Fish supper fit for dons: the Porterhouse shark

Oxbridge gastronomy tends to be rarefied, and the dons of Porterhouse College, Cambridge, fans of Tom Sharpe will remember, feasted on swan stuffed with wigeon, followed by beefsteak from an ox roasted whole in the great fireplace of the college hall. But even they didn't run to a giant thresher shark.

This week, however, thresher shark is indeed likely to appear on real high tables in Oxford, because a quarter-ton example of the species will be fetching up this morning on the slab of an Oxford fishmonger. The fish, 14ft long and weighing 520lb, will fill most of the window of Hayman's in Oxford's covered market and will be divided into about 1,000 steaks and fillets. "I think chefs of the Oxford colleges will buy most of them," said the manager, Ray Lindsey, who supplies many of the colleges on a regular basis. The shark was caught in the nets of the Emma May a trawler off Cornwall, this week, and was so big it had to be lashed to the side of the boat to carry it back.