Whither the whitebait?

New Statesman​

02-07-2025

Photo by Debby Lewis-Harrison / Getty Images
It's off to the Regency again, Brighton's venerable fish and seafood restaurant, for the second time in a week. The first time was with the editor of a local mag for whom I write an occasional column, and the reason it is occasional is because I don't get paid for it because they don't have any money, and sometimes I am busy, and sometimes I am uninspired, and there is something about a cheque for £0.00 that fails to make the synapses dance, so what I try to do is get this editor to buy me lunch or at least a pint, for goodness' sake. Unfortunately, now he has retired from his full-time job as a lecturer, he doesn't have any money either. But he is a very lovely person, and so I found myself paying 50 per cent of the bill and that's my finances blown for the next week or so.
This time, today, it was on someone else's dime: the licence-fee payer's actually – ie yours – for I am lunching with a radio producer who happens to be in town for the day.
'Hope you've got ideas!' messages a friend I mention this to. (This friend is one of those strange people who doesn't like being named in this column, so I will keep his or her identity secret except to say we are finally going through our divorce settlement, with, I hasten to add, unusual amicability.)
Ideas? Oh God, I had forgotten about the ideas. There is something about being asked for an idea that makes the brain seize up and the jaw open slackly. There are times, of course, when one absolutely fizzes with them, but it's never when someone has just asked you for some. In my case, my ideas most often come at about two in the morning and I have learned not to try to write them down in ink because for some reason they never look exactly legible in the morning, however full I was of the divine fire when they occurred to me.
I decide in the end to wing it. And anyway, all I can think about at the moment is whitebait. Let me explain why. A few weeks ago, I still had some funds in my account and, as is my habit, strolled down the hill to the seafront for a plate of whitebait and a glass of the house Pinot Grigio. If you ever want to see me drinking white wine in the wild, this will be one of your rare opportunities. There is something about a crisp, cold, cheap but tolerable white wine that sets off the Regency's whitebait, which are dipped in breadcrumbs and deep fried, but are never in the tiniest bit greasy: they're like the most exquisite fish fingers you've ever had, except, you know, fish. And then the food arrived, and it seemed to me that the world had turned upside down. For instead of the little crunchy animals from heaven, I found instead a plate of small nude fish dusted in what was probably paprika. While I am a fan of paprika, it is not in my view an acceptable substitute for breadcrumbs. Totally different textures. I had a few mouthfuls and gave up.
'Excuse me,' I said to the waitress, 'what's this? Have you changed the recipe?' But the Regency seems to hire its front of house staff on the basis of friendliness and general keenness rather than command of the language, which is fine by me, because they pick it up soon enough. But in this case it took about ten minutes of sign language and pidgin to establish that, yes, they had changed the recipe.
Two days ago I asked another waiter what the whitebait situation was. Had they reverted to the original recipe, which had been pleasing the punters since the Chamberlain administration, or were they doubling down with the miserable, modern alternative? I didn't put it like that. It turned out that not only were they doubling down on the change to the recipe, but I was assured that this was by popular demand. 'It's what people want,' he said.
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Excuse me? I know we are living in the worst timeline, but really? The only reason I could think of was that everyone in Brighton had suddenly gone coeliac and had said enough is enough. (Although as it turned out, the scampi were still becrumbed and there were still pasta dishes on the menu.)
Now, I like to think that the press still has some influence even in these degraded times, so I here make my plea to the Regency to reconsider. If I am alone in preferring the old whitebait, then so be it. I will take defeat on the chin. But until then, here I stand, like Martin Luther, and can do no other.
So I arrived for my lunch with the BBC producer and we had a perfectly pleasant conversation – until he asked me if I had any ideas. I pushed my prawns in garlic butter around my plate. Their beady eyes looked up at me in silent mockery. Had I ordered the prawns because I still wanted something crunchy on the outside yet yielding on the inside? I had found the scampi the other day only so-so. Anyway, my brain froze up again. I dabbed at the garlic butter on my chin with a napkin to buy some time. My whole future could depend on my answer.
'Whitebait?' I said.
[See also: What's wrong with Sarah Vine?]
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