April 7, 2014

Smells Fishy

Monday, April 07, 2014 Posted by Mary , No comments
I love fish, especially fish heads! My husband thinks this is super gross, but when fresh from salt water and cooked properly, they are actually very tasty. When I was in the Philippines, I took fish for granted. In fact, I would sometimes sulk, because my parents are huge fish eaters, and it seemed all we ate was fish fish fish. Now, living in Alberta, I actually miss having good, fresh fish.

I'm sorry to say that the fish available in Alberta suck. It's quite understandable because it's a land-locked province in a country with the second largest land area in the world. I now completely understand why most Albertans dislike eating fish. Because by golly, I can barely stand eating fish here. Only salmon and haddock taste like they're supposed to. The rest are just gross.

I remember last year when we went to T&T Supermarket in Edmonton. T&T is an Asian food store and I was so happy because they had fish heads for sale. I bought one and when it was time for me to cook it, it was the grossest smelling thing ever! I think it might have already gone bad. To make it worse, because of the pungent odor, we suddenly had a whole bunch of flies trying to get into our place. Despite the bug screen, some of them got in. While there's only flies here for a couple of months a year, they're big and nasty. I think it took days before we finally got rid of the stink from the apartment and longer to get rid of a couple of flies lurking around. Needless to say, it was my most horrifying fish-cooking experience to date.

 Recently, I've been craving milkfish...




Milkfish is the national fish of the Philippines, and it's very abundant in the country because of aquaculture. I love milkfish--not the cultured ones, but the ones from the ocean. Again, I was overjoyed when I found milkfish for sale at the Real Canadian Superstore. Fresh, er... frozen from Taiwan, I thought it would taste as good as I remember.

Durrr. This particular stock was obviously cultured, and it made me remember why I didn't like cultured milkfish in the first place. It stunk up our place again. It wasn't nearly as bad as the previous fiasco, but enough to put a grimace on my face. I really need to learn, and stop buying fish in this province.

I guess what I've realized is, there is definitely a reason why different people in different parts of the world like to eat different things. Fish might not be desirable in Alberta, but beef is, and it's the exact opposite in the Philippines. I'm hoping others realize this too, and not limit themselves to what they are used to in their part of the world.

Maybe, just maybe, I will miss good fish so much and it would make me want to vacation in the Philippines. It hasn't happened yet, though. Now lechon, on the other hand... that might just be another story.