Billingsgate Seafood Training – Catch of the Day 1
Billingsgate Market, in the heart of London Dockland, humbly working all night long alongside Canary Wharf, is a heaven for seafood lovers. Apart from the trades taking place, in the same building itself, Billingsgate conduct their very own seafood courses. These courses take you through the buying (identifying bad and good, farmed fish and wild fish), preparation (de-scale, gut, clean and fillet) and cooking.
The aim is to introduce and educate primary school children about the health benefits of eating fish. All profits from commercial courses fund free courses for young people. The school was established in 2000 and a decade later, I participated in the course, courtesy of my husband ( 
).
In this course, Catch of the Day 1, we will be attending to six different kind of fishes; from their scaly body right through to our dinner plate.
First of all, we started the day with an escorted tour of the market with CJ Jackson, ten years the vice-principal at Leith’s Cookery School and the co-author of the newly-republished Leith’s Fish Bible, who is now the director of Billingsgate Market and according to her humble personality, is the first lady fish porter in Billingsgate Market in the last 200 years. We were dressed in white jackets, of which enhanced the excitement and professional feeling, building towards the excitement as the course progresses. She talked us through the various type of shellfish, why the British mussel is double the price of any other mussels sold, how to tell if the fishes are fresh, distinguish between farmed and wild fish, alongside it, a short history of each businesses in the market.
After the cold market tour, we started cooking. Warmed up first by hearty breakfast of muffin, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. Our selection of six fishes are chosen depending on the catch of the day; we had pollock, lemon sole, sea bream, gurnard, mackarel, mussels and prawns.
With a maximum of fourteen students, our trainer kept a constant pace on the class and took it through at a graceful flow, supported by her deftly assistants’ hands. Fully equipped worktop, hands-on approach, few oohs and ahhs when a successful fillet was sliced, silence but constant enthusiasm and murmuring floats through the air, everyone appears professional, similar to an industrial kitchen cooking for a banquet.
At the end of the course, we had doggy bags to take home our skillfully sliced fishes, prepared with marinade and condiments. All you need to do when you want to eat is cook it. And, in the midst of trying to learn the correct way to fillet the fishes, everyone (in pairs) made bouillabaisse to which we all enjoyed with a glass of white wine.
As for me, I “graduated” feeling that I should be a fishmonger. It sets the basic foundation that fishes of a similar anatomy shares the similar way of filleting. After this course, I also bought a new set of kitchen gadgets for seafood. The invaluable advice and experience was a great birthday gift!
Back at home, I need to show off a little…
Office
30 Billingsgate Market
Trafalgar Way
London E14 5ST
Charity Registration No. 1069809
Tel: +44 (0)20 7517 3548
http://www.seafoodtraining.org/home_page.htm
