The Glasgow-based artist that's inspired by 'mudlarking'
The family moved to Glasgow when Katie was 17 and having long aspired to go to Glasgow School of Art, she undertook a degree course in Sculpture and Environmental Art and graduated in 2017 with First Class Honours in Sculpture. 'When I was in third year GSA acquired a kiln – and I quickly became hooked on clay and its endless possibilities. After graduating, my dad and I built my garden studio and Manifesto was born.
'The name represents a groundwork for new ideas and action, prompting connections with like-minded people,' she adds. Her work has to date been exhibited at The Royal Scottish Academy and The Ingram Collection in London.
Katie's inspiration comes primarily from the landscape around her studio or on visits to beaches where she mudlarks for anything from ancient artefacts to sea creatures, fossils, stones, shells, feathers, and general flotsam and jetsam.
(Image: Katie Rose Johnston)
'So many things – above and below ground – inspire me, and I love having a free rein to play with clay and see where it takes me and what come out of it.' The problem with being a mudlarker and gatherer of curious objects is what to do with them.
Many people keep beach finds in a glass jar, but Katie has a more artistic solution she calls Curiosity Clouds: the cloud being a unique sculptural form made up of numerous niches, each one serving as a tiny shelf upon which to display a foraged find.
The catalyst for these Curiosity Clouds, came from a visit to Glasgow's Hunterian Museum, where in amongst a display case of insect and bird nests from around the world, Katie spotted a cross-section of a termite mound, which exposed an elaborate network of tunnels and compartments termites use for ventilation and navigation.
Working from the centre outward using terracotta crank clay, each of Katie's Curiosity Clouds (priced from £200 up to £500) has its own unique appearance and size and is coated in slip to achieve a variety of earthy hues.
'Arranging found curios in each compartment is a return to childhood playdays, carefully placing each exhibit in its new space, like a curator in a museum,' she says.
Mycelium candleholders are another eye-catching fusion of form and function.
(Image: Katie Rose Johnston) Inspired by the complex system of roots that connect fungi together deep underground, each individual candleholder encases slender taper candles within an ethereal nest of coils made from terracotta clay with a white slip finish. These range in price from £400 up to £1,200.
Manifesto's range is expansive and includes a recent exploration into tableware following a six-week Anagama firing residency at Shiro Oni Studios in the Gunma prefecture in Japan, which culminated in an exhibition of functional tableware mimicking the shapes of petals and leaves, also a series of ceramic platters, dishes and bowls, pinched from balls of dark red clay.
Katie's ceramics can be purchased from Bard in Leith (www.bard-scotland.com) and periodically direct from her workshop in the southside of Glasgow.
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The Herald Scotland
5 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Glasgow School of Art's stained glass studio closure 'ill-judged'
The concern comes as a new stained glass window telling stories of resistance has just been unveiled at the Bridge in Easterhouse, Glasgow. Cameron is one of a number of prominent figures who have criticised the closure of the studio, which had been providing continuing education courses in the craft since the Murals and Stained Glass degree was scrapped in the eighties. Some of those who have attended the classes, taught by artists Eilidh Keith and Geraldine McSporran, have gone on to set up their own glass studios. Read more Dani Garavelli: The GSA took the decision to close the studio in its Haldane building because, it said, it required the space for its expanding number of students. Keith and McSporran are being made redundant. Those who attended the classes insist no effort was made to inform them of the closure. Cameron said he found it hard to believe no alternative space could be found. 'The GSA bought the Stow College building: that's where its fine art department is based. Surely, there's a room in there that could be used,' he said. Professor Dugald Cameron is unhappy with the decision. (Image: George Munro) He spoke out days after the death of Sir Brian Clarke, one of the world's leading contemporary stained glass artists. Collaborating with Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid, Clarke understood that for the artform to survive it must move beyond the religious to the secular. His work can be found in Pfizer's headquarters in Manhattan and Lake Sagami Country Club in Yamanashi, Japan. 