I've never eaten raw mackerel before. But there has to be a first time for everything.
We are on board a fishing boat in the sunshine in Plymouth Sound, and with help from River Cottage's Thom Hunt, of Channel 4's Three Hungry Boys fame, I've just filleted one of these silvery beauties, common off the Cornish coast in summer.
Just minutes before, these very same fish were swimming beneath us, out beyond the breakwater. Now their pinky raw flesh, cut into slivers, is being offered around to the crew by Steven Lamb, our other host from River Cottage, as the Japanese delicacy sashimi.
I gingerly take a morsel of fish, dip it in the soy sauce he offers and pop it in my mouth. "Delicious," I say. And it really is. You can't get fresher than this.
We've just spent an hour's fishing out at sea, where our group bagged an impressive haul of bright-eyed mackerel and two prolific cod relatives, pouting and whiting.
I'm ashamed to admit I was struck down with sea sickness the moment the boat started to dip and roll on the swell, and so the fishing bit of our day out passed me by. While most of the group were busy hauling up their fish-laden lines, I was lying immobile on the front deck under my sunglasses.
Luckily WMN photographer Emily Whitfield-Wicks doesn't get sea sick, so she's been capturing the action, as skipper Colin Helson shows us all the best spots for fishing hereabouts. Everyone has been having a great day, I gather, from listening to the whoops of excitement each time someone pulls up a line heavy with fish.
"Summer months are the best time to catch mackerel, when they come inshore in large shoals to feed on crustaceans and small fish," Thom tells me later.
"That is why we use feathers to attach to the hooks on the line to lure the fish in, to imitate shoals of fish that the mackerel feed on."
Back inside the Sound, Colin has brought the boat in close off the picturesque villages Kingsand and Cawsand on the Cornish side of the Tamar. And Thom, who's been fishing since the age of four, shows us how to gut and fillet the catch.
This is a big part of the whole wild food experience; dealing with whatever you've caught.
It inevitably involves blood and guts, which is a bit of a culture shock for a girl like me, used to picking her fish up ready filleted in the supermarket. But Thom's enthusiasm is infectious – he makes a living out of enthusing people about catching wild food.
"There's a huge satisfaction in being able to catch your own fish, prepare it and have it on the plate within an hour," he says, as he slides the knife into the mackerel's belly, and draws out the innards. "We are all hunter-gatherers at heart."
Now it is my turn. I pick out a plump mackerel from the bucket. It is so beautiful it seems a shame to stick the knife in. But that's the deal if we are going to eat it.
As instructed, I make the first cut along the belly, and, following Thom's instructions, hook in a forefinger behind the innards to pull them out in one go, before chucking them in the bucket for the seagulls.
Now, with Thom helping me, I have a go at filleting. He shows me how to put the knife in at a 45 degree angle beside the fish's little angel-like wing called the pectoral fin, and then, with the knife pressing downwards make a horizontal cut to free the fillet.
With the other hand flat down on the fish, I run the knife flat against the ribcage bones to cut the fillet off cleanly, turning it half way to avoid cutting my fingers off. This calls for a steady hand, particularly when the boat starts dipping and rolling after another boat swooshes past.
The first fillet is a bit scraggy, with rather a lot of fish still attached to the tail end. Practice makes perfect, though, and Thom pronounces my second effort "a nice little fillet".
He then gets on with turning the fillet into sashimi, removing the skin, and slicing the fish into slivers for sashimi. As we sample our fish, the seagulls fall on their lunch, the innards we've thrown to them over the side.
We are ready for our late lunch by the time tie up in the harbour in the Royal William Yard. We are literally just few steps away from the River Cottage Canteen, and the chefs come to lug our haul back to the kitchens to be cooked for our lunch.
While the day-long course is called Catch and Cook, we don't actually cook anything, which suits me fine. We have a chance, instead, to talk over our morning at sea over a glass of Hugh F-W's own Stinger Ale while munching on starters – pollock fritters, mackerel pate on toast and crab on toast – and listening to head chef Joe Draper telling us how he will cook the fish we've caught.
He fries fillets of whiting in a simple batter of flour and a splash of beer for five-six minutes at a temperature of 170-180C.
"You can use beer or ale, and it doesn't matter which one, just whatever you fancy really," says Joe.
"It is best to give the fish a light dusting of seasoned flour before its dipped into the batter to help it stick to the fish."
And he proposes a simple way of cooking some of the smaller whole mackerel we've caught, baked in a hot oven for seven to eight minutes, with olive oil, a splash of lemon juice, Cornish sea salt and fresh thyme inside the fish.
He serves them drizzled with a piquant salsa verde, a simple sauce made from chopped fresh parsley and mint mixed with Dijon mustard, a splash of cider vinegar, some finely chopped capers and olive oil.
Both fish dishes are truly delicious and proof that fish really is best served super fresh. Why not catch some of your own this summer?
