The day I gave into the sustainable fish militia, and bought some fresh sardines…

After months of Fearnley-Whittingstall’s fish offensive, I officially can’t get excited by certain fish any longer. It’s hard to love a piece of well-travelled, expensive salmon when Hugh’s told you umpteem times that coley, pouting, megrim and mackerel are probably living in ponds in your back garden – and actually like being barbecued. So last weekend, as I wandered around my fishmongers in Nunhead looking for dinner material, I ignored the overfished salmon, tuna and prawns in favour of local, fresh sardines for dinner (priced at £2.75 for eight they could only be endanger of being too prolific).

Half an hour later, I slapped them down on the kitchen counter and pawed over Hugh’s basic barbecue sardine recipe.

All was well with the ingredients: sardines, olive oil, marjoram, thyme, garlic salt and pepper. Easy enough.

Now for the preparation.

“Where are the fins?” I ask my husband, who was in the process of dismantling and reassembling a DVD player.

“Absolutely no idea,” he replied.

“So I’m guessing that means you’re not so hot on guts and gills?” I respond.

No answer.

Right. Through a fair degree of guesswork, ipad jabbing and GCSE biology I managed to transform eight silver fish, into barbie-friendly slivers of flesh, rolled into herbs and seasoning. Admittedly my sink was now filled with guts, blood and red liquid – but having just said enjoyed a visit from my parents, such carnage felt cathartic.

Ten minutes later, we were piling sweet, smoky, tangy fish (that fell cleanly off its tiny bones) on to thin slices of buttered brown bread, combining it with a rocket, cabbage, preserved lemon, tomato, wholegrain mustard salad, and basking in moralistic glory.

Goodbye salmon. It was fun while it lasted.