'The problem is people don't realise stained glass isn't something only churches do,' Cameron said. 'We have a noble history of it.' Meanwhile, artist Alec Galloway, who has a stained glass studio in Gourock, said the GSA's 'sudden' decision was 'saddening and bewildering'. In 2023, stained glass was added to the Heritage Crafts Association's (HCA) Red List of Endangered Crafts. Galloway described the situation in Scotland as 'a Doomsday clock scenario, where we are in the final seconds.' Glasgow has the most stained glass of any UK city outside of London. In addition to church windows, there is stained glass in its villas, its tenement closes and many of its pubs. A handful of small stained glass studios, including Galloway's, offer recreational classes, but the GSA's was the last attached to an art school. Recent talents to benefit from its teaching include Aoife Hogan, who graduated from the GSA with a first after producing stained glass pieces in the studio. Galloway said the recreational classes were an asset but were mostly for 'hobbyists'. 'They are not producing the kinds of artists who could repair the damage we saw at Notre Dame in Paris,' he said. Galloway taught on Scotland's last stained glass degree course at the Edinburgh College of Art until it was scrapped more than a decade ago. At the time the institution claimed it was too expensive to keep its two furnaces running. But Galloway believes those in charge thought ceramics and stained glass were 'old and messy' and dropped them in favour of clean computer design. There are now no accredited courses in Scotland and only a handful in England. The nearest to the border is the National Glass Centre in Sunderland, which is due to close next year. However, the University of Wales is now running apprenticeship programmes in collaboration with employers. Galloway is one of several campaigners working hard to rectify the situation in Scotland. He is involved in an attempt to buy the Glebe — a B-listed 19th Century former sugar refinery building in Greenock — and turn it into a national stained glass school. Read more Dani Garavelli: Galloway is also working with filmmaker Sarah Purser to try to raise the profile of the craft. Purser, executive producer at Little White Rose films, is on a mission to turn Guy McCrone's Wax Fruit trilogy into a multi-season TV epic. The novels tell the story of the Moorhouse family who rise from humble beginnings to the heights of 19th century Glasgow society. Purser believes the series would showcase the city's heritage and so help to preserve it. As part of this, she has offered to add one of Glasgow's most renowned stained glass artists, Daniel Cottier, to the cast list. 'When Arthur and Bel Moorhouse finally make their move from the squalor of the East End to the glamorous west of the city, they hire global superstars of the architecture and stained glass world to build and design their bespoke mansion – Scots-born geniuses Alexander 'Greek" Thomson and Daniel Cottier,' she explained. 'The Moorhouse Mansion is to be one of the finest, most extravagant and cutting edge residences in the city. But Bel and Arthur's lavish spending and insatiable desire to outdo the creme de la creme will push their already precarious finances to a knife-edge and threaten to topple all that they hold dear." The new stained glass window. (Image: Gordon Terris) Richard Welsh and Keira McLean, who run RDW Glass in Dennistoun, have also been working to shore up the craft. McLean has been trying to set up a new accredited stained course at Langside College and has worked with various community groups to create stained glass windows at libraries across the city. The latest, which tells stories of resistance, including that of activist Cathy McCormack and the poll tax demos, was unveiled at the Bridge in Easterhouse on Thursday, July 24. But their efforts are not being matched by the authorities tasked with preserving our heritage. Having secured the space and the materials for her course, McLean has struggled to obtain funding to cover her fee. As for the GSA, Cameron says it has not responded to his email, though he discussed the situation with a member of its senior staff, and responses to freedom of information requests on the details of consultations it claims were carried out are so redacted as to be meaningless. 'Since I retired, I have tried to support the art school because I do love the place,' Cameron said. 'But it needs to be more careful of its history and its USP. It needs to consider what it can contribute today that other people can't.'
