FISH PIE
As autumn draws in, warm your cockles with this British classic — and our expert knows the finest comforting recipe
I’ve stolen my wife’s recipe, because when something is this good, you don’t improve it. You just copy it
In the food world there have been some tasty spats between chefs claiming copycat tendencies in rivals. Who can forget Donald Trump’s inauguration cake, an exact replica of the one made four years previously for Barack Obama by star baker Duff Goldman? The plagiarist in this instance, Tiffany MacIsaac, admitted ripping off Goldman, but in her defence revealed that Trump had demanded an exact copy.
Now why doesn’t that surprise me?
In the UK, award-winning London restaurant Flat Iron, a brilliantly conceived steakhouse, was left flabbergasted last year when a Manchester restaurant opened its doors offering an identical menu, using identical tableware, same serving boards, same plates, same signature cleaver, identical wording, same pricing... the similarities were breath-taking. But the copycat steakhouse, Featherblade, denied any wrongdoing. With remarkable chutzpah, it claimed the identical ideas were all its own and any similarity was a coincidence. Twitter went mental. A couple of national restaurant critics demanded a boycott. (Google it and see what you think.)
Which brings me to this month’s recipe. It’s classic, like all my offerings this year, but
I’ve stolen it. That’s right, I’m a plagiarist, pure and simple, and the person I’ve ripped off is my wife. It’s her recipe for fish pie, because when something is as good as this, you don’t try to improve it. You just copy it.