Rick Stein, the esteemed British seafood chef, celebrates over 50 years in the culinary business, beginning in 1975 with The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow. He has expanded his brand to include 10 restaurants, various cookbooks, TV shows, and more, driven solely by his seafood passion. Reflecting on Britain's past seafood habits, he notes how the availability and consumption of seafood were limited. Stein aims to change this mindset, emphasizing the importance of introducing children to seafood to inspire lifelong appreciation.
"I remember the first season we were open. I got this message from a customer, saying, 'It might be a good idea before you start cooking fish if you learned how to fillet it properly,'" Rick Stein chuckles.
"It's been a mission creep of sorts, but I certainly didn't have a business plan. It has all been driven by my passion for seafood, and my desire to spread the gospel to an island nation that, for all its coastline, was wildly unadventurous in its approach to seafood."
"We don't eat fish as in families, as children. The Spanish do, and the French do, and the Italians on the coast. Everybody had it as kids - that's the most important thing."
"Back in 1974, British seafood consisted mainly of frozen fish, tinned sardines and pilchards, or fish and chips on Fridays... Most of Cornwall's live lobsters and crabs were loaded onto a Spanish truck each week and transported to Spain where they were put to far more creative use."
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