We had fish for supper tonight. The kind they just buy from a bucket and stick in a frying pan, still in tact. Needless to say, my vegetarian roots showed through when I could barely look at the poor thing on my plate. My host mom tried to give me more than one but I managed to stop her saying the best thing I could think of- "I'm scared!"
Yes, the fish, in all it's former glory was staring at me with glazed over eyes. I tried to eat the fish, I really did. But there are bones! Thousands of them! Millions, even! And I don't like it when I can still recognize my food.
Note- This paragraph is not for the weak of stomach.
I sort of made it through enough of the fish to make my family happy. That's when I noticed that the eyelid had slid up. So I decided to examine the eyeball. The fish who moments before I had been afraid to touch with the thought of eating, suddenly became the most exciting scientific exploration. I managed to pop the eye out to examine it further. Later I got the socket out and tried to get to the brain, but alas! The skull was too small, and I feared that I would crush it all trying to break in. Darn utensils.
So having removed the eye from my fish, I realized that it looked like a white airsoft pellet. As I was examining it with both disgust and fascination, my host dad made an offer.
"I'll eat it if you do something for me!"
And so, my father made a grand show of eating not one, but two fish eyes in front of me and my younger sister. She has to do 20 math problems that he will write for her tomorrow, and I have to speak to my younger sister in English. Now conversations sound like this:
Me- "Dus alacagam!" I will take a shower.
Dad- "Tamam canim" Okay, sweetie.
Me- "Buket, I'm going to take a shower. Tamam mi?" Okay?
Buket- "Dus aliyorsun" You're taking a shower.
Me- "Evet."
More exciting conversations end up with her and I correcting each other. Hooray for learning!
-Maeghan
Travelpalooza 2.10
14 years ago
4 comments:
Man, remind me to tell you my whitebait burger story sometime. Itsy-bitsy fish in a patty and they're all staring at you.
Carly, I thought of you and your father when I named this blog. I almost decided to call it Fish Heads instead of Fish Eyes just for you.
And the song was stuck in my head all night.
AH! Memories. Like in China, where my aunt bought a live fish and right before cooking it jumped off the cutting board. That was...interesting.
Seriously? You can never tell it's fish when Canadians serve fish? (as in it's not intact still?) Hm. Something my Chineseness can not get over I guess.
I don't think fish brains are visible. Although my grandmother enjoyed eating fish eyes. I myself can't say I see it as quite the delicacy that she does.
6 months to learn a language? That's a bit demanding. I'm sure you're great for someone who has only been in Turkey for 6 months!
Hmm... I got strangely hungry after reading this. Actually, I was hungry before too so maybe that's a coincidence. Anyway, YES THEY HAVE SO MANY BONES! ARGH!
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