“Fish Bonker: a heavy blunt tool used by anglers to quickly and humanely kill a fish after it has been caught.”

A LESSON IN LIKING FISH: A SHORT

I remember lots of little bones.  Enough that each bite felt like a threat of splinters down my throat.  I found each one with my tongue and teeth, shimmying them to the front of my mouth and spitting them between my lips.  The white fish was river fish, caught that morning up the Santiago River.  It was served on the plate with a simple cucumber salad and fried plantains.  We didn’t have options so if you were hungry this was dinner.  

I remember thinking I had swallowed the ocean.  Briny with salt and seaweed.  I did not eat them on a dare although it felt like one.  Pumping myself up to toss the oyster back and swallow with one big gulp.  I don’t eat anything like that.  I always take little bites of things.  You can’t take bites of an oyster though. It makes me wince to think of chewing through the flesh.  It’s best to close your eyes and swallow whole.  I had one.  I didn’t have another.

I remember the wedding where we all wore plastic lobster bibs and sat around bowls of melted butter.  The groom stood behind huge pots of boiling water over the big propane burners along the pebbled driveway.  Sleeves rolled up and nice slacks, dropping lobster after lobster in the pots, screaming as they went.  He was a lobsterman, he was getting married, we ate lobster.  Out of all of the shellfish, I found I could muster the nerve for lobster because it was an activity to eat.  The bibs were entertaining over ties and fancy dresses leveling the fashion field.  We were all one, with a picture of a red lobster covering our décolletage  like a caricature from a harbor theme park.  Cracking of the claws and enough butter made it bearable.  

I remember the stew with the fish head in it.  With the chicken feet too.  The eye ball floated separate.  As a guest I eat it.  I don’t complain, put the bowl down, walk away.  I suck it up and eat it.  I take a deep breath, maybe a sigh.  I slowly close my eyes and put my head in a place that imagines a warm broth of chicken noodle soup.  With carrots, onions and celery.  Warm boiled chicken.  I take the spoon to my mouth and slurp the soup through my lips.  It is all in slow motion.  I know the fish head  is floating around the bowl somewhere with the empty eye socket. The eye ball caught between the talons of the chicken foot. There might be a heart in there too, but no one is really being honest and they just smile and laugh when I ask, “what is this?”, lifting the brown meaty ball from below the broth and bringing it up to eye level with a scared look on my face.  Perhaps it is the language barrier that has me confused, but they laugh and so I laugh and slowly replace the heart in the broth next to the bobbing fish head and floating eyeball.

This is what fish means to me.  I have never truly enjoyed it.  

My family comes from the east coast, Massachusetts to be exact.  My mother says my grandmother used to make a lot of clam chowder, or “chowda” as they call it back there.  We still make chowder but with corn instead of clams.  My cousin worked a boat trapping Maine coast lobster and fishing for the big tuna in the deep waters.  He said he could get upwards of $30,000 from the Japanese for a good size one.  They spend the big bucks for the sushi fish.  You have to catch the fish just right so they don’t fight and build bad meat with adrenalin.  Traumatized fish are not worth as much.   I imagine a big fish like that can put up a big fight.  He has an oyster farm now and tried his hand in seaweed.  

I didn’t grow up by the water so seafood and fish were not as prevalent for me.  I remember a story of my father ordering oysters Rockafeller in New Mexico one time, finding the evening to be an unpleasant war on his stomach as the shipped in shellfish didn’t fare so well in the high New Mexican desert.  The moral, don’t eat oysters in the desert, Rockefeller or Rocky Mountain, always something sus. 

So, to make a long story short, I don’t like fish.  With this reality has always come a deep sense of disappointment in myself.  I love the idea of eating fish, just not the act of eating fish.  For all of it’s magical sea creature beauty and mystery it’s smell and texture eventually puts me off.  I can walk around an outdoor market and stare mesmerized at the silvery scales, pink hues, the different shapes and sizes of the fish and dream of tables laden with fish platters and scallop shells and the boiled red of the lobster and crab, but I don’t do fish.  It is a travesty.  Something has to change.  I am too old to not like fish.  I have to learn to like fish.

