For as long as i can remember, i have disliked most seafood. My mother tells me that i used to love the shit out of fish sticks, but i believe that my brain has blocked those specific memories due to traumatic circumstances. When i was 7 or 8, i ate a microwavable meal for one, for unknown reasons. Usually, my family all ate together, but for some reason or another, i was the only one that was eating dinner that night. I could be remembering this wrong, and my sister may have eaten supper with me that night, but it was a long time ago, and that is not the focal point of the evenings events.
I don't remember exactly what the TV dinner was i.e. cod, walleye, Chilean sea bass... but it was a piece of breaded fish, along with a forgettable side. I ate every last bit of it, and became unpleasantly ill. I don't remember throwing up, or suffering from intestinal distress, but that fish went to work on my insides in a way i will never forget. I couldn't move. I was in serious pain. I vaguely recall laying on my living room couch, crying out in pain for most of the night. It was at this point that i decided that i must be allergic to fish. It was the only logical conclusion to my younger self. i know that i am not really allergic to fish, and i don't think that anyone actually can be allergic to fish. After some quick wikipedia-ing, I have a better understanding of the situation. Some people have allergies to shellfish, but that is a tropomyosin allergy, which is usually limited to mollusks and crustaceans. Some people are allergic to fish, but it is usually limited to cod, haddock, trout, and salmon.
For most of my life following the fish incident, i have avoided most seafood. To this day, i still don't care for most fish. I have come to appreciate some seafood (mostly squid and octopus, and to a lesser extent, shrimp), but most seafood still is very unappetizing. Bottom line: Fish smells like fish, and tastes just like it smells. When i was a server, i hated taking salmon to a persons table. I could smell it from across the room, and i always wondered why anyone would order a big plate of "Smells and tastes like a fish hatchery" with a side of "That is not really food". I used to think that i would feel differently if i lived closer to an ocean or another major source of fish (lake Michigan does not count). I proved myself wrong a few years ago when i went to Hawaii.
Hawaii is gorgeous. Everything about it makes me want to live there... except the lack of cows. Cost of a can of spam in Hawaii: two coconuts and a sea shell. Cost of a quarter pound hamburger patty: Your first born. Most of the meat consumed on the island is either fish or pork. Or spam, but that is not really a meat. So here i was, i fish/pork land, and i decided to be brave. I was going to try sushi for the first time. I thought "If i am every going to eat a piece of raw fish, i would rather try it first in the middle of the goddamn ocean, so at least it is fresh." So i found a nice little sushi restaurant right down the street from my hotel. I didn't tell anyone i was going, because if it turns out i liked sushi, i would be embarrassed that i have been a holdout for so long, and i would have preferred to keep it a secret. Turns out that if you eat a piece of fish that was swimming in the crystal clear waters surrounding Hawaii not 6 hours prior, it still tastes like goddamn fish.
Jim Gaffigan once said: "You know what goes good on fish? Anything that covers up the taste of fish." I completely agree. The first piece of sushi i ate was tuna. I didn't put anything on it: Just a piece of fish, and some sushi rice. It tasted like an aquarium. So i decided to douse my next piece in as much soy sauce, wasabi and ginger as i could. The next piece tasted like someone poured some soy sauce, wasabi, and ginger into an aquarium and put it in my mouth. They said that it was Mahi Mahi. I still say it was aquarium. I do have to hand it to the sushi chef that was dealing with me. He was very understanding of my situation, and i made sure that he knew that if i spit anything out, it was not his fault. If someone decides to eat a shit sandwich, and it tastes like shit, the last person they can blame is the chef (Unless they've had a really good shit sandwich at another restaurant downtown, ya'know, one of those little bistros that no one tells anyone else about because they want it to be their little secret).
I mentioned earlier that some seafood does not bother me. Squid and octopus are about the only things from the ocean that i like. Lobster? Ocean Cockroaches. King crab? Sea Spiders. Scallops? uh, ocean... slime balls i guess. Oysters? A different kind of ocean slime balls. Shrimp? Depends on how it is cooked...In my egg rolls? Delicious. Butterflied and served downed in butter and garlic with my pasta? Yummy. With the shell on, not cleaned, not de-veined? Disgusting and full of poop. I don't want to eat anything where the first step of eating it is removing its head and then cleaning the poo out of it. The only fish that i ever tried an was not completely disgusted by was tilapia, a very light flavored fish. I was surprised by how little flavor it had, and i thought that i had found a fish that i could actually eat. Nope. I had the misfortune of watching an episode of dirty jobs where they visited a fish hatchery. They used the tilapia to clean up trout poop. No more poop fish for me thanks, I'm full.
What it really breaks down to is that i just don't care for fish. There is nothing really wrong with it, it just does not appeal to me. I can understand how some people would not understand this because they like fish, the same way i don't understand how some people are vegan because i like bacon. If i am going to have to smell stinky aquarium fish food smell, i would much rather it be from an actual aquarium, instead of my dinner plate. Now if you will excuse me, i am going to go eat a cheeseburger.
-J.
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