Ode to Fish

Coming from the south of Spain, one of the things I miss the most in Edinburgh is a good fishmonger’s nearby. To buy good fish, I need to take a twenty-minute bus journey and carry a big bag to stock up. It also has to be the beginning of the month, with funds still in the account, so I can fill the freezer generously. That’s what I’ve done this morning.

Like any long-distance relationship, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I think of fish quite often, I analyse and reconsider its price and my effort, if it’s giving me enough. Unsurprisingly, I’ve become more demanding. When I order it in a restaurant now, I am a fucking pain. 

I’ve also learnt to love it more intimately. I know it much better, all its contradictions. Paradoxically, fish doesn’t smell of fish. Its odour only arises when it’s either been cooked or is rotten. In the meantime, what you’re breathing in is the sea. By loving and missing fish, I’ve discovered that it is simply a conduit, a channel of something bigger, a channel of the sea. Of its independence and its unwillingness to be tamed. Fish is then almost an attitude. That’s why it tastes so good.

Shame I already used the sardine picture a few days ago. This is the fishmonger’s, by the way.