Fins just what they used to be

Sep 11 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

It’s a fishy business for a coastal company still using Victorian values to produce kippers fit for 21st Century connoisseurs, as Karen Dent reports.

THE current custodians of a business that has been on the same site since the 1840s say that sticking with tradition and recognising the value of its heritage are fundamental to their success.

There have been smokehouses at South Street near the harbour in Seahouses for more than 160 years and the present incarnation, Swallow Fish, has been run by Patrick Wilkin and his wife Karen for almost a decade.

They took over the shop, which sells traditional oak-smoked kippers, local fish and shellfish, from the Swallow family, who had run the north Northumberland fishmonger for around 30 years as part of an uninterrupted line of fish businesses based on the same site.

“The shop has been here since 1843. It was started by a man called John Woodger who invented the kipper. All the way down these streets were smokehouses,” said Patrick.

“It was good to carry on the traditional way that things have been done, mainly with the kippers. We keep the smoking as they were done, not this mass-produced stuff.

“People love to come in and see the smokehouses. It’s good to know where things come from.”

Patrick has been connected to the shop since he was a teenager and after a spell working as a fisherman when he left school, the business became his life. His days often stretch from the early hours of the morning until 9pm.

“I worked here when I was at school. When I wasn’t at sea with my dad, I was here helping John Swallow. We’ve always been friends of the family,” he said.

“It was the opportunity of a shore job – better than being at sea and it still involves the fish.”

He and his wife Karen jumped at the chance of taking over the business when it became available.

“We had been running the place for quite a while, I was working here and Karen was doing the books, and John and Pauline Swallow were starting to take a back seat,” he said.

“The rest of the family had their own lives and he didn’t want to just sell to anybody. It was a big step.”

The Wilkins are big believers in the value of tradition. The smokehouse attached to the Fisherman’s Kitchen is little changed from the 19th Century and is used to smoke kippers, Scottish salmon and local fish without dyes or additives.

The shop was added to Seahouses’ new Heritage Trail for tourists this year and visitors have the chance to look around the smokehouse and learn about the process involved in making kippers.

The Fisherman’s Kitchen shop, which is decked out with old photographs and tools from the fishing industry, still uses generations-old recipes as well as Patrick’s newer innovations to make dishes like fishcakes and fish pies.

Karen said: “People are enthralled by the history that surrounds our business. They come to look at the photographs as well as to be shown around the smokehouses where we explain all about the traditional process which is still used to this day.

“People really want traditional food that is produced in the original traditional way.”

TV chef and fish connoisseur Rick Stein has featured Swallow Fish on his TV programme and named the business as one of his food heroes. And Keith Floyd also made the trip to north Northumberland, visiting the shop in his Keith Floyd’s Around Britain show.

Patrick appeared as Mr January in this year’s River Cottage Diary alongside his recipe for Kipper Carbonara and he can also be seen on the package of the Tanfield Food Company’s Smoked Haddock Pottage, which is also made from his recipe using Swallow Fish ingredients.

Although heritage is at the heart of what the business does, it is far from being stuck in the past. The internet has opened up a new customer base and the business delivers to wholesalers, restaurants and individuals across the UK, as well as customers in France and Germany.

Patrick, who left school at 15 with no formal qualifications, has been helped by teenage son Dagan in the shop over the summer holidays. He is determined that his son and daughter Brogan will get a good education and be able to choose which careers they want to follow.

But he has no worries about the future of the business, which has a staff of five..

“It’ll be going a long time with me now,” he said. “ I definitely don’t want to do anything else. It’s all I’ve done really.”

1840s recipe

SWALLOW Fish kippers have been produced the same way since the 1840s.

Between half and three-quarters of a tonne of herring are smoked at once, turning the silver fish to gold-coloured kippers.

“The fires are lit on the floor. We don’t use gas or electric kilns, and there is no dye,” said Patrick.

“We hang them on the old traditional tenterhooks and they are smoked for 12 to 15 hours.”

The herring is hung around 10ft up in the smokehouse and the smoked salmon goes at the very top of the building, which is as tall as a two-storey house without a dividing floor. The salmon is smoked over three to four days.

Modern, mass-produced kippers are dipped in dye to give them an orange colour and are treated in electric or gas kilns.

“This takes the fishy texture out,” said Patrick. “They are not coloured by being smoked.”