Where do you come from, little shellfish?

Well, as I looked out at the looming grey sky this morning I reflected in the fact that at around this time last year we were sweltering in a heatwave in Ourense. So I took a look at the weather online and discovered that they’re not having such high temperatures this year. According to the computer they should be around 20°. Mind you that’s better than our 14° and they probably have sunshine as well.

I went on to take a look at the Spanish newspapers online as well. There I found the headline, El pescado gallego pierde su ADN. ADN is Spanish for DNA. Intrigued, I went on to read the article. The journalist described going to a fish market in Cambre, La Coruña, the kind of place that attracts British tourists and their cameras because it has become a rarity in the UK. As most of our fish comes neatly packaged and wrapped in clingfilm we tend to enjoy taking photos of that old-fashioned way of doing things: putting fish on the slab, selecting the specimens you want to buy, having the assistant clean them, scrape the scales off and so on. What’s more we tend to think that all the fish will be completely fresh and, if you’re in Galicia, mostly relatively local.

Now it seems that that last supposition isn’t necessarily correct, especially when it comes to shellfish. The reporter found all the usual suspects but from unusually un-gallego places:

• nécoras– from Scotland
• vieiras – from England
• langostinas – from Saudi Arabia
• almejas – from Italy
• pulpo – from Morocco.

Apparently the stallholders, maybe a little embarrassed, don’t bother putting the label indicating the place of origin if they can avoid it. That bit of the label gets damp and unreadable or is accidentally cut off. One stallholder admitted to putting a label that incorporates the flag of Galicia on produce that she knows is genuinely gallego. The rest she leaves unidentified.

One of the problems is, of course, the price. Much of the genuinely gallego shellfish is snapped up by posh restaurants who can and will pay top prices, prices the average shopper just could not afford. Shellfish from Scotland, despite having to be transported, can work out five times cheaper. Consequently Galicia ends up importing as much fish and shellfish as it exports.

One commentator told the reporter, “se di que o pescado máis fresco de Galicia cómese en Madrid”. And here I was, feeling all nostalgic about the delightful fish restaurants of Galicia. According tot hat report I should go to some exclusive and pricey place in Madrid for the real thing. It’s a good job I still know a few places in Vigo and around, recommended to me by vigueses who claim that the fish served in them is fresh and local.