Matthew's Journal

Other - it's too much faff to detach from the tasty fish, and it doesn't taste too bad.

[x]Other

Generally how it's cooked will make more difference to the taste and texture than the type of fish. Generally I will try it and decide whether I like it or not.

I usually only eat it if it has batter on!

Oooh- and I dug out my etiquette book- it tells you how to eat the fish by filleting as you go and not turning it over, but interestingly makes no mention of what to do about the skin.

Pa will eat the skin of most fish. As far as etiquette goes, I think it's acceptable to leave the skin. However, if you do eat it, do it as you go along, don't shovel the whole lot in at the end.

I find that skin being difficult to detach from the fish is correlated to it being not too dissimilar from the fish itself and hence not having a too-unpleasant taste or texture. Hence, for most types of fish I'll make a brief effort to detach it, and then eat any that doesn't come off easily.

The main exception to this policy is sardines: I prefer sardines with the skin on, because I think it actually does improve the taste. I was quite annoyed when I accidentally bought a tin of skinless sardines (due to the tin design looking almost identical to the sensible version, and me not having anticipated that such a thing might exist).

etiquette=do what your hosts are doing? in a restaurant (say) + you're the only person at your table eating fish, who cares?

(see also: jacket potato skins)

Most fish is nasty to me. There are exceptions, but precious few.

Note that I ticked both "It's tasty" and "It tastes bad" to cover my reasons for eating some fish skins and not others. I generally find "can I cut it with a fish knife?" is a good way to distinguish between edible and inedible fish skins.

Because some skin is thin and trickier to remove than to eat, and other skin is thick and easier to remove than to eat.

I suspect I'm not really allergic to fish, but it's remarkably effective in stopping people saying oh go on just this once.

Unluckily it completely depends upon the fish. Some species have very thick, almost leather like skins (Pike for example). I suggest making handbags from these rather than eating. Cod and other small scaled fish are fine to eat skin on, but I suggest descaling if you can see them. Sea Bass has largish scales, but these are easily removed and the skin is lovely when pan fried. It adds the nice sea salty flavour sometimes killed by over salting chiefs in some restaurants. Salmon is one of those fish you can take it or leave it as the skin is rather oily, but then again it's the omega 3 thing.

Honestly the best way to learn is try it and see, but a simple rule would be if you can't easily part it with a knife then I would say leave it on your plate.

:)

The fish I buy at the grocery store has no skin. I really don't like cooking fish but I'm sorta okay eating it (former vegetarian; i have some issues left to work out) so I buy stuff that's already processed for me. That's my "other" and "other".

I eat the skin of tiny fish like anchovies but generally peel it off anything bigger. I'm uncouth and just peel it with my grubby fingers... I think you are "supposed" to use your cutlery, and indeed the fish knife was invented for this purpose.