Once you're a filet (or fillet, if you insist), you're no longer visibly a fish. And you can be transported and cooked easily. And you can be sent by van a few thousand kilometers south to feed the multitudes seated under umbrellas on terraces looking out over another body of water and pretending their food is echt native.
In June this year there was a small series on Television Suisse Romande* showing
1) how hard Latvia works to make sure your filet de perche gets to your plate in mint condition.
2) how restaurants fool people
3) how people never miss an opportunity to fool themselves
There was a blind tasting of fish in a number of restaurants by two, um, fish-tasting experts. The fish were then whisked to a special laboratory for DNA testing (I'm not making this up, thx Dave Barry) to determine their origin. The fish-tasters simply rated the taste, texture and overall quality, and then cutting-edge DNA tests revealed their origin (Lac Léman, other Swiss lakes, other Eastern European lakes and Latvia). Fish from Latvia was rated highly. As was fish that actually came from Lac Léman.
Some restaurants were totally honest about the 'foreign' origins of their fish. Others lied, passing the fish off as 'du lac' meaning a Swiss lake which resembled the Léman. Or even said that they were from the Léman (for shame).
The pride of Latvia (but not all of it) is delivered on ice once a week to a depot in Gland and distributed to restaurateurs and poissonneries all around the western edge of the lake. The documentary shows rows of stalwart Latvian women in gloves, caps and aprons deftly skinning and flipping filets--they're paid by the weight of fish they filet. Forty per cent (40%!) (quarante pour cent!) of the Latvian catch comes to Switzerland! That's a whole lot of bilateral right there.
Yes, once upon a time, in the simpler, earlier days of the twentieth century, perch was the pride of Lac Léman, where it prospered. And because it prospered and tasted good it was caught and eaten. And stocks shrank. However the taste for the speciality has grown unabated, so that most people seated at a table with even a partial view of water or the tip of a sailboat suddenly find themselves hankering for it. It gets so that even a view of the lake has you salivating.
It's a touch of heaven served up in butter sauce with French fries.
People returning to Geneva for the briefest visit crave it, and green out-of-towners are dragged to restaurants to taste it.
What's with the other fish native to Lac Léman?
I hope I don't step on any fins here, but féra tastes lakey, omble chevalier is not a fish to write home about despite the promising name, and fresh-water trout is usually farmed.
Small perch is modest, can be eaten in one to two bites, does not require bone-grappling and deft maneuvers of knife and fork. It can be served with butter and lemon, with tartar sauce, with white wine or champagne sauce, with lemon and wine sauce, with garlic and parsley, garlic, parsley, tomato, with morilles, with other herb sauces, or with nothing at all.
Well, you could ask for a spanking dry chasselas, which goes by many names (Fendant, Perlan, Fechy, Dorin etc.) from hundreds of vignobles (another day, another blog).
Then you sigh, glass in hand, and turn back to the fabulous view that reminds you why on earth you're here.....
All the while imagining your lake produced your fish.
* http://www.tsr.ch/emissions/abe/test/3193445-un-filet-de-perche-peut-en-cacher-un-autre-le-test.html
and related sites that will be visible from the tsr list.
PS Filet de perche from our lake is available at select(ed) restaurants, but it's always 'selon arrivage' and good luck to ya'!
PS Filet de perche from our lake is available at select(ed) restaurants, but it's always 'selon arrivage' and good luck to ya'!
