The Luo and Their Fish
The Luo are known as fisherman around Lake Victoria. And they love to eat their Nile Perch and Talapia. Sometimes the ladies who cook and bring food for our lunches will prepare fish. They cut a 10-inch Talapia in half and simmer it in masala sauce. Co-workers call the head portion the "engine" and they eat everything, including the eyes. Luos eat so much fish, they all tease they can put the whole fish in their mouth and withdraw an intact set of bones. Just like the cartoons.
The adventurous side of me wants to experience the fish head the way the Luos do. So I sit next to George Nyamor at lunch today and eat the meat up to the head. There’s two lovely sections just above the eyes, nestled amongst bone, that’s quite tender/tasty. The gills are also eaten, though they seem to contain thin bone or some type of cartilage. Two sets of gills, brown in color, grow in lines of fringed, fragile meat on the bone-like rows. Lucas Ngode says, "Put it all in your mouth and chew slowly." So I pull about 5 rows of gill from the fish jaw and put it in my mouth, chewing slowly. Slightly crunchy but the taste is okay. There are some dark brown, organ-looking things that taste awful, so I remove them immediately.
Now for the eyes. I ask George to show me how to eat the eye. "You just pick up it and eat it," he says. "But how do I pick it up?" I ask. "Eat this one, George, so I can see how you do it, then I’ll eat the other one." George smiles as he reaches over, squeezes the eyeball free of the socket with his fingertips and drops it in his mouth. Looking at Lucas for courage, I flip the fish and pry the other eyeball out of its socket. A thin piece of tomato skin from the masala sauce is attached. I throw the eye onto my tongue before thinking too long about it. Expecting it to melt like jello, I’m surprised to have to bite down on the eye, and even more surprised to find resistance.
It feels like bone and I can’t bring myself to crush the hardness with my teeth. "Is there bone in the eye?" I ask Lucas, trying to forget an eyeball is squished onto my tongue. He says, "There’s a hard thing in the center." The eye tastes like a fish that’s lived in a swamp. It’s not a horrible taste, just more fishy than fish flesh. And I can’t bite into the bone/cartilage of the eye, just can't do it. Instead, I take it from my mouth and rudely, according to all etiquette books, place it on my plate.
The adventurous side of me wants to experience the fish head the way the Luos do. So I sit next to George Nyamor at lunch today and eat the meat up to the head. There’s two lovely sections just above the eyes, nestled amongst bone, that’s quite tender/tasty. The gills are also eaten, though they seem to contain thin bone or some type of cartilage. Two sets of gills, brown in color, grow in lines of fringed, fragile meat on the bone-like rows. Lucas Ngode says, "Put it all in your mouth and chew slowly." So I pull about 5 rows of gill from the fish jaw and put it in my mouth, chewing slowly. Slightly crunchy but the taste is okay. There are some dark brown, organ-looking things that taste awful, so I remove them immediately.
Now for the eyes. I ask George to show me how to eat the eye. "You just pick up it and eat it," he says. "But how do I pick it up?" I ask. "Eat this one, George, so I can see how you do it, then I’ll eat the other one." George smiles as he reaches over, squeezes the eyeball free of the socket with his fingertips and drops it in his mouth. Looking at Lucas for courage, I flip the fish and pry the other eyeball out of its socket. A thin piece of tomato skin from the masala sauce is attached. I throw the eye onto my tongue before thinking too long about it. Expecting it to melt like jello, I’m surprised to have to bite down on the eye, and even more surprised to find resistance.
It feels like bone and I can’t bring myself to crush the hardness with my teeth. "Is there bone in the eye?" I ask Lucas, trying to forget an eyeball is squished onto my tongue. He says, "There’s a hard thing in the center." The eye tastes like a fish that’s lived in a swamp. It’s not a horrible taste, just more fishy than fish flesh. And I can’t bite into the bone/cartilage of the eye, just can't do it. Instead, I take it from my mouth and rudely, according to all etiquette books, place it on my plate.
posted by Cindi at 4:49 AM
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