The Guardian
21-07-2025
- The Guardian
How to make the perfect fritto misto – recipe
Fritto misto (the term for 'mixed fry' sounds so much better in Italian, somehow) is, in the words of Katie Caldesi, 'an assortment of deep-fried vegetables, fish or meats … all bite-size, intended to be eaten with fingers and a wedge of lemon'. And she should know, because she loves the stuff so much that she served fritto misto at her wedding to chef Giancarlo. It's pure crisp, relaxed holiday pleasure – a simple crowdpleaser that everyone can dig into together, with, as Caldesi observes, a winning element of surprise: 'You don't know what is hidden beneath the batter until you've bitten into it.' On that note, and because my memories of the dish involve rustling salty piles washed down with well-chilled carafes of vino della casa at seaside restaurants, I always think of the fishy version (properly fritto misto di mare), but I've given suggestions below for a vegetable alternative so everyone can enjoy the feast. After all, as the Tuscans say, fritta è buona anche una suola di scarpa (even the sole of a shoe tastes good fried). Alan Davidson's magisterial 1972 work Mediterranean Seafood explains that, while fritto misto is 'one of the most common fish dishes in restaurants on the Italian coast … the composition varies according to what is available, and there are scores of possible combinations. In Venice,' he adds, 'a typical mixture would be from the following range: inkfish or squid; soft-shell crabs; prawns or shrimp; eel; sardines. In Naples, the list would be shorter.' Quoting one signora Jeanne Caròla, he writes: 'Our fritto di pesce, the ultra-classical one, is not too varied: red mullet and squid only.' With such a simple recipe, you should be guided by what's freshest, or what looks best, at the fishmonger – that's the Italian way. However, my job here is to test recipes as written, so obediently I went out to find large raw prawns, which most recipes call for, along with baby squid. Cesare Casella and Stephanie Lyness's The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Italian Cuisine demands fish fillets; Tessa Kiros' Twelve specifies red mullet, so, happening upon a fine Cornish example at my local fishmonger, I use that in both. Sasha Marx's recipe for Serious Eats, meanwhile, substitutes the usual sardines and anchovies for the North American smelt, which I swap back to anchovies. Caldesi, too, goes for anchovies, though she sandwiches tinned ones in fresh sage leaves, thereby adding a pop of salty perfume that proves irresistible; in fact, one of my testers asks why I can't just make a whole plate of those instead. The River Cafe Classic Italian Cookbook simply calls for 'mixed small fish' (though its authors note that the day they went to the market, they were lucky enough to find 'langoustines, soles, mullets, eels, prawns and moscardini [baby octopus]'), which, in my case, means the anchovies and the whitebait I've already bought for Russell Norman's version. These are soaked in milk for 15 minutes before cooking – though Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray don't say why, it's said to reduce the 'fishy' flavour. Fresh fish ought not to need this treatment, so I've thrown caution to the wind and skipped this step. Whatever you go for (do play about with my suggested selection below), it's very easy to overcook seafood – to my mind, the prawns stand up best to the fierce heat of the hot oil, even more so if, like Marx, you leave the shells on. But if crunching through them isn't your idea of fun, you might prefer to remove them first. If you fancy using fish (and the more textures and flavours here, the merrier, as far as I'm concerned), I find that small whole ones work better than fillets or cubes of mullet, which are difficult to cook perfectly and have a tendency to stick or fall apart. You could also use soft-shell crabs, scallops, mussels, even oysters; anything that appeals, really. Vegetables are very much an optional extra, but I like the freshness that they bring to the dish – or as much as anything that's been deep-fried can be said to be 'fresh'. Caldesi suggests cauliflower and artichokes, Kiros artichokes, asparagus, courgettes and tomatoes, and Casella and Lynness courgettes and aubergine, plus sprigs of sage, parsley and basil. The artichokes, to my and my testers' surprise, prove the favourites; they don't seem to give off much water (courgettes and aubergines, on the other hand, are prone to turning soggy) and their shape provides lots of interesting ridges for the