Today is my host dad's name's day (and my dad's birthday which I always think is the 29
th..so Happy Birthday). As I said in a previous post name's days are like birthdays in Latvia and everyone has one. Even if your name isn't Latvian there are name's days for unlisted names. My host dad explained to me that on name's day you don't invited people to come over to house to celebrate...they just do. So you must prepare food for an undisclosed number of people and hope that they show up otherwise you might be eating leftovers (which is hard because nothing in Latvia has preservatives so things go bad quickly). So last night my host dad asked if I wanted to come and see how they prepare trout and I was like sure. I was expecting some secret family recipe of herbs and seasoning.........instead I walked into the kitchen and a whole dead fish was staring back at me. It reminded me of all the dead fish I had to pick up while raking the shore when I was younger. Here is a picture just in case you don't believe me....let's just say there isn't a Latvian translation for "gross."
So I sat there and watched him take a whole fish apart. Let me just say that I heard crunching sounds that will give me nightmares for weeks to come. It was definitely an educational experience though I guess they use every part of the fish. They even take the stomach, head and backbone and make soup out of them. The only things they don't use are the gills and eyes...I told my host parents that more people in America would be vegetarians if they had to do this before eating fish. Then they asked "you like fish right?" and I said "I like fish sticks"....
So I sat there and watched him take a whole fish apart. Let me just say that I heard crunching sounds that will give me nightmares for weeks to come. It was definitely an educational experience though I guess they use every part of the fish. They even take the stomach, head and backbone and make soup out of them. The only things they don't use are the gills and eyes...I told my host parents that more people in America would be vegetarians if they had to do this before eating fish. Then they asked "you like fish right?" and I said "I like fish sticks"....
2 comments:
Hi Laura,
This may come as a shock to you, but what you thought was such gross Latvian use of trout is exactly the same thing that trout fishermen do worldwide to clean and prepare trout to eat. (And ditto for other fishermen, be it halibut, salmon, herring, etc, You get the drift.)
Turning food from the fin state, or hoof state, into dinner plate fare, usually requires killing, gutting, and cutting up the animal into smaller pieces. Europe is still far mor connected with the process of conversion than we are in the US (or most of us are). It's a skill that shouldn't be lost, lest we in the US forget how to feed ourselves.
As for the use of the carcass as soup stock, it's as old as the first cookbook!
Yvette
PS. The trout looks exquisite! I'll bet it was good eating. About a 6 lb Rainbow, by the looks of it....but it might be a sea run salmon-trout, sort of cross breed, like the sea-run Cutthroat of Washington State.
By the way, what is your Latvian Name Day?
Y.
Hi Laura,
This may come as a shock to you, but what you thought was such gross Latvian use of trout is exactly the same thing that trout fishermen do worldwide to clean and prepare trout to eat. (And ditto for other fishermen, be it halibut, salmon, herring, etc, You get the drift.)
Turning food from the fin state, or hoof state, into dinner plate fare, usually requires killing, gutting, and cutting up the animal into smaller pieces. Europe is still far mor connected with the process of conversion than we are in the US (or most of us are). It's a skill that shouldn't be lost, lest we in the US forget how to feed ourselves.
As for the use of the carcass as soup stock, it's as old as the first cookbook!
Yvette
PS. The trout looks exquisite! I'll bet it was good eating. About a 6 lb Rainbow, by the looks of it....but it might be a sea run salmon-trout, sort of cross breed, like the sea-run Cutthroat of Washington State.
By the way, what is your Latvian Name Day?
Y.
Post a Comment