About a week ago, a fish bone (despite my spirited efforts, a precise word for the prickly needle-thin bones of a fish escape me) became lodged in my dad's throat. After roughly ten minutes of Googling "fish bone stuck in throat" and considering solutions ranging from going to the emergency room to household remedies, my dad just swallowed some bread. The uncomfortable sensation immediately subsided. I was glad that I had declined the offer of boiled fish. The point (<-play on words) of this story isn't that the inconvenience of Google or the oddity that I couldn't find an English word for "prickly needle-thin fish bone" (in fact, maybe I could name it the fishy bone). The point is that I have never really liked eating fish.
Something about fish just smells "fishy" to me. Whenever I eat a fish I catch, I have always wondered whether or not I am actually eating the worm I used to catch the fish. Looking at a fish flopping around staring at me with transfixed and unblinking eyes and oozing with slime invokes some pity. Consider the show Spongebob Squarepants — even though everything ostensibly takes place under the sea, the protagonists are a sponge (Spongebob) and a starfish (Patrick). The fish are stereotyped as generic and one-dimensional (literally, since they are flat) characters.
It's not surprising that only one fish sandwich exists on a McDonald's menu or that Kentucky Fried Fish is an unmarketable concept. Have you ever tried anchovies, a stereotypically unforgivable topping, on pizza? The delight in eating fish seems to revolve around the challenges in eating the fish in the first place. It's like a sport: after catching the fish and maneuvering around the infinite bones, they're finally exposed for their meat.
I heartily exhort you to abstain from eating fish, as well as all other meat products. If you begin to have the "I wonder if the fish consumed this worm" mental-adventure for everything you ingest, you'll probably end up as a hard-core vegan.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would also like to point out that some fish are extremely delicious. Have you ever had fresh salmon, or cat-fish in a soupy, rich, salty-tangy-pungent-powerful sauce? Well, each to their own and all, but I would suggest that some types of fish can be cooked exquisitely.
Like AKA said, fish can be very delicious. Fish in Illinois is rarely delicious, however, because it's never fresh. If you go to a place on the coast and eat the fish there, it tastes much better.
ReplyDeleteFYI about the worm, though. When you gut the fish, the worm comes out with the guts, and most commercial fish is caught with nets, not worms.
I just happen to have eaten some extremely delicious salmon tacos for dinner tonight. But other than fish, I don't eat meat. I'm not sure why eating fish doesn't bother me; it just doesn't. But I really like it, so that may be part of it. (Then again, I really like turkey, but I don't eat that.)
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. You should do another poll. Maybe about fish. (Or do the tomato one again and tell everyone in class to vote, so you get a more representative sampling.)
I've never hunted anything, but I can understand how the appeal of fish comes in the "thrill of the chase," and not necessarily in the taste.
ReplyDeleteMy dog got a stick stuck in her throat once, which is sort of the same as a fish bone. That experience let us know that we should never give her bones.
That's interesting. I see fish as more of an art than a hunt, though, because I enjoy sashimi and sushi. Those don't have bones and they're very tasty (to me at least).
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