batter to cling to. But they're so seasonal that I've substituted the more easily sourced fennel bulb, whose aniseed flavour I think pairs better with fish. If you'd prefer to keep things vegetarian, use a mixture of vegetables that take your fancy, but avoid anything with a high water content such as mushrooms and ripe tomatoes. Where the recipes really differ is in the batter they use, which varies from chef Pasquale Torrente's mere dusting of semolina flour to the enriched, beer-spiked batter in the Caldesis' The Italian Cookery Course. Being a sucker for carbs, I admit to a fatal weakness for the more robust and shatteringly crisp batter shell – somewhere between tempura and a fish supper – produced by Caldesi, Kiros and Angela Hartnett's recipes. As with so much here, however, it's a matter of personal preference; if you like your seafood plain and simple, just dip it in seasoned semolina, or in the mixture of semolina and cornflour used by Marx, which does indeed help to keep it crisper for longer, or in the River Cafe's flour before frying. (Semolina gives a grittier consistency; Casella and Lynness mix cornmeal and flour for a similar, but even craggier result.) Flour, according to Harold McGee's seminal On Food & Cooking, is the ingredient that has the 'largest influence on batter quality … the gluten proteins in ordinary wheat flour are valuable for the clinginess they provide, but they form elastic gluten and absorb moisture and fat, and so are responsible for chewiness and oiliness in the fried crust. For these reasons, moderate-protein flours make better batters than bread flour.' Though I don't find any recipes that call for bread flour, several mention the finely milled 00 flour traditionally used in pasta making, possibly because it's one that's often found in Italian kitchens. The example I buy, however, proves higher in protein than my standard plain variety, so I've stuck with the latter, cut with cornflour, which, as McGee explains, 'improves crispness because its relatively large particles are less absorbent, and its proteins dilute wheat gluten and reduce the chewiness of the crust'. Much as I appreciate an excuse to crack open a bottle while cooking, I favour the plainer, water-based batters to those made with beer and wine, or indeed eggs and milk (with a special mention to the whisked egg whites in Norman's book Polpo, which give his dredge an ethereal, tempura-like effect). Cold sparkling water, in particular, produces a deliciously light, crisp result. If you're a real perfectionist, you might take Hartnett's advice and stir the batter over a bowl of iced water, because the colder the batter, the slower the gluten formation. I find simply using fridge-cold water and being careful not to overmix (chopsticks are, as she says, ideal for the purpose) work well enough for me. I don't think Marx's baking powder is necessary, given the sparkling water, nor Caldesi's pinch of sugar, which I suspect is, like the milk in many recipes, more there to encourage the batter to brown than to add an overt sweetness. Fritto misto tends to be rather paler than, say, an onion ring; more a ghostly tentacle than a bronzed rubber band. This is one recipe that you must, I'm afraid, get out the oil for: the clue is in the name. A high heat is best – Casella and Lynness's 165C feels too cool, and the seafood takes ages to brown, leaving some of it overcooked. Better to go in hot and fast, as Hartnett and several others recommend – though, unless you have a huge fryer, I'd also urge you to cook the different elements separately, to prevent the squid overcooking while the prawns are still floppy and wan. It's also best, if doing both vegetables and seafood, to cook the former first, or everything will end up tasting of fish. Serve hot, with plenty of salt and wedges of lemon to squeeze over the top. The ingredients list is just a guide, so feel free to swap in seafood and vegetables as desired. Prep 25 min Cook 10 min (depending on the size of your pan) Serves 4 2 fennel bulbs 300g squid, baby or large, cleaned if necessary8 large raw shell-on prawns, or 12 medium ones200g small whole fish (ie, whitebait)16 sage leaves 8 anchovy fillets in oil, drained 125g plain flour, plus extra for dusting25g cornflour Salt Neutral oil, for frying250ml very cold sparkling water Lemon wedges, to serve Trim the fennel and cut it into chunky wedges. Give the squid a wash, then remove the tentacles, and cut off and discard the head at the top of them. If the squid are large, you might need to peel off the outer membrane (look online