All over the Mediterranean Basin there are fish markets. In Spain there are huge markets on the Atlantic coast in Vigo and Santander, as there are too on the Portuguese coast. Every port, from the large to the tiny and picturesque, has its market for fish. From Greek islands to littoral mainlands, a Mediterranean fish market is always much the same. On a harbour wall or in a warehouse by the shore, stall-holders set out their wares: red mullet and John Dory swim slowly in shallow trays, carcasses of tuna and swordfish are laid out on marble tables as if on a mortician's slab, buckets of clams spit water onto the pavement, wayward octopus attempt forays to freedom before being manhandled back into their tank. The floors are constantly splashed with sea water, keeping the air cool from the hot sun and keeping the fish fresh. All around mill the buyers, poking and feeling, looking for the freshest, liveliest sea food they can find, and then haggling and shouting until a price is found that is acceptable to vendor and buyer alike.

From early in the morning housewives are out on the seafront in search of the day's lunch. By eleven o'clock there's little left. Stalls are dismantled, pavements are washed down of fish scales and innards, gulls flock to feast on the discarded fish flesh, their mews filling the air, the swaggering strut of the herring gulls proclaiming that once again they dominate the harbour's edge. The buyers are fussy here and the vendors try to satisfy them. New regulations dictate that fish on sale must have a provenance - a tag to say from which part of the sea they were caught. Some provenances have more cachet than others. The Straits of Messina, that little piece of sea between Sicily and mainland Italy, is a case in point. The sea here is full of fast currents and treacherous back-flows, an area known since antiquity as a danger to mariners. Once personified as Scylla and Charybdis, this narrow strait is home to fish that need to be in constant motion to overcome the fast-moving tides. This continual motion makes their flesh firmer and more muscular, and fish with this provenance commands a 30% premium over others.

The people of the Mediterranean basin care deeply about their fish. They prize it. They cook it well. They serve it to honoured guests. All actions that you won't find in Ireland. I've puzzled over this for years. What is it in the Irish psyche that underrates fish? Is it because we're surrounded by water? That they're too common? Or is it a remnant of times past; that fish is a penitential food, a poor substitute for meat? Apprentices in the old city guilds of Dublin had it written down for their defence - that they should be fed salmon no more than three times a week. Fish was seen as the poor man's diet, a substitute meat for the destitute. It's no wonder that this food source was never treated well in the kitchen, it never commanded any respect. Over-cooked, boiled to mush, treated with contempt, it went onto plates without the tiniest hope of ever pleasing the diner. But then, it didn't need to. It was, after all, penance food for a Friday.

So what happens when a group of Irish journalists find themselves in Taormina in Sicily for a week? The first thing that happens is that our Sicilian hosts ensure that each meal honours us with fish. The next thing that happens is that even committed carnivores start to take to this unfamiliar type of hospitality with pleasure. In countries where fish is prized as food, it's also well cooked and prepared. Wherever we went beautifully cooked fish was the norm. Out of an abundance of good meals, a couple stood out, both of them in the town of Taormina itself, a destination that more and more Irish people can avail of, now that there's a direct flight to Catania.

The main culinary event of the week had to be lunch in the Hotel Atlantis Bay. This five-star beauty is on the tip of the promontory on which Taormina stands. The hotel blends unobtrusively into the cliff face and unusually the reception is on the sixth floor at the road level, while the dining room is on the ground floor, at sea level. We sat on the terrace outside, a blue swimming pool to our left, the blue Mediterranean framed by a small island before us, covered in stone pines and prickly pear cactuses. A tiny harbour sheltered a few fishing boats while the weeping bougainvillaea reflected in the turquoise blue of the gently lapping sea. Contentment and ease settled upon us as gently as falling dew.

The starter was carpaccio of fish: razor thin slices of salmon, swordfish and sea-bass. This was presented simply on a bed of rocket, with a spiced mayonnaise served in a hollowed tomato. If ever you need proof that good fish doesn't need to be cooked at all, this was that proof. To follow, seeing that we were honoured guests, there was more fish, this time sea-bass broiled in aqua pazza and served with two of the biggest prawns I've ever seen. Both the fish and the prawns were very lightly cooked, the prawns still almost raw in the middle and the bass much the same. I'd love to persuade Irish chefs to treat fish like this, because frankly really fresh fish doesn't need much other than a brief application of heat to let its own flavour free.

A meal like this, washed down with the simple Etna white wine, is the apotheosis of seaside eating. The sight and sounds of the sea, the smell of the salt air and the taste of the fresh fish makes a combination that's a long way from penance. Maybe one day our gastronomic culture will also take in the joys of fish.