Hake

When I was a kid we ate hake regularly. Not cod very much and whiting even less - hake was the dish. Hake is now so expensive that cod is the usually bought fish; sometimes haddock, rarely whiting. Why was it that we, my family, could afford hake and dismiss cod etc as an inferior fish. A friend of mine of my generation told me that in his household hake was usually eaten and that cod was bought "for the cat".
In Ashton's fish market stall in Cardiff, cutlets of hake are for sale at about £12 per lb while cod is much cheaper. I watched a woman buy a few cutlets of hake one day and pay about £15. Now, go along the counter a little and there you will find whole young hake selling for about £2.40 per lb. This is what I buy. Of course, when the head and tail is cut off the weight is less than that when the fish was weighed and priced, but it's still cheap.
I've often wondered why some people who like hake but can't afford the cutlets won't try this young hake in preference to the bigger, wider cutlets of hake; I can only guess that either they don't wish to buy fish with the head on with its eyes staring up at them solemnly, condemningly because of their lack of compassion .... or something, or, more likely, because they don't want the bother of cleaning them. Well, I have met people who don't like whole fish - or for that matter whole anything: chicken, duck etc - because somehow they feel they are going to eat a once living creature and they don't want to be reminded of that. But I feel drawn to the second reason: they don't wish to clean the whole fish. Well, actually, and this they might not know, the fishmonger does it all for you - free of charge. Great: you go home with two fillets of delicious hake for the cost of a cutlet of coley.
The hake we had today was so delicious I recalled the old days when we ate fried hake regularly and, if not gave the cod to the cat, would have liked to.
My method of cooking hake: powder it with flour, place it, skin side down in a non-stick frying pan on a low heat for five minutes, turn it and give the other side five minutes; pop it in a warm oven while I make chips. Salt and vinegar. Angel's food!