for advice) before cutting the body into chunky rings; if using baby squid, leave the bodies whole. Wash the prawns, cut a slit down the back of each one and pull out and discard the dark 'vein' running along the prawn's back. Wash the small fish. Pat everything dry. Pair up the sage leaves with ones of fairly equal size, then sandwich an anchovy fillet between each pair (you may need to trim one end off some of the anchovies for neatness). Put the flours in a large bowl and season with salt. Put a little more plain flour on a plate. Pour enough neutral oil into a large, heavy saucepan to fill it by no more than a third and heat to 190C (alternatively, set a deep-fat fryer to heat to 190C). Turn on the oven to low and line a baking tray with kitchen paper. When the oil is almost up to temperature, quickly stir the cold sparkling water into the bowl of seasoned flours, mixing as little as possible; don't worry if there are lumps. As soon as the oil is ready, toss the fennel in the plate of flour to coat, shake off the excess, then dip it in the batter. Shake the excess back into the bowl and carefully drop the fennel into the hot oil (don't overcrowd the pan or the oil will cool down too far and its contents will go soggy, so if necessary fry everything in batches), stirring once so it doesn't stick or clump. Fry for a couple of minutes, until pale golden brown, then scoop out with a slotted spoon on to the kitchen paper, blot off any excess oil and put in the low oven to keep warm. Repeat with the prawns, followed by the squid, then the little fish, and finally the sage and anchovy sandwiches, making sure the oil comes back up to temperature each time, and bearing in mind that the prawns will probably take a little longer (three or so minutes if they're large specimens) than the squid. Go by eye: the batter should be crisp and pale gold, rather than bronzed. Once everything is fried and ready, tip on to a serving plate, season with salt and serve with lemon wedges to squeeze over the top (and with a bowl for the prawn heads and shells). Fritto misto: the capo of all fried foods, or does someone else fry seafood better? Do you prefer a light semolina dredge or a crunchy batter jacket? Or will you make the case for the vegetable, meat or even sweet versions?
The Guardian
20-07-2025
- The Guardian
How to make the perfect fritto misto – recipe
Fritto misto (the term for 'mixed fry' sounds so much better in Italian, somehow) is, in the words of Katie Caldesi, 'an assortment of deep-fried vegetables, fish or meats … all bite-size, intended to be eaten with fingers and a wedge of lemon'. And she should know, because she loves the stuff so much that she served fritto misto at her wedding to chef Giancarlo. It's pure crisp, relaxed holiday pleasure – a simple crowdpleaser that everyone can dig into together, with, as Caldesi observes, a winning element of surprise: 'You don't know what is hidden beneath the batter until you've bitten into it.' On that note, and because my memories of the dish involve rustling salty piles washed down with well-chilled carafes of vino della casa at seaside restaurants, I always think of the fishy version (properly fritto misto di mare), but I've given suggestions below for a vegetable alternative so everyone can enjoy the feast. After all, as the Tuscans say, fritta è buona anche una suola di scarpa (even the sole of a shoe tastes good fried). Alan Davidson's magisterial 1972 work Mediterranean Seafood explains that, while fritto misto is 'one of the most common fish dishes in restaurants on the Italian coast … the composition varies according to what is available, and there are scores of possible combinations. In Venice,' he adds, 'a typical mixture would be from the following range: inkfish or squid; soft-shell crabs; prawns or shrimp; eel; sardines. In Naples, the list would be shorter.' Quoting one signora Jeanne Caròla, he writes: 'Our fritto di pesce, the ultra-classical one, is not too varied: red mullet and squid only.' With such a simple recipe, you should be guided by what's freshest, or what looks best, at the fishmonger – that's the Italian way. However, my job here is to test recipes as written, so obediently I went out to find large raw prawns, which most recipes call for, along with baby squid. Cesare Casella and Stephanie Lyness's The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Italian Cuisine demands fish fillets; Tessa Kiros' Twelve specifies red mullet, so, happening upon a fine Cornish example at my local fishmonger, I use that in both. Sasha Marx's recipe for