Something's Fishy with this Fish

Fish. Some are pretty to look at, some are fun to catch, some keep the jellyfish in line, and it is said that altogether they are all an important integral part of the food chain. Not my food chain, but someone's food chain they say. That was until yesterday.*

Although sushi currently seems to hold the title of "greatest thing ever," I have always personally been under the impression that mankind did not discover flame broiling simply to have another task added to his day and in which to potentially cripple himself with, but rather because he once killed something, immediately took a bite out of it, and thought, "man, there's gotta be a better way." Persuaded at times by family and friends to occasionally question these assumptions I have always been disappointed and have always been told that that particular place either did not have very good sushi or just not very good sushi at that particular time. With odds such as these even if it turned out sushi was delicious I doubt it would be worth the culinary gamble you need to go through in order to get the good stuff.

Similarly once or twice I have deigned to try fried fish under the belief that fried batter makes everything better, and while this is still universally true, better does not necessarily translate into good. Fried catfish and fried Chinese-body-bone-and-eyeballs fish would taste better still without the catfish and bodies, bones, and eyeballs.

I have also since been fed salmon, tilapia, cod, orange roughy, and likely other tasty sounding but not terribly tasty tasting fishes only to be unimpressed every time. Canned tuna continues to be an offense to both my taste buds and my nose buds.

But I had not, until recently, tried ceviche. The thought of adding acid to fish for whatever inexplicable reason just never sounded appealing to me. It turns out, however, that a handful of hydrogen ions and a little bit of denaturing of proteins are exactly what is needed to take the fishy out of fish. I am still not entirely convinced that there was in fact fish in the dish, but I am repentant. I was wrong. I am sorry fish eating people of the world. Fish, or at least the fish served in the ceviche at Rosario's, is in fact palatable if not enjoyable to eat. What else can a little bit of acid improve? Liver? Gibblets? The global economy?



* In the interest of full disclosure. I had actually had one prior occasion where I sampled and did not die from eating fish. The butterfish in Hawaii is actually quite good if you can get all the bones and what not out of it. But come on; it's called butterfish. It's like God was demanding it be eaten.