Market Whimsies 



fish, the Norwegian haddock, the mackerel were all excellent eat- 

 ing, containing more calories and vitamins than many of the popu- 

 lar dining-room species. They agreed that small plaice could be 

 better than large ones. And there was nobody else to speak with 

 equal authority. There was nobody to answer Jan's question. So 

 he tried altering it. 



Why do people eat the fish they do ? Here now the answer came 

 more easily, though it was not a satisfactory answer. It had noth- 

 ing to do with quality or with dietetics. It was a function of per- 

 sonality at large, the mass taste of newspapers and television, the 

 standardised senses. That, and also an element of childhood nur- 

 ture, for taste in fish could be a national thing, like taste in art. In 

 fact, it was very similar. The first premise in both cases was : I 

 like what I know. And the second : If it was good enough for my 

 great-grandfather then it's good enough for me. 



Centuries of this kind of attitude had bred a set of national pal- 

 ates as various as flags. What was prized highly in one capital 

 would be conveyed to the fish-meal factories of another. The 

 waste was appalling, but if it had all stopped there then this insul- 

 ation of geographical fashion would have been no more harmful 

 than a thousand other unconscious manifestations of national con- 

 sciousness. But it couldn't stop. The fish themselves had no nat- 

 ional prejudices and their distribution often cut across the terri- 

 torial waters of one country or another. Sometimes the result 

 was melodrama, as when the Norwegians came to hunt the bask- 

 ing shark in the bays of the Scottish Hebrides and found themselves 

 faced with the harpoon of an enterprising Scotsman. At other 

 times, there was a diplomatic explosion, as when Iceland closed 

 large areas of her home waters to all foreign and domestic fishing 

 vessels. But, more usually, the conflict went on unnoticed by the 

 press and even the fishermen who were directly engaged in it had 

 only the vaguest idea about what was happening. 



Jan passed five years on a trawler without becoming aware of 

 the most important of these international disputes, most impor- 

 tant, that is, to the North Sea fisherman. All he knew was that the 



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