A Fish Ate Wanda

I once had a peaceful vision of myself in old age, seated atop an ice floe, dangling a fishing line into the subzero waters below and waiting for a whale or a passing sea turtle to bite.

Recently, this vision has come under threat.  First, there was climate change.  I adapted.  I transferred myself from the Canadian coast to a deserted island in the tropics, traded my Inuit headdress for designer sunglasses, and decided I'd try to snare lionfish and octupi instead.

But alas, as if the gradual and inevitable baking of our planet were not enough, fate had an even ruder shock in store for me.

See, I'd always imagined myself as a wise fishing grandmother, but that was before a series of unfortunate events led me to conclude that I actually hate fish.  Even the dead ones.  Especially the dead ones.

The first clue that I might have to reconsider my retirement plans came a year ago.  My mother and sister were visiting India and we went to Bombay, city of shabby buildings, snobby businessmen, well-oiled Bollywood stars and most horribly of all, pomfret.  What is pomfret, you ask?  Well, friends, according to Google, pomfret has "a delicate flavour and a  central bone."  But if you ask me, pomfret is a culinary trap laid for the unwary traveler.  It is the colonialist's last hurrah.  A wolf in fish's clothing.  A pincushion thinly veiled in skin and flesh.

I went to a fancy dinner at the Cricket Club of India with a well-off government official and his wife.  Dinner was their treat, and after I had been sufficiently charming, it came time to order.  In India, ordering is done via committee, under the assumption that people will probably share dishes.  The official suggested a plate of chicken, the house specialty.  Then he asked me if I'd ever tasted pomfret.

"No," said I, with naive foolishness.

"Oh, but you must!  You cannot come to Bombay and not have a pomfret!"  This turned out to be an optimistic turn of phrase.  The pomfret came in tiny fillets covered in a delicious red sauce.  I cheerily began to saw off chunks and stuff them into my mouth, the way I'd approached every meat thus far from chicken to alligator.

The pomfret did not go down without a fight.  I soon discovered the pomfret's other, less notable source of fame: its nasty bones, which are as fine and thin as sewing needles.  The fillet was shot through with these needles, as if a matron had dropped a darning kit into the curry pot by mistake.  Unable to smile or even to speak, I pushed the bones around in my mouth with my tongue.  The tips worked their way into my gums and between my teeth.  I felt like as if a sadistic dentist was using my mouth for a medical experiment.

The next twenty minutes of the conversation were a blur.  I tried to dislodge the many bones, but they only wormed their way further into the tender flesh and narrow crevices above my jaw.  Finally, nodding, I excused myself and ran to the bathroom.  I spent a blissful ten minutes in front of the public bathroom mirror, jaw agape, spelunking for bones with all the thoroughness of Indiana Jones in search of ancient treasure.

Every so often I'd close my mouth, only to be reminded by a stabbing pain that the pomfret was still having its revenge.  I eventually realized I was not alone in the bathroom.  Embarrassed, I turned to apologize, only to find myself face-to-face with my sister, who was also assiduously removing fish bones from various parts of her oral anatomy.

Thus deboned, I returned to the table and contented myself with nibbling at the sauce.  Later, when asked what I thought of the pomfret, I honestly replied that pomfret struck me as a great addition to any diet.  What I did not say is that by "diet," I meant "weight loss plan," because there was no way I would ever put a piece of pomfret in my mouth in public again.

Time passed.  My fears mellowed.  Then, a few nights ago, I was at an official dinner with several journalists and various European bureaucrat-diplomat types.  The guest list was all older and more experienced than I was.  They drank sparkling wine and spoke French.  We had a private room at an Italian restaurant in what had once been a Belgian rowhouse.

The wine flowed, and the main course eventually arrived.  I stared down at my plate, at two identical fish steaks.  These were proper steaks, not fillets.  I was told that one of the fish was swordfish, the other was sea bass.  Fortunately, swordfish does not have bones.  The flesh is tough, juicy and more meaty than meat.  Swordfish may be the most meaty meat I've ever eaten.  I chomped my way through it and turned to the sea bass.

After a few experimental bites, I concluded that the sea bass had been adequately deboned and began eating with gusto.  I put the final bite into my mouth and bit down.  And met resistance.

Somehow, I had managed to chomp the entire spinal column in a single go.  Pain and shame exploded, leaving me at war with myself.  What could I do?  I looked around, eyes watering, eyeing the Europeans through a haze of misery.  I tried chewing the bones, but a few attempts proved that was a terrible plan.  The sea bass bones were shorter than pomfret bones but just as narrow.  They fought me with the wiliness of guerrilla soldiers, lurking until they could catch my superior forces unprepared.

Eventually, I resorted to holding my large wine glass close to my face and fishing the bones out one by one.  Eventually I had a collection of six sea bass bones arranged on my plate like modern found art.  The person seated closest to me pretended not to notice that I was spitting out bits of my food.

Thankfully, there was a dessert after that in which I could officially drown my sorrows.  Unthankfully, it was tiramisu, which I have never liked because I associate it with okra.  (Okra is a common vegetable in Indian cooking.  When I was a child my mother used the British English term for okra, which is lady fingers.  The Italian biscuits used in tiramisu are also called lady fingers, leading to a great deal of confusion for me for many years that has, at least on an emotional level, still not been resolved)

So.  In toto.  I will never be an ice fisherman, because I hate fish.  Eyes burning with shame, I made a vow that night to never again succumb to the temptation to eat fish in public in front of anyone I want to impress.  And since ice fishermen usually eat their catch, I'm out of luck.