Fish Fly

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a fish!

There’s a Chinese proverb that says “Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time.” The point of it is twofold: a) you can’t sit around waiting for people to do things for you, and b) roast ducks can’t fly, duh.

Here we have a cooked fish leaping through the air from a river of toasted almonds.

At first you might think this is a tad ridiculous, because well, duh. But think about it from the food stylist’s point of view: the trout doesn’t appear to be suspended in any way; it really does seem to have been photographed mid-leap — and those almonds don’t do that by themselves. Therefore, someone had to rig a fish-flinging mechanism of some kind under the bed of almonds in order to shoot it through. But even when cooked, trout are somewhat floppy. So it probably had to be made stiff by the insertion of a projectile or stiffening agent of some kind. Lacquer, maybe. Glue.

The result is a rather dynamic leap off the page, sure — but does it have to be so brown?

Great Dinners from LIFE, Eleanor Graves, 1969

 Also from this book: Great Dinners

Slip Sliding Away

click for larger image

Some folks don’t like fish. That’s just silly. Perhaps they don’t like the bones or the scales.

In which case, they should eat eels instead.

It’s really easy to cook an eel. First, you must live near a fishmonger who can procure you a fresh one, because they are oily and spoil quickly. By “fresh,” I mean “live.” You’re going to have to kill it before you eat it, because it will thrash about quite a bit if you try to eat it otherwise.

Grab the eel’s head with a cloth and hold it tightly. With your other hand, plunge a sharp knife into its brains. Don’t worry if the eel continues to twitch for several minutes after this — that’s normal. Anyone would twitch after someone has jammed a blade into their head. You can’t blame it. Just make sure that before you plan to kill the eel, you don’t have something on the stove or anything you need your hands for.

Once you’re sure the eel is dead, you’ll need to pull the knife out and cut all around its head. Then take some pliers and pull back a flap of the tough skin. Once there’s enough to grab, hold the eel’s head in your cloth and peel the skin off its body like a stocking. It’ll be mighty slippery. After this, decapitate the head. Ta-da! Your eel is now ready for clopping up and making a delicious dinner with.

For example, you could serve this yummy-looking egg and eel stew, which is served cold.

Fish, TIME LIFE Books, 1979

Cheesy Fish

The next time you have some herrings and cheese laying about, you might want to try this recipe for mostly cooked cheesy fish.

Or you might not; your call.

Someone, somewhere, once decided a nice bit of fish could only be improved with the addition of cheese. This person was a clown with too much time on his or her hands, and certainly too much cheese. Perhaps this individual had just broken up with someone and had lost all respect for life and just didn’t give a fuck anymore. You know how that is: one minute you’re happy, the next you’re a lonely loser obsessively listening to songs that remind you of better days with no appetite and yet the inexplicable need to continue eating. The meals you concoct are designed to give a giant culinary middle finger to the universe and the ex, and ought to simply be left to anonymous regret.

But no: this fool, in his or her despair, decided it would be good to share.

If you think you might want to eat fish in the future — buy it fresh, in the future, and cook it then. Your freezer will thank you.

Margeurite Patten’s All-Colour Book of Freezing, 1975

Also from this book: Darwinian

420 Roaches

Dude #1: Dude

Dude #2: Yah

Dude #1: You’ll never guess what I found

Dude #2: What

Dude #1: A recipe for roaches, man

Dude #2: That’s wild man

Dude #1: Yeah

Dude #2: Like, cockroaches?

Dude #1: Nah, roaches.

Dude #2: We’re set, man! Never go hungry again, man!

Dude #1: Dude

Dude #2: Yeah

Dude #1: Your hair’s on fire man

Dude #2: Again?

The Cooks and Confectioner’s Dictionary, John Nott, 1773

Floundering

To the confusion and delight of those learning the English language, the word “fish” is both a noun (an underwater creature usually with fins) and a verb (what you do to procure yourself one for supper). If something “smells fishy,” it either means that literally, there is an odor of fish in the air, or as an allusion to the briny stink, that something suspicious is going on.

“Flounder” provides a similarly tasty bit of linguistics. A flounder is a type of fish, as well as a behavior. The behavior — to thrash about clumsily or wallow ineffectually — is perhaps a characteristic misinterpretation of the fish, which, as a flatfish, burrows under or lays on the loose gravel on the ocean floor, camouflaged perfectly so that it disappears against this backdrop. It then bursts to life when lunch swims by. It has developed a unique answer to the problem of being a flat fish — that of only being able to see with the eye facing upwards — by moving one of its eyes around so that both are on the same side of its head. Flounder are the marine equivalent of a Picasso painting.

Flounder don’t flounder at all. The same cannot be said for the culinary genius behind this dish, however, which would benefit both from disappearing into the background and by being prepared by someone with an eye on each side of their head.

