This Red Mullet was inspired by the remains of ancient Greek and Roman kitchen floor mosaics. The red mullet is often depicted and demonstrates wealth as it was the most prized fish of the Mediterranean. It is even documented (Seneca, Natural Questions 111.18.1,4) that they liked to watch the fish change colours drastically as they died before feasting on the its delicate flesh, whose flavour is reminiscent of shellfish. “There is nothing ‘you say’ more beautiful than a dying surmellet. In the very struggle of its failing breath of life, first a red, then a pale tint suffuses it, and it’s scales change hue and between life and death there is a gradation of colour into subtle shades… see how the red becomes inflamed, more brilliant than any vermillion!” The price of mullet was high but they were both fished and breed in the piscinae, pools filled with saltwater. Despite reports that the mullet was plentiful, there were complaints that they needed to be sourced from Sicily as their own seas had been ‘ransacked to the point of exhaustion, since gluttony rages, the delicatessens raking the waters with on stop nets. And we don’t let the Tyrrhenian fish grow to size” – sound familiar?