Remember the ‘good old days’. Remember when Gough Whitlam was the leader of the Opposition, Bob Hawke had black hair and silly glasses, you still had Sunday roasts, and fish shops — the first of the fast food outlets — did a roaring trade on Fridays?

Remember? Remember those shops which had piles of already-fried fish in thick batter sitting before your eyes, and at your order he (always he) would toss one into the foaming oil? Re-cooked fish! how did we put up with it? And fish wrapped in paper? Didn’t we realise that on top of the double cooking, the fish would keep cooking in the insulated bag?

We were so dull then, so locked in our set ways, and the way we ate fish was as good an indication of our life as anything. We always had flake, for three reasons: it was uncomplicated — it didn’t have bones; it was very cheap; and we were all so unsophisticated that we didn’t understand what all these other fish were anyway. It was only much, much later that I knew that flake was in fact shark, and usually the less than fearless gummy shark.

For some strange reason, one of the strongest memories I have of that period of eating was the great ‘mercury in the flake’ scare. Our favourite fish, as identifiable with Melbourne as guacamole is with Mexico, or sushi with Japan, was under siege by some crazy metal which we knew only as something to do with thermometers. But the remarkable thing was that nobody seemed to care. Here was our life- blood being threatened by a poisonous metal, and nobody gave a hoot. What was no more than a ripple on the waters of the bay in those so-called halcyon days, would be a national scandal today, enough to bring down the government. Mercury in the flake! Green or not, you would have to scream blue murder. Well, flake is back. Still without any bones, not cheap any more, generally imported from New Zealand, still tasting very fishy, and worth trying again.

Remember the ‘good old days’. Remember when Gough Whitlam was the leader of the Opposition, Bob Hawke had black hair and silly glasses, you still had Sunday roasts, and fish shops — the first of the fast food outlets — did a roaring trade on Fridays?

Remember? Remember those shops which had piles of already-fried fish in thick batter sitting before your eyes, and at your order he (always he) would toss one into the foaming oil? Re-cooked fish! how did we put up with it? And fish wrapped in paper? Didn’t we realise that on top of the double cooking, the fish would keep cooking in the insulated bag?

We were so dull then, so locked in our set ways, and the way we ate fish was as good an indication of our life as anything. We always had flake, for three reasons: it was uncomplicated — it didn’t have bones; it was very cheap; and we were all so unsophisticated that we didn’t understand what all these other fish were anyway. It was only much, much later that I knew that flake was in fact shark, and usually the less than fearless gummy shark.

For some strange reason, one of the strongest memories I have of that period of eating was the great ‘mercury in the flake’ scare. Our favourite fish, as identifiable with Melbourne as guacamole is with Mexico, or sushi with Japan, was under siege by some crazy metal which we knew only as something to do with thermometers. But the remarkable thing was that nobody seemed to care. Here was our life- blood being threatened by a poisonous metal, and nobody gave a hoot. What was no more than a ripple on the waters of the bay in those so-called halcyon days, would be a national scandal today, enough to bring down the government. Mercury in the flake! Green or not, you would have to scream blue murder. Well, flake is back. Still without any bones, not cheap any more, generally imported from New Zealand, still tasting very fishy, and worth trying again.

(i) steamed/baked

(ii) fried IN the PAN a little flour