This Is Guernsey

IT IS a well-known fact that being on holiday makes people hungry. So does working.

Another thing that can’t have escaped your attention is that breathing the fresh, salty air at the seaside makes people hungry, too.

On the whole, our visitors must be ravenous most of the time, so it is no coincidence that Guernsey is blessed with an abundance of restaurants.

The majority, naturally enough, are situated in Town, although wherever you are, somewhere to eat is not far away.

Certain restaurants specialise in seafood, local waters being full of fish and shellfish. Probably the easiest to get hold of - in the sense of finding it on a menu, as opposed to picking it up - is a spider crab.

The spider is round and knobbly and comes into the bays in early summer - not close enough to warrant wearing boots when paddling, but into relatively shallow water.

So common is the spider over here that it is known simply as a crab.

If you want what most Britons call a crab, you will find it referred to as a chancre (pronounced shanker), which is the French word for crab.

Chancres are smoother, darker and oval in shape.

You will find crab in all sorts of establishments, all over the island, from sandwiches to salads and in sauces for pasta.

Another regular denizen of the deep on our menus is squid, often going under its more attractive European name, calamari.

These turn up in fishermen’s catches by chance - and seafood-lovers are very grateful that they appear at all.

Spider crab - tastier than lobster

At the other extreme of this particular beauty parade, lobsters cost serious money, although a shellfish gourmet might argue that they were value for money, whatever the price.

The old Guernseyman who used to catch them for the local market and for his own table would probably disagree, but there we have one of the world’s sad truths: rarity and expense go hand-in-hand.

This is also true of the struggling mollusc of our shores, the ormer, which sticks to rocks just below low-water mark.

You will find the story elsewhere in these pages, although you won’t see ormers on many menus now.

Fish of the mobile and slippery kind are, thankfully, more plentiful and rich in variety.

Many restaurants enjoy the unsurpassable benefit of having links with local fishermen, who bring their catches to the kitchen door. The specials board often reflects this. What was swimming in the sea a couple of hours ago is now waiting to be put on a plate for you.

The abundance of restaurants here stems from the fact that our visitors are increasingly sophisticated and used to eating well.

There is something here for every taste, from British and French cuisine to Chinese, Indian and Thai.

Each year brings a subtle change in the blend, as new ventures start up and established ones pack it in.

Given the fact that you can go to a good restaurant a dozen times and still enjoy the variety of the menu, it is safe to say that if you ate out in Guernsey as often as you had free lunchtimes and evenings, you could pretty much go on forever.

The price range is wide, too.

If what you really want is a top-class place with a superb wine list, you will find plenty that fit the bill.

The Yellow Pages are full of these, along with mid-range restaurants (often within hotels), where you can get a very good meal without breaking the bank.

At the lower end of the scale, bar meals offer excellent value for money, while there are chip shops and other takeaways.

Once in a while, there is nothing quite like getting a bag of chips and a big piece of cod and eating them on the beach or on a seat by the harbour in St Peter Port, just watching the world go by, then going for a walk and a drink or two.

And the next night, you could do it the other way, being waited-on hand and foot in one of the best restaurants in the island.

As regards local food, the list is short and rather homely.

There’s beanjar, a thick stew featuring haricots and a bit of meat and known, only half-jokingly, as our national dish.

Eating al fresco in St Peter Port

We have gache (pronounced gosh), which is a fruit loaf, nowhere near as sweet as a cake but served in the same way, possibly with butter.

And gache melaie (gosh melah), which is a moist, apple-laden cake-ish treat.

You might find some of these in cafes and tea rooms. Gache, particularly, is very popular.

Oh yes, the tea rooms. These can be ideal for lunches and some stay open into the evening.

Many are in charming locations, halfway down paths on the cliffs or right by a beach.

The menu will often include crab salads or sandwiches and huge chunks of home-made cake.

Some are licensed.

If a drink is definitely required with your meal, you might want to consider a bar meal or supper.

These are the logical choice if you are eating out a lot.

All in all, you’d better make sure you get some exercise because, with all this food around, you’re not going to be going home any slimmer.