Serious Eats, meanwhile, substitutes the usual sardines and anchovies for the North American smelt, which I swap back to anchovies. Caldesi, too, goes for anchovies, though she sandwiches tinned ones in fresh sage leaves, thereby adding a pop of salty perfume that proves irresistible; in fact, one of my testers asks why I can't just make a whole plate of those instead. The River Cafe Classic Italian Cookbook simply calls for 'mixed small fish' (though its authors note that the day they went to the market, they were lucky enough to find 'langoustines, soles, mullets, eels, prawns and moscardini [baby octopus]'), which, in my case, means the anchovies and the whitebait I've already bought for Russell Norman's version. These are soaked in milk for 15 minutes before cooking – though Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray don't say why, it's said to reduce the 'fishy' flavour. Fresh fish ought not to need this treatment, so I've thrown caution to the wind and skipped this step. Whatever you go for (do play about with my suggested selection below), it's very easy to overcook seafood – to my mind, the prawns stand up best to the fierce heat of the hot oil, even more so if, like Marx, you leave the shells on. But if crunching through them isn't your idea of fun, you might prefer to remove them first. If you fancy using fish (and the more textures and flavours here, the merrier, as far as I'm concerned), I find that small whole ones work better than fillets or cubes of mullet, which are difficult to cook perfectly and have a tendency to stick or fall apart. You could also use soft-shell crabs, scallops, mussels, even oysters; anything that appeals, really. Vegetables are very much an optional extra, but I like the freshness that they bring to the dish – or as much as anything that's been deep-fried can be said to be 'fresh'. Caldesi suggests cauliflower and artichokes, Kiros artichokes, asparagus, courgettes and tomatoes, and Casella and Lynness courgettes and aubergine, plus sprigs of sage, parsley and basil. The artichokes, to my and my testers' surprise, prove the favourites; they don't seem to give off much water (courgettes and aubergines, on the other hand, are prone to turning soggy) and their shape provides lots of interesting ridges for the batter to cling to. But they're so seasonal that I've substituted the more easily sourced fennel bulb, whose aniseed flavour I think pairs better with fish. If you'd prefer to keep things vegetarian, use a mixture of vegetables that take your fancy, but avoid anything with a high water content such as mushrooms and ripe tomatoes. Where the recipes really differ is in the batter they use, which varies from chef Pasquale Torrente's mere dusting of semolina flour to the enriched, beer-spiked batter in the Caldesis' The Italian Cookery Course. Being a sucker for carbs, I admit to a fatal weakness for the more robust and shatteringly crisp batter shell – somewhere between tempura and a fish supper – produced by Caldesi, Kiros and Angela Hartnett's recipes. As with so much here, however, it's a matter of personal preference; if you like your seafood plain and simple, just dip it in seasoned semolina, or in the mixture of semolina and cornflour used by Marx, which does indeed help to keep it crisper for longer, or in the River Cafe's flour before frying. (Semolina gives a grittier consistency; Casella and Lynness mix cornmeal and flour for a similar, but even craggier result.) Flour, according to Harold McGee's seminal On Food & Cooking, is the ingredient that has the 'largest influence on batter quality … the gluten proteins in ordinary wheat flour are valuable for the clinginess they provide, but they form elastic gluten and absorb moisture and fat, and so are responsible for chewiness and oiliness in the fried crust. For these reasons, moderate-protein flours make better batters than bread flour.' Though I don't find any recipes that call for bread flour, several mention the finely milled 00 flour traditionally used in pasta making, possibly because it's one that's often found in Italian kitchens. The example I buy, however, proves higher in protein than my standard plain variety, so I've stuck with the latter, cut with cornflour, which, as McGee explains, 'improves crispness because its relatively large particles are less absorbent, and its proteins dilute wheat gluten and reduce the chewiness of the crust'. Much as I appreciate an excuse to crack open a bottle while cooking, I favour the plainer, water-based batters to those made with beer and wine, or indeed