Aretousa has been eating fish from an early age and when we were in Greece she saw both live and dead, cooked fish, but I doubt that she remembers them or that she understood the connection between what she saw and what she ate. My aim for us today was more or less to handle a bit the fish and the rest of the vegetables before we cooked them, so that we form a very basic understanding of what food looks like before we cook it and afterwards and how the same food tastes.
I think that it feels strange to be eating things for so long without knowing what they looked like before you ate them or when they were alive, and how and where they grew (being animals or vegetables). Many of my students had never seen an apple tree, which is common and native in the British Isles, but were consuming lots of apples each week. On the other hand, many people who have not been familiar with some foods all their lives, find it very strange or even repulsive eating them afterwards. Like many people find prawns with their shell and antennae still on a bit creepy. While others, who perhaps played in sea water puddles where shrimp live and tried to catch them, probably would not even think about it. So maybe originally people ate what happened to live and grow where they were and this way they knew exactly what they were eating and were aware of or even had been involved in growing or rearing it. But of course things are much more complicated today and we can get hold of foods from all over the world relatively easily, but with such variety it is very unlikely that we can relate to each food properly and be aware of its journey and its life before it reached us.
It is so funny that every time I cook fish and smell it, I remember a particular fishing trip and think of a large school of small whitebait that we caught when I was young. It was a midnight fishing trip in August on the day of the last full moon of that summer. That used to be around the time that we returned to Athens from our summer holidays. The sea was a "flat pan" with not even the most minuscule wave on it. We hadn't even left the harbour of the island that long when we literally fell upon a large school of small whitebait. They must have thought the moonlight for the sun or for some strange reason they were swimming close to the surface and jumping out in waves, rather like dolphins do. You could hear their bodies touching each other and then entering the surface of the water. They were so many that even by throwing the net on top of them you were sure to catch a huge amount. We only threw the net once because that felt at the time like a privilege to have fallen upon them in that way. We caught many and it felt like we were fishing fallen stars from a golden sea. They were like a silver treasure, like we had caught with our nets an open old treasure chest. They spilled on the kaiki deck from the net and glistened and shined and danced in a dazzling light. It was unforgettable. Then we just anchored there and then and did not fish any more, but jumped in the sea for a midnight swim.
To cook the whitebait best, we rinse and dry it, cover it in flour which has been seasoned with salt and pepper and deep fry it. It is best eaten very fresh and you can eat the whole fish, no need to bone or gut them, they are so small. Once deep fried, we squeeze some lemon juice on top and crunch the whole thing. It is rich in calcium and phosphorus.
Today Aretousa handled the fish and the vegetables and then we rolled out a little water based black printing ink and stamped them in the ink and then onto some thin rice paper. The ink can be safely rinsed out before consumption, but to be sure with the tomato and lemon, I sliced a thin slice of the inked surface off and discarded it.
Long time ago, Japanese fishermen used to document their catch by making a print of each fish for their records. The technique of fish printing in Japan is called Gyotaku, and now it is recognised as an art form in its own right. You can make such a print by applying ink directly on to the fish or by producing a print indirectly. In that case you would have to apply a wet thin paper onto the fish, dry it out and then proceed to make a rubbing of the surface. Our results are not so sophisticated, but I like that the lemon, tomato and parsley prints look like sea creatures.
After the print had dried and we brought it back in Aretousa persisted in wanting "kokkino" and "kitrino". Which means red and yellow and she means by that paint in general. So below the finished fish still life.
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