1255 what fish am I eating !!!!!!

Orata sounded familiar so I think I've eaten it some time, this I found in a web
dictionary which didn't know the 'spingola':

For orata:
orata (tipo di pesce) black sea bass
orata (seafood, zool) nf sea bream

For vaschetta:
Principal Translations:
vaschetta (vaschetta) nf tray
vaschetta (bacinella) nf basin

Additional Translations:
vaschetta nf dish

hope this helps a bit

Brilliant thanks for the reply...I love bass ...they are only medium sized...we have 3 between two of us......will let you know what they're like !!!

just wrapped them in foil brushed with oil and cooked in oven..if anyone know better way ...let me know...really into fish !

cioa alex and lyn
well you have got us with your orata vaschetta, orata is bream and vaschetta is tank, bowl or basin so malke your own mind up about that, spigola= bass( sea),
[QUOTE=alex and lyn]" I'd like to be...under the sea ..in an octopus' garden"....da dee dum !!

.....BUT you're not...you're on my plate ..AHA ! :eek: ...but what are they :confused:

We are slowly working our way thru' the supermarkets fishmongers counter ..but half the time haven't a clue what we're eating ...( half the time we haven't a clue about anything ! ;) )

So far we have had Spingola (something like that !) and today we are trying Oratavaschetta...says they were caught in Greece...but that's only over the road to us ( well Adriatic sea actually...)....as our three dictionaries don't like giving us 'food' names -does anyone know what they are ?

Any recommendations on fish in general...and of course recipes ...Ta !!! :cool:[/QUOTE]

Well...whatever type of Bream it was...it was lovely ...except it had a catch...get it ...catch.. :rolleyes:.... sorry ! :o ...
the middle bone came out beautifully so we thought great !...but it seemed to have 2 skeletons !.. :eek: .'cos there were huge hidden bones which seemed to be coming in from the sides !
It may be my fault as fish hadn't been cleaned so i sit the belly and cleaned it out...does it have another middle bone :confused:

[
So far we have had Spingola (something like that !) and today we are trying Oratavaschetta...says they were caught in Greece...but that's only over the road to us ( well Adriatic sea actually...)....as our three dictionaries don't like giving us 'food' names -does anyone know what they are ?

Yes,it's Spigola ( the term vaschetta in this case probably means it was sea farmed which is done in penned off areas near the coast).Orata has already been mentioned.
There is a very good book by an english woman in penguin edition if i remember rightly Mediterranean sea food.It not only gives the translation from french/spanish/italian/etc of each fish accompanied by a drawing , IF EXISTANT the english translation which you may find does not always exist for example Dentice a larger relative of the Orata and a real king is in english relegated to it's latin name of "dentex" of which no one has heard of course.
She gives a wide range of recipes or rather ways of preparing these fish and also gives the local/dialect names this is what increases confusion as the same fish is called different things depending where you are.Try pesce San pietro next time (john dory in english) done in pan with spumante is wonderfully delicate..real treat.

[QUOTE=Sebastiano]There is a very good book by an english woman in penguin edition if i remember rightly Mediterranean sea food.[/QUOTE]
Ciao Sebastiano,

I think you are talking about the late Alan Davidson's magnificent work 'Mediterranean Seafood" which is the companion to a volume on "North Atlantic Seafood". These books are indispensable for anything and everything you ever wanted to know about fish and shellfish (but were afraid to ask).

I don't have Alan's volume at hand, but (from my own book "The Food Lover's Companion Italy"), I identify orata as gilt head sea bream. There are many, many different types of sea bream, all fairly similar in shape, but very different in flavour - and cost.

Is there a gold band on the forehead of the fish, Lyn? If so, then you have an example of the finest of all bream (though farmed specimens may not be quite as tasty as wild).

Marc

thanks sebastiano and marc,

i'll look for the books on Amazon....don't know if it had a gold band round head...and I've eaten it now... :rolleyes: ....but they weren't terribly expensive ...so perhaps not the 'special ' ones....still really nice tho'.