eggs and milk (with a special mention to the whisked egg whites in Norman's book Polpo, which give his dredge an ethereal, tempura-like effect). Cold sparkling water, in particular, produces a deliciously light, crisp result. If you're a real perfectionist, you might take Hartnett's advice and stir the batter over a bowl of iced water, because the colder the batter, the slower the gluten formation. I find simply using fridge-cold water and being careful not to overmix (chopsticks are, as she says, ideal for the purpose) work well enough for me. I don't think Marx's baking powder is necessary, given the sparkling water, nor Caldesi's pinch of sugar, which I suspect is, like the milk in many recipes, more there to encourage the batter to brown than to add an overt sweetness. Fritto misto tends to be rather paler than, say, an onion ring; more a ghostly tentacle than a bronzed rubber band. This is one recipe that you must, I'm afraid, get out the oil for: the clue is in the name. A high heat is best – Casella and Lynness's 165C feels too cool, and the seafood takes ages to brown, leaving some of it overcooked. Better to go in hot and fast, as Hartnett and several others recommend – though, unless you have a huge fryer, I'd also urge you to cook the different elements separately, to prevent the squid overcooking while the prawns are still floppy and wan. It's also best, if doing both vegetables and seafood, to cook the former first, or everything will end up tasting of fish. Serve hot, with plenty of salt and wedges of lemon to squeeze over the top. The ingredients list is just a guide, so feel free to swap in seafood and vegetables as desired. Prep 25 min Cook 10 min (depending on the size of your pan) Serves 4 2 fennel bulbs 300g squid, baby or large, cleaned if necessary8 large raw shell-on prawns, or 12 medium ones200g small whole fish (ie, whitebait)16 sage leaves 8 anchovy fillets in oil, drained 125g plain flour, plus extra for dusting25g cornflour Salt Neutral oil, for frying250ml very cold sparkling water Lemon wedges, to serve Trim the fennel and cut it into chunky wedges. Give the squid a wash, then remove the tentacles, and cut off and discard the head at the top of them. If the squid are large, you might need to peel off the outer membrane (look online for advice) before cutting the body into chunky rings; if using baby squid, leave the bodies whole. Wash the prawns, cut a slit down the back of each one and pull out and discard the dark 'vein' running along the prawn's back. Wash the small fish. Pat everything dry. Pair up the sage leaves with ones of fairly equal size, then sandwich an anchovy fillet between each pair (you may need to trim one end off some of the anchovies for neatness). Put the flours in a large bowl and season with salt. Put a little more plain flour on a plate. Pour enough neutral oil into a large, heavy saucepan to fill it by no more than a third and heat to 190C (alternatively, set a deep-fat fryer to heat to 190C). Turn on the oven to low and line a baking tray with kitchen paper. When the oil is almost up to temperature, quickly stir the cold sparkling water into the bowl of seasoned flours, mixing as little as possible; don't worry if there are lumps. As soon as the oil is ready, toss the fennel in the plate of flour to coat, shake off the excess, then dip it in the batter. Shake the excess back into the bowl and carefully drop the fennel into the hot oil (don't overcrowd the pan or the oil will cool down too far and its contents will go soggy, so if necessary fry everything in batches), stirring once so it doesn't stick or clump. Fry for a couple of minutes, until pale golden brown, then scoop out with a slotted spoon on to the kitchen paper, blot off any excess oil and put in the low oven to keep warm. Repeat with the prawns, followed by the squid, then the little fish, and finally the sage and anchovy sandwiches, making sure the oil comes back up to temperature each time, and bearing in mind that the prawns will probably take a little longer (three or so minutes if they're large specimens) than the squid. Go by eye: the batter should be crisp and pale gold, rather than bronzed. Once everything is fried and ready, tip on to a serving plate, season with salt and serve with lemon wedges to squeeze over the top (and with a bowl for the prawn heads and shells). Fritto misto: the capo of all fried foods, or does someone else fry seafood better? Do you prefer a light semolina dredge or a crunchy batter jacket? Or will you make the case for the vegetable, meat or even sweet versions?