Early September and a friend has given me a crash course.  My mother said, “if it is fresh you will like it”, and “ crab doesn’t taste like seafood”.  For it to be fresh enough to eat I assume the best way to do it is to catch the fish first.

We set out for salmon in Washington.  The pink salmon run every two years.  There are also other salmon like the Coho, Chinook, Sockeye and Chum.  I know very little about salmon apart from what I see as lox in the fancy bagels from hipster bagel joints.  I won’t eat it.  Cream cheese for me please on an everything bagel is just fine.  My friend mentions that the fresh salmon is different and he has been on a mission to catch, filet and freeze as much salmon as possible before the run is over.  He cooks it in a skillet with salt, heavy pepper and olive oil.  

We head out to Shilshole Bay with his row boat and his rod.  Our first row out, he casts his line and we sit.  He tells me his technique is called jigging.  This method mimics a struggling fish as the fisherman quickly jerks the line up and lets it sink again through the layers of the water column.  Different salmon swim at different depths.  Different  lures are used to attract different fish.  The pink lure attracts the pink salmon, as it looks similar to the plankton and shrimp they eat.  This lure is not as heavy as the Coho lure. The pink salmon swim a more shallow layer of the water levels.  The Coho lure is chartreuse and runs heavier.  The Coho, also  known as the Silver Salmon, is larger and swims a bit deeper.  

I found all of this out later in the aisle of the sport fishing warehouse store where we went to purchase a new fishing rod.  Our fishing excursion had led to a broken rod when we hooked a nice little Pink. Although a smaller fish, it had a fight in him like no other.  He snapped our rod right in half as he dove under the boat in a daring and truly valiant effort to survive.  Sadly, his story was not of triumph but instead tragedy as he was pulled by fishing line and barehands and dropped into the hull of the rowboat.  He was a good fish.  We cleaned him on the dock with the gulls, tossing innards in the salt water.  My friend showed me his heart.  It was little but looked strong.  He glistened like a jewel on the wooden planks, silver and smooth.  His insides were dark pink and beautiful.  

The man at the sport fishing warehouse was full of information.  I don’t enter the world of men’s sporting activities often and was blown away at the scale and obsession that is fishing.  It is precious work.  The tools are delicate and precise.  Walking the aisles of lures is like picking out shiny beads.  I had to laugh at the thought of these burly men tying lures like little girls making beaded necklaces in their bedrooms.  Their large hands tying knots with such precision.  A delicate practice, making something pretty to catch somethings eye.  I decided I could easily wear the silver shimmery lure around my neck for an evening out.  I would be the bell of the ball.

We sat for lunch on a rock by the boat.  He had fried oysters and I had fried chicken with a mustard sauce.  I thought about dinner.  We had caught a fish.  That meant we were eating the fish.  I was worried.  What if I didn’t like it?   Not only would I feel rude, as my friend had been kind enough to take me fishing, but I would also feel deeply disappointed in myself for not respecting the life of this gallant little fish.  He deserved better than a picky eater.  He deserved to be delicious.  To be fawned over with words of delight at each bite.  I needed to try.

That night we boiled up a mushroom ravioli. We sautéed up some kale and mixed greens with soy sauce and fried up our little salmon friend with olive oil, salt and pepper.  I ate him and I liked him.

The next day we ventured to Whidbey island by way of Deception Pass.  We would set some crab traps and spend the days fishing before retrieving the crabs in the evening for a fresh crab boil and dinner.  The crabs like chicken.  We bought two five dollar packs of drumsticks at Fred Meyers and packed them into the traps before dropping them into the water via a long rope attached to a buoy.  That was it.  The hope was that upon retrieval we would have a couple big male crabs to take back with us.  Luck was on our side and we managed a couple traps full of feisty crab and chicken drumsticks licked to the bone.  The permits have restrictions on how many crab you can keep and each keeper has to be of a certain size.  The old man on the dock keeps track of our catch and gives us a fabulous and entertaining lesson in crab and how to know if you have caught a good one.  He cradles the crab like a baby, urging it to pinch onto his vest pocket and hold on.  This way the crab won’t take a finger off with his claws and seems to find comfort in the old man’s kind nature.  The man kisses him before dropping him into the white cooler by the boat.  It is hard not to see the similarity between the man and the crab.  Their limbs are gangly and long, a few barnacles and wounds healed up, one crab without a leg, the man without his teeth.  Crustaceans on the dock, tough and weathered.

