cold fish

As Alfred Uhry’s book — also a Tony winner — relates, Leo, the manager of a pencil factory owned by Lucille’s uncle, is a misfit in Atlanta: a New York Jew but also a cold fish.

Episodes of the popular television series “The Crown” portrayed him as a cold fish, a cruel man, uncomfortable with himself.

If being a cold fish is, as the cliché would have it, a British quality, then the series is very British indeed.

The buffet table included pickled salads, pâté, cold fish wraps and twarog — something like a white farmer cheese — most of which we also piled on our plates.

A bowl of cold fish is almost mandatory.