GEOFF THE KNIFE

 We bought a shark.  Its teeth weren't all that pretty, dear.

 

ALL PHOTOS - AND FOOD STYLINGS - BY CAROLINE GANNON

I can’t tell you the species but it was a small shark, and also a cheap shark.  The fishmonger was asking two quid per kilo and this one cost 2.40, and it came gutted.

 

A bit of marinating and then pan frying 

produced this result:

One thing I’ll say for shark (or at least this particular shark), it really only has the flavours you bring to it, and I wish we’d put in more of everything. But on balance it was a moderate success.  Sometimes that’s more than enough.

 

I had in fact looked up shark on the interwebs to find a recipe or two and was confronted by stuff like ‘Shark meat: delicacy or deadly?’ ‘Is Shark Meat Scrummy or Satanic?’

 

I paid no attention, obviously, but the alleged trouble comes from mercury.  Sharks grow old and big, they’re top of the food and so mercury accumulates and concentrates in their flesh. But one small shark seemed safe enough.  

 

However I did read about Jeremy Piven, who in 2008 gave up his role in a Broadway production of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow after suffering from weakness, dizziness and nausea, diagnosed as having a "high mercury count." His doctor said "He was eating sushi twice a day for years ... and this is the problem."  Others thought it was a different problem.

 

Mamet said that Piven was leaving the play "to pursue a career as a thermometer" which is not one of his very best lines, but not bad.

 

But anyway, Piven survived. And we have too.