I don’t buy fish fingers (or fish sticks, as Americans call them) often. I’ve been eating seafood long enough to know that at their best – their very, very best – they are a passable, easy-to-cook delivery device for protein and ketchup on the nights when I’m cooking dinner alone for my kids.

When I do purchase them, about the most interesting part of the meal is that I can use the sticks to spell my children’s names on the baking sheet.