Damien Enright: La Gomera's disappearing beach and those mouthwatering mackerel

Last week's storm washed away the sand on the main beach on the Canary Island

The main beach at Valle Gran Rey, La Gomera, seen here last March. A storm last week washed away the sand on one of the most popular beaches on the island.

Some 60% of the black sand beach in the Valle Gran Rey in La Gomera, Canary Islands, was washed away by the huge surf that pounded it last week, waves the height of a one-storey house. It'll be disappointing for the holidaymakers. It's the main beach in the valley and the best beach on the island. When the sand is taken away by the sea, all the rounded stones that lie beneath are exposed, from football-size ones highest up to fist-sized one that reaches out to the lowest tides. So, it's not easy to go swimming there now. But the 40% that's left is negotiable.

Dislodged by rain, rocks fell, with one relatively large rockfall. The winds were fierce, the big palmera trees swaying like bamboo canes, and their head of leaves and dates as wild as the snakelock hair of Medusa, clashing and slashing like swords in the turmoil of battle. For four days following, rain fell sporadically, although sometimes one could see no clouds. It may have come from very high up, where the stars are, so a small boy said. But for the relative warmth, we might have been back in West Cork.

Damien Enright: The fish caught around this island are, generally, caught at great depths and are, almost always, very large.

On the phone, friends in Courtmacsherry said It was 3C below, but felt like minus 5C. Frost was so thick on the ground, it looked like snow. We'd have liked to be there. Over more than 25 years living in West Cork, we've seen snow only four times and "proper" snow,  that lasted more than a day, only once. Maybe snow was heavier when I lived in Clonakilty as a child, but I don't remember it. Farther west, snow may be more regular.

The mackerel wasn't as good as the ones at home, but they were very acceptable

We had mackerel last night and appreciated that tastiest of fish caught — or used to be caught — by shore fishermen with a line and spinner, attached to a rod or not, on the West Cork coast every summer. My wife had heard the old, familiar music of the fish van passing, and making its stop halfway up the valley in the village near my son's house.

The mackerel wasn't as good as the ones at home, but they were very acceptable. Warm water mackerel isn't as oily as cold-water species, and the oils contain much of the taste. Omega-3 fatty acids are, of course, a rich food source. All the five fish she bought for €5 were as big as the biggest we catch at home. Spanish Mackerel, they're just one of the various species of the family.

Years ago, when we spent nine months teaching and writing for an English-language magazine in Japan, we regularly ate sushi, and Japanese Mackerel sushi was best, especially in Kyoto. Mackerel spoils quickly in warm climates, and fast delivery from sea to sushi plate was essential. The fast road bringing the fish caught in Obama Bay to Kyoto was locally called the "mackerel road".

It seems strange that it should be a big thrill to get mackerel here on this island surrounded by fish-rich seas. Apparently, mackerel are of the same family as the Wahoo, a favoured game fish, a huge predatory mackerel (can grow to 2.5 m and weigh up 71kg) that lives in the epipelagic zone — i.e. upper zone — of the open ocean. It's one of the fastest fish in the sea. Hereabouts, it's regularly caught by local fishermen and is called a 'Peto'.

As previously reported in this column, the fish caught around this island are, generally, caught at great depths and are, almost always, very large. The much smaller mackerel are more flavoursome. We must ask our son to listen out for the fish van. We could buy frozen mackerel, or frozen fish of almost any variety from almost anywhere in the world, at the vast Cinco Oceanos – 5 Oceans – frozen foods store. Vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, shellfish, octopus, squid from all over the planet is available. Last week, to make an Indian fish curry, my wife wanted hake and finding none fresh to be had at the pier, bought frozen fillets of Pacific Hake that had come from the fishing-boat crowded seas off China.

We really aren’t sure how ethical it is to buy fish that, like the "tea and oranges" in Leonard Cohen's lovely Suzanne song, "comes all the way from China". Anyway, the curry was grand but the actual hake wasn't as tasty as that which we buy, fresh from the Atlantic, back in Ireland.

Ethical transport of food is a complicated question. An equal concern is that future generations will become so used to food that comes from halfway across the world frozen, tinned, powdered or canned that it will become acceptable. It would be a pity, though.