#stinkyfish

LSLXPXOS9WOE I LOVE THE STINKY FISH MAN

So I wake up on Sunday morning to the terrible stench of raw fish. I have always hated the sight, touch, and smell of raw fish near me even though I do eat many types of fish. In Cuba, people bought entire fish with heads and guts and fresh ocean water still clinging to them, and that does not typically happen in American markets, where you get clean fish pieces neatly secured in plastic wrapper. During my childhood, I always dreaded when people cleaned fish, squid, and other marine products at home. What definitely got me wanting to disappear was the stench of fish being simply boiled. I even left the house every time mom boiled fish for our cat. 

So I ran to the kitchen as soon as I woke up only to find this. 

I asked my mom why she was cleaning and cutting raw fish when she could simply buy clean fish at the market like she has done thousands of times. She then replied that the fish we bought in the market was not real fish, but that this one was. I asked her what type of fish it was, to which she said she did not know and did not care. She had bought the fish from the friend of a friend of a friend who had caught them that same day. She said that that was how fish was meant to be consumed, straight out of the sea without the nasty influence of human hands on it. She then went on a rant about the fish that she cleaned in Cuba and how many nutrients it had versus “the piece of shit fish that this country sold”. I left her alone but still wondered how she could spend all that time removing fish guts when she is always complaining she lacks time to do so many things. 

My mom thinks the ingredients in America will never match the natural ingredients we had in Cuba. She often complains about the taste of the food and looks for what she thinks is the most appropriate brand of rice for the Cuban recipes. Mom never minded picking rice and beans, peeling corn, and cleaning all kinds of fish and meat. She even admitted she enjoyed it. She especially enjoyed going to the street markets to get the food. I went with her and with my grandparents when I was a child and even participated in the peeling of corn and the making of tamales that took the whole family and entire day.