to Royden, has become a favourite at the Fish Store, particularly for chilled summer borsch or turned into a salad with garlicky yoghurt and freshly chopped coriander.

These days, the Fish Store is one big open-plan living space with three large windows looking out to sea. We watch the fishing boats chugging past as the transforming light plays tricks with the view. On sunny days the magical light turns the sea into shimmering gold and in the winter, when the storm winds howl across the bay, the dark, angry sea is covered with white horses.

I love the place whatever the weather and whatever the time of year, but when the sun streams through the open front door and there is the promise of a crab picnic and fresh fish for supper, there is nowhere I would rather be.

Christmas is a special time in Mousehole. The harbour is filled with floating lights and a Celtic cross twinkles from St Clements Isle a small rocky island where once an ancient hermit was said to live which lies a few hundred yards from the shore. The night before Christmas Eve is celebrated as Tom Bawcocks Eve in the pub, when a humungous Stargazy Pie, the legendary Mousehole fish pie with pilchards poking through the top, is served to patrons of the Ship Inn on the quayside (see page 53). With the Fish Store windows open wide, we can hear the open-air carol service in the harbour as we sit by the fire and look out to sea with delicious cooking smells whirling round the barn-like room.

Christmas at the Fish Store wouldnt be complete without sea bass, usually caught by Jake Freethy, skipper of Go For It, a state-of-the-art fishing boat jointly owned by Ben. We like this elegant fish cooked Chinese-style with ginger and spring onions, or with balsamic vinegar and a mound of home-made game chips cooked in olive oil and tossed with chives. New Years Eve is usually quiet in Mousehole, so after a particularly luscious fish pie, made extra special with chunks of hardboiled egg and masses of chopped parsley in a sauce enriched with clotted cream, we might head off to St Ives for the traditional fancy-dress street party.

Mousehole has plenty of its own traditions. One used to be all the children walking over the fields to Lamorna on Easter Sunday. We prefer the daffodil-strewn coastal path which winds past Mousehole Cave the place where old smugglers hid the contraband goods which they brought over from France in their fishing boats and ending up at the Wink pub for one of their delicious crab sandwiches.