First, catch your trout

Throw in some wine chilled in a shady pool and nothing beats brown trout for an epic riverside feast, enthuses Tom Parker Bowles

- Tom Parker Bowles

WHEN it comes to freshwater fish, nothing beats the wild brown trout. In the eating, I mean, not the fishing. If you’re after wisdom on the art of the perfect cast, you may need to look elsewhere. Anyway, it’s not as if there’s a huge amount of competition, save wild salmon (remember them?), admittedly splendid and glorious beasts. But the smaller fish have a sweetness and gentle elegance, their flavour an absolute distillation of the water from which they are plucked—pristine and pure, like gin-clear Southern streams. Or tinged with the merest touch of peat, hauled wriggling out of wine-dark Scottish lochs.

The best way to eat them, of course, is indecently fresh. Gut, season and grill over glowing coals. Or, if you’re feeling particularly inspired (and prepared), softly simmered in a court bouillon, à la truite au bleu (recipe below). Add in a bottle or two of good white wine, chilled in some shady pool, and you have an epic riverbank feast. But, for those of us without easy access to where the bright waters meet (or a particularly selfless friend who is willing to share his catch), the quest for a decent brownie can be frustrating.