potato with cod

I just now searched [+fish +cheese] to see again what people have to say on the subject about combining the two. I chanced upon this discussion at chowhound that begins with a simple question and ends with 150 comments to it. 

I have virtually no tolerance for the food-Nazis at worst, and narrow-minded martinets at best, declaiming with all the assurance of one imbued with complete faith in received wisdom, but bereft of cogent explanations. When asked why, the best one gets is 'tradition.' Hardly an answer to sway an iconoclast. 

At length the discussion becomes circular, the same points made over and over as commenters pile on without first reading the thread, anecdote after anecdote all saying the same and similar things. It's what they were taught, and then the usual Italian exceptions are noted c. linguini alla vongole, lobster risotto, stuffed sardines, pasta with anchovies and pecorino and so forth. I would add to the discussion if I were so antagonistic, on the American side of things, all the cuisine found in New Orleans and much of San Francisco, famed for their idiosyncratic and heretical approaches, their shrimp and grits with cheese, their lobster-macaroni & cheese to name only two. 

And then right on cue, because no discussion is complete without it, the differences are noted again between American habits (all stupid and bad, and dangerous, of course) and Italian customs (all pure and good and thoughtful, naturally), rehashed there as if contributing something completely new to the discussion. 

Here is the best thing that I've saw over there on the subject. It is based on an appreciation of regional Italian cooking that makes use of provincial ingredients combined with an affection for simplicity. An obsession and a deep need to feel that the fish has come straight from the ocean directly onto the plate with no intervening agencies. Think virginity. Cheese is profoundly un-virginal. It is as processed as food can be and it is messed around with to an extent that is extreme often taking up to months and even years. It is a pre-refrigeration method devised to store milk from buffalo, cows, and goats, that includes the cultivation of specific molds. In these terms, cheese and seafood are diametrically opposed. In the Italian ports, the scent and taste of the ocean is valued and sought in their seafood dishes. Cheese, especially the hard, aged, moldy, all really good cheeses, themselves thoughtful products, disguise and overwhelm that delicacy. 

I am not in the coastal areas of Italy, I am in the U.S., in the very center of the continent, as far from an ocean as imaginable. No matter how expensive, or perfect, pure and fast, the cleanest freshest scent that I can expect from any seafood item flown in overnight from either coast or gulf or gigantic lake to Denver is the scent of the boat upon which the seafood was flash-frozen into its vacuum package, and it is all downhill after that. For the most part, whatever flavor seafood has is the flavor imparted by spices, herbs, wine, and vinegar. 

This cod filet has virtually no scent at all. Zero. It is nothing but texture and that is it. No special oceanic taste of cod to protect, nothing at all particular to this fish to appreciate as one does with, say, sushi, and incidentally while I am on it, even sushi comes smeared with wasabi, often served wrapped in seaweed, and bitter dark green shiso leaf, and shredded daikon radish, and then dipped into intensely salty shoyu, all strong flavors and effects, so I wouldn't presume to instruct anyone on protecting delicate seafood flavors, or the unique wackiness of Americans who alter them. This cod filet has no scent of ocean at all, nothing, nada, nil, nienty and isn't that a little bit sad? 

Having said all that, the cheese I added to the potato and cod filet is my least favorite part of the whole thing shown here. I kept pushing the chunks around on the plate avoiding them. The cheese did not add anything worthwhile. 

The vegetables are ordinary prepackaged variety with sweet onion added by myself. They are steamed in seasoned chicken broth. The thin broth was poured onto the plate in a shallow pool, and that really did go well with the potato and cod.