Food for Thought (Fish Heads?)

Given:

1. the fact recent evidence is pointing its wicked-witch-bony-finger in the direction of osteopenia and arthritis, and
2. the fact that our daughter Emily tipped me off to a resource about cultural nutritional norms that keep people healthy

….I’m experimenting waaaaaay beyond anything I’ve ever dreamed up in the kitchen (again) which is saying something, since I can be wildly unconventional ANYWAY.

Simply put: bone issues + pain = desperation, open-mindedness and…ta da da…DARING.

Last night Fritz went fishing and brought home two decent-sized crappie, and two bluegill. I asked him to remove the entrails, which he did, and then I threw the whole carcasses - bones, fins, tails, heads and all - in a big pot with some celery, carrot and onion. After 30 minutes of bubble-bubble-toil-and-trouble, I took a peek and discovered…ta da da again…PURE UNADULTERATED FRANKENSTEIN. A tail stuck up above the bubbling water’s surface and waved at me, as if Flipper was desperately trying to escape. The heads were beyond gross – grey, emaciated, with their mouths hanging open and their bottom jaws falling off. The eyes appeared sunken and glassy-but-blind, as if suffering with cataracts gone deathly bad.

Yuck.

However, I stuck with The Plan, and did my witch’s cackle (heh-heh-heh…hee-hee-hee) while continuing to oversee the cauldron phase for another 45 minutes or so. Evidently, the longer you boil bones the more nutrition you extract (in my case, I’m interested especially in calcium), and Asian cultures are known to boil fish bones for a full 24 hours. Some Asians even enjoy fish broth for breakfast – in diametrical opposition to Western nitrate-laden bacon, eggs from sick/caged chickens, and pancakes smothered in fake syrup.

When it came time to drain the stock through a strainer, the solids – the fish-and-vegetable glop - admittedly sent shivers down my spine. It was just plain GORY: strings of celery tangled with fish fins and sprinkled with scales. I could hardly make myself look at the heads resembling some I've seen floating in the lake that have been rotting for a month. However, the broth itself smelled and tasted pleasant and not overly fishy, as I’d imagined. As the pot emptied out and the fish remains hit the trash can, the image of the Wicked Witch of the West simply disappeared: “You cursed brat! Look what you've done! I'm melting! melting! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Oooooh, look out! I'm going! Oooooh! Ooooooh!”

Today I felt very much like Dorothy, the good and sweet child with the ruby red slippers, the one without a hint of guile looking for the Wizard who would help the Scarecrow’s bones grow strong. For lunch, I used the stock to make a fish chowder, and Fritz thinks it’s just about the best fish chowder he’s ever had – given the fact that he’s probably never eaten fish chowder made with fresh-caught lake fish at all before today. But seriously, he says it reminds him of clam chowder, in the sense that it is mildly reminiscent of something sea-creature-ish, but isn’t even remotely hold-you-nose stinky or tastebud-curling. (That was soooo edifying to hear.) Of course it had some evaporated milk added, and carrots/celery/onion/peppers/peas/potatoes, as well as a small amount of flaked fish meat. Sort of like cream-of-vegetable-soup with just the vague-est hint that the Little Mermaid might have left her mark….er, that’s from another story, sorry, but there wasn’t a fish in the Wizard of Oz and somehow the Lion and the Tin Man just didn’t fit.

On a literary (rather than nutritional) note, here’s a quote I ran across last night while waiting for the all the goodies to boil out of those four fish into the broth. It seems worthy of sharing, especially if you remember that, when I found it, I was observing something that rivaled the worst horror movie I’ve ever seen - and so was ecstatic for some comic relief:

To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.

-Woody Allen