Kipper cream and fish in custard: a century of magazine recipes reveals Britain’s seafood tastes have narrowed

Recipes as a window

Records of the fish people cooked at home are limited. Retail data tend to cover short periods, and household surveys rarely identify fish by species. The researcher examined Good Housekeeping, a magazine focused on home life that began publishing in the 1920s. Recipes cannot show what readers ate, but they offer clues about which fish were familiar, available and considered appealing.

A broad early selection

Recipes from the 1920s featured sole, oysters, shrimp and salmon, as well as halibut, lobster and herring. Dishes included oyster cocktails with olives, kipper cream and halibut steaks in milk.

Nearly a third of the recipes suggested substitute species. Others called simply for fish or white fish, perhaps reflecting uncertainty about what would be available.

Five groups take prominence

From the 1950s, recipes increasingly called for prepared fillets, and frozen products became common. The 1970s marked a further shift: cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and prawns became the most-mentioned groups in each subsequent decade.

The number of species represented did not collapse, but attention focused on fewer kinds. Sole, herring, oysters and lobster appeared less often.

Supply, trade and taste

Changes in supply help explain the pattern, but do not account for it alone. Cod remained a recipe staple even as its numbers in British waters declined, supported first by distant-water fleets and later by imports. Herring and oysters also became less prominent despite remaining available.

Recent recipes include gochujang sticky cod and miso prawn skewers, showing more globally varied cooking while still relying largely on the same five groups. Many British boats land a wider mix of seafood, but much of it is exported, while most fish eaten in Britain is imported.

What the magazine can show

Good Housekeeping represented a particular readership, and its recipes reveal what was visible and aspirational rather than what was cooked and eaten. As a mass-market publication, it nevertheless offers a view of the fish placed before ordinary home cooks.

The research suggests that narrow preferences may have grown from shifts in supply, trade and food retail rather than an unchanging national custom. The researcher says the findings raise the possibility that eating habits could be more open to change than previously thought.