#pescecane

Si andava in barca al largo, su di un trabiccolo arrugginito, lavato con birra al malto ed una soluzione alcolica di fiori di ibisco. 

Si andava per mare lontano, il mercante ed io, senza meta, fischiando e guardando il largo, dove l’aria si faceva bruna e l’orizzonte vanesio ci spariva in mezzo agli occhi. 

Si guardavano le onde, le une con le altre, e si incrociavano sotto lo scafo, come una treccia di mozzarella di bufale blu, schiumosa stracciatella al latte di cobalto.

Un’ onda un po’ sospetta, portò a bordo una borsetta, di pelo, giallo limone. Il mercante la afferrò e dentro vi era un pescecane, fatto di osso, bosco e pasta di sale. 

Mako steak.

Yesterday I went to my favourite natural food store and I bought a steak of the freshest fish they had. On the tag it was written "Mako", so I asked, "What is this again?" And the butcher told me, "It's like swordfish. It's good, it's good!" Well, what could I say. The fish was absolutely fresh and the price was ridiculous, almost a third of the swordfish. So I took it home and tried it out with some lemon rind, black pepper and garlic. It was so fresh, that I just wanted to cook it as simply as I could. But while I was waiting for dinner time, I went on Google to find out about this Mako, and, "Oh my..." I felt really strange when I found out that I had just bought a steak of shark. Of shark! Its full name is shortfin Mako shark (squalo Mako). I went back to the kitchen and took a better look at the skin: how hard, it felt like a wetsuit, like super thick vinyl cloth. Stunning. 

And how thick the streaks of fat: almost like veins of silicone. I was very curious to see how this nice piece of meat would become once cooked. Though, it didn't really feel right to eat such an important predator of the sea. 

In fact, this darling here lives up to 30 years. Thirty years! And reproduces not frequently. It eats tuna, swordfish, turtles etc. and it takes him two days to digest a normal meal. It can swim at 50 miles (80 km) an hour and you can see its teeth even when the mouth is closed. Nice. What else, oh, it is not the kind of shark that is used for shark finning - that horrific practice in which the fin gets cut from the body of the live shark and then the fins are dried and used for a Chinese soup, and the shark is thrown back into the sea to die - but it's now easy to find it in fisheries. 

Great news.. but the shark steak was still in the kitchen, and I was going to give it  decent obsequies in my pan. So I put some garlic to fry and I added my two pieces of meat with some lemon rind on them, salt and pepper. I allowed the sides to brown, then I added some white wine and I simmered for a while. I mean, a LOOONG while. So long that, at home, we were all getting upset for the hunger. It takes AGES to cook this bloody fish, and you need to cook it accurately because the tender/raw meat tastes weird.

 After five years, our steak was done. And it wasn't anything special.