#pickled fish

Food has been one of the key ways in which humanity sustains itself. Food has permeated society in ways not seen by many other human advances. Because of the rising populations in the world and partly because of massive food wastage, there has never been more food on the planet, nor has there ever been as many places to get your food from. As humans, we need food to sustain ourselves. But this sustenance goes beyond mere sources of energy and (sometimes lack of) nutrients we need to continue living, food has transcended into the social and cultural spectrum that permeates through humanity like a (benevolent) plague. Food is arguably used as a means to bring people together more than it is to sustain life – and one of the most notable ways are is how food is able to bring families together. From Sunday meals, to familial celebrations, food is everywhere families go to come together – even to a point where it has become tradition. But how does this happen and where does all this food come from? Using my own family and a family traditional meal as a starting point, this essay will look at how food possesses a cultural and community meaning in my life and will reflect on where the food used in this traditional meal comes from.

The traditional dish I have chosen to use is my mother’s famous pickled fish recipe. There is perhaps no other meal from her which I adore the most. The dish is both spicy and sweet, something that my mother seems to be getting better and better at the more she makes it. Oddly enough, I do not consider myself a huge fish fan. As a true Joburg omnivore, my tastes lie more in cows than it does in fish, but this could largely be attributed to the fact that my father owns a butchery which sells the most delectable pieces of meat I have ever had. As such, I could have chosen a multitude of the beef meals my mother makes (like her other famous dish: frikedels and chips). However, no other dish she makes is as equally traditional as it is delicious – and boy, does it feel special.

Because of tradition, we only eat pickled fish once a year. This is done during Easter time, more specifically Good Friday. This is largely because, as Catholics, we are not allowed to eat red meat on Good Friday so to apease our carnivorous side, we eat fish instead. We eat the pickled fish along with regularly fried hake, fish cakes and hot cross buns: the pickled fish, however, is the undeniable star and the only fish dish we explicitly only eat once a year. Why we specifically only eat the pickled fish once a year is a bit unclear to me, to be honest. But, that is precisely why the dish has become a staple meal in my family on Good Friday, and has become very much a tradition in my family and community (because this once-a-year thing seems to be a coloured thing) which makes the dish feel undeniably special. In fact, every member in my family who has had my mother’s pickled fish has cited it as being one of the dishes that they anticipate from my mother the most. As such, the dish has transcended from being just another meal eaten separately in our rooms, and has become something of an event where my entire (immediate) family always gathers together around the table to eat together as if it was our Last Supper. Aside from obviously Jesus dying for our sins and stuff, it is what I look the most forward to during the Easter weekend – even trumping the plethora of chocolate that comes on the Sunday and Monday! This meal undeniably brings my family together as well as many other coloured families because it seems to be one of the few truly traditional dishes that my community has.

The dish even has a familial history in my family. Given that my mother’s side of the family originates from Cape Town, it is quite apt that it is a fish dish that the family is most famous for. It has been a dish that has survived generations and its delectability does not seem to be slowing down any time soon. From what my mother has told me, her mother used to make it every Good Friday as well and it is her side where the specific way of making our pickled fish comes from. Though she did not get the recipe directly from her mother, she got it from her sister who got it from their mother. As such, the dish has a distinctly familial heritage that has passed through generations, becoming the powerful, highly cultural traditional dishes in my family.

Being that the recipe is deceptively simple, there is not much to theorize on where the ingredients came from – it is just fish, onions, and spices really. The fish we usually use is perhaps the most widely used fish produce in the country – I&Js hake. I&J aptly has its headquarters in Cape Town and its site says where it gets its fish (the South African Hake Trawl Fishery) is MSC certified – meaning that its fish has been certified sustainable sea food. The site even has a section dedicated to sustainability where it claims that its fish is not over-caught so to sustain the hake population as per The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery’s Total Allowable Catch; they also claim to trawl their fish in only dedicated fishing spots that reportedly takes only 4.4% of South Africa’s territorial waters which “bounds and prevent trawling outside of the ring fence, subsequently creating a natural refuge for hake and other fish;” and they claim to be careful on what to fish, stating that they have a commitment to a WWF-SASSI to fully use sustainable seafood products by 2016 (I&Js, year not specified) – what all this actually means is not clear, and could very well be a well-crafted love letter to greenwashing. Where we get our onions are usually from major supermarkets, most likely through Spar as there is one very close to our home. Not much can be said about where it gets it produce from because from what I could gather is only that the produce is only of the highest quality “all at great value prices” (Spar, year not specified) – what this means is as unclear as where they actually get their food from. Most unclear though, is where the spices used comes from. The spice is usually bought at this store not far from our Eldorado Park home that sells a variety of spices, meat and other ingredients – but the usual brands we buy from is Exquisite Spices and Pride of India. When thinking about all of this, and especially after our class on Food, it is a bit alarming how little we know about where it comes from and how little these sites actually make transparent on where and how exactly their food produce is made. We are just as ignorant about our food’s origins as these sites are secretive. And where some information of the origins of their food produce is given, there is practically no information on the inner workings of what actually goes into making their product – from where it was made to what was put into it both before and after catching/harvesting them. But is this our fault? Is it our complicity with where and how are food is made led corporations to shroud their produce in secrecy – supposedly on the basis of protecting their brand not only because of competion, but because of us too? Do we even want to know what goes into the food we eat and how and where it is produced? I don’t know. What I do believe, though, is that it is these corporations basic responsibility to be as transparent with us as possible.