Low-Cost Main Dishes, Family Circle, 1978

Also from this book: What The Dickens?, All Trussed Up And Nowhere To Go, Adventures in Salad

Frying Tonight

Ah — the English Chippie. 

Whether lit like a fluorescent beacon on the high street or perched on a windy bluff on the seafront, it beckons customers like a siren with its alluring aroma of frying cod and big fat chips, peas and malt vinegar.

Condensation fogs up the window; the floor is scuffed linoleum; a selection of fizzy-pop sweats in cans in the glass-front case; a big board behind the counter lists your choices: cod & chips, plaice & chips, haddock & chips, onion rings, mushy peas — the same in every chippie, anywhere. The door is always open, and a bin outside is stuffed with the detritus of a day’s trade: squashed-up balls of greasy paper, napkins and plastic forks. It’s as irresistible as anything on a fine dining menu, but more evocative and probably more romantic too, in its way.

When you’re about to tuck in to your steaming hot packet of crisp battered fish, still huffing air to cool the vinegar-soaked fat chip you popped in your mouth — still hungry, knowing the rest of the meal is still ahead of you — this is the moment you silently offer up a prayer of thanks to whomever first accidentally dropped a fillet in the egg — then uh-oh, the flour — then dammit! the pot of boiling oil. Oh well, you might as well eat it….

This skillet of whole cornmeal-coated rainbow trout fried in bacon drippings “hot enough to make the tails curl” bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the above.

Easy Skillet Meals, Better Homes and Gardens, 1972

Also from this book: All Fired Up

Vatel's Haddock Up To Here

A Poisson Play (or, Too Little, Too Late)

A Play In One Scene.

April, 1671, Château de Chantilly, France. 4am

 FRANÇOIS VATEL:

Who goes there?

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

Why it is I, a humble fisherman.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

Oh thank goodness — I’ve been waiting for you. I presume you have my order?

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

Sure. I’ve got a couple bream, a small turbot and a nice Dover Sole. And in this basket I have four perch, an eel and a bit of skate wing. The rest of the skate didn’t make it, but the wing is OK if you sauté it with a bit of butter. Oh, and also a haddock.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

Is this all?

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

I’ve been out on a boat all night mate. You’re lucky to get this.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

It’s not enough! I have to feed 2000 people!

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

I thought it was a pretty good catch myself.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

How am I going to manage with this! I placed an order for 2000 fishes!

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

Not with me you didn’t. Look: I walked all the way here in the dark, you ungrateful sod. Do you want the fish or not?

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

Mon Dieu!

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

It can’t be that bad. You look tired. Have you had enough sleep? You look a bit ragged around the edges if you don’t mind me saying.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

I’ve been awake for 12 straight days. You have no idea.

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

Bloody Hell, mate. Go to bed.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

Can’t. Got to cook dinner for 2000 tomorrow.

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

That’s a bit steep. My Missus wouldn’t have that many over in one sitting.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

The King has waited five years for this banquet. Yesterday the roast failed at two tables — don’t ask — and today: no fish! It’s a disaster!

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

Ask yourself: What Would Jesus Do? He was pretty handy at dilemmas like this.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

I shall never survive the disgrace. My career is in ruins!

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

Look: are you going to take this fish or not? It's not every day I have haddock.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

What’s the point? I’m a dead man!

HUMBLE FISHMONGER:

Whatev. Too much drama. I’m off home. Thanks for nothing. I bid you adieu, Sir.

FRANÇOIS VATEL:

Au revior. Try not to crush the jonquils on your way out. Where’s my sword? Where’s my damn sword?

*  *  *  *  

Three hundred years later we can see what Gourville may have served Louis XIV that Friday once Vatel's corpse had been found by the messenger sent to inform him all the fish he ordered had in fact been delivered after all. 

Grand Diplôme Cooking Course, Volume 2, 1971

Also from these books: Sweetbreads Niquette, Your Goose Is Cooked, In Your Face!, Frankfurter Salad

Hillbilly Sashimi

Looks yummy, right? Not so fast. 

Can you spot what’s wrong with this picture?

No, it’s not the grotesque silverwear. Whoever prepared this recipe for “Elegantly Stuffed Fish” was so preoccupied with garnishing it perfectly that they forgot to actually cook it. It is also clearly NOT the 3 – 4 lb fish the recipe calls for. 

Sure, it looks nice for the photograph, but the first person who attempts to stick it with a fork better hold that sucker down before it flops off the table and across the floor trying to find the creek it came from, because it's so fresh and raw it's holding its breath and trying not to blink.

Fish & Seafood Cookbook, Brand Name Publishing Corp., 1985

Also from this book: The Heart of Pineapple, Creamed Lobster