We prepped and cleaned the crab on the dock by the boathouse.  My friend finds a quick clean cut with his knife, straight down the middle is better than the live boil.  Perhaps we kill in a manner we would prefer to be killed ourselves.  Some empathy there, I suppose.  The shell comes off and gets tossed into the salt water where we rinse out the insides.  Within a few minutes the crab is into the pot and on the stove for a boil.  The classic red hue of the cooked crab grabs my attention like a magic trick.  After picking the meat my friend passes me a piece of the leg.  With no seasoning or butter it is mild and sweet.  

Our fishing excursions were not as successful on the island.  A 4:30 in the morning start had us walking through knee high mud in the dark to the boat.  We had tied the boat the night before to a makeshift cinderblock anchor so it would’t be stuck on the mud at low tide in the morning.   My big white skirt proved to not only be a fabulous fashion statement but also a brilliant and practical piece of clothing when dealing with deep mud.  You can hike the thing as high as you need to and not get a drop of mud on it.  Like a big old seal I heaved myself into the boat, dangled my legs in the water for a good washing and we set off in the dark for a steady and intense row through the current, under Deception Bridge and into the Sound.  We found our fishing spot just as dawn was breaking.

I took command of the oars to keep us steady as the current pushed us along.  My friend fashioned his line and cast his hook.  We did this for hours.  I ate a breakfast burrito I had whipped up at four that morning, with egg, bacon and hatch Chile.  It was wrapped in a coffee filter.  Then I ate the granola with the yogurt and juicy nectarines.  Then I ate the dark chocolate bar with coffee toffee and sea salt.  I cracked open another bottle of sparkle water.  All the while he fished with concentration and determination.  It was lovely to be out on the water at an hour that welcomed silence and wet clouds.  

We did not catch any fish but the effort was admirable.  Fishing is not easy.  There is a rush of adrenaline and excitement if one happens to get a bite.  It is a game of patience and consistency, but more aptly, luck.  Our society has a warped idea of food.  If you want it you can get it, wherever and whenever you want.  The reality is different.  We should be feeling lucky to have food.  We should be grateful for what our world has to offer.  We should have to work a little bit for the bounty, if only to understand how precious it really is.  

I have learned to like fish.  I would not say that I have become a fanatic about fish, but I like it.  I will eat it again and perhaps one day I will learn to love it.

PS: I have read somewhere that you can make a blackberry glaze that goes nicely with salmon. In Washington, salmon and blackberries seem to be abundant this time of year. I stumbled into a ditch while admiring a big bush of blackberries next to the parking lot by the docks.

I have added a recipe for a Blackberry Jam with Lemon Balm in the recipe archives. It seems that if you mix some jam with some white wine you end up with a glaze perfect for your fish.

I’ll leave this quick recipe with you I found on the internet form “The Millennial Cook”. I have not tried it but it looks easy. Something we can all experiment with when we catch another fish.

Melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a skillet. Add one pealed and minced garlic clove to the butter and lightly brown. Add your salmon fillets to the pan with the skin side down. Cook roughly 5-6 minutes until skin is crispy. Flip and cook another 4 or so minutes. The fish won’t be fully cooked through yet. Remove fish from pan. Add a 1/4 cup of white wine to the pan to deglaze. Add 1/4 cup of your blackberry jam and stir to combine. Reduce heat to medium low. Add the salmon back into the pan and spoon the glaze over the top of the fillets. Cook for a few minutes more. Plate your salmon with a lovely vegetable and enjoy.