Brave Endeavor

Despite unfortunate addictions to chocolate, peanut butter, and cookie dough, I really do try to be a healthy eater. This is partly because I feel as though if I’m going to be a runner I ought to play the part even after I take off my shoes. But it’s also because I genuinely like healthy foods. I’ve always preferred white meat to red, I love fruits and vegetables (yes, without the ranch dip), and I’ve developed a taste for whole grains. I eat oatmeal and skim milk every morning because I like it, and I spread my 100% whole wheat bread with all-natural peanut butter (no corn syrup added).

And so for years I have regretted that I cannot stand fish.

This has not been all in my head. Scientists keep finding so many reasons that everyone should consume fish on a regular basis that I have tried valiantly to learn to enjoy it since I first moved away from home (where fish was never served). I made some major headway during my two months in Spain where I was forced to eat what I was served or go hungry in that I discovered that I could stomach shellfish if they were very, very small and buried in paella, and that there were a few types of fish I could not only stomach but almost enjoy. Unfortunately, this only happened if it was a very particular type of fish (and since everyone spoke Spanish I had no idea what it might be called in English) and if it was prepared in a very particular way.

But the truth is, though I have been dutifully tasting the fish and shrimp and calamari and clam chowder that other people order for years and years, I almost always conclude that I still hate it. I remember walking through the fish market on Fisherman’s Wharf during an eighth grade science trip to San Francisco and nearly throwing up because of the smell. I had to rush ahead of my friend, holding my breath, and I find that fish tastes just about the same as it smells. “This one doesn’t really taste like fish,” my grandma will say, offering me a bite of whatever seafood dish she has ordered. It’s not true, though. Fish tastes like fish. There’s no getting around it.

But.

Something strange has happened to me recently. It began with a trip to Demai in downtown Provo where my roommate and her fiancé substituted the traditional engagement pizza (or steak, depending on who you ask) with an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner. It’s probably because it was wrapped up in rice and seaweed and vegetables and because wasabi liberally applied quite overpowers the tastebuds, but I loved it. I even got up the courage to eat the raw kind, and I didn’t even get sick. Not one member of my family will eat sushi, and so I take it as a matter of pride that I now get occasional sushi cravings (though when I undertake to satisfy the cravings at the local Kroger, I stick to the fully-cooked California rolls).

It turns out I like salmon, too. This came as something of a shock to me because I had tried salmon (once, many years ago in Spain) and I thought I hated it just as much as any other fish. But on a whim at Outback Steakhouse with my parents and sister just before we headed downtown to see the Los Angeles production of Wicked, I ordered a salmon platter. I only did this because it came with enough in the way of side dishes to fill me up as soon as I remembered why I disliked salmon, but to my surprise I absolutely loved the fish.

The point of all of this is that this evening I did something I have never done before, something that I’m pretty sure even my mother has never done before. I cooked fish for dinner. I didn’t marinate it myself—when I saw the salmon sitting in the display case and realized that I would probably have to touch it to prepare it I chickened out and went for the pre-marinated filet instead. And cooking the fish was a scary experience. Cooking red (non-hamburger) meat for the first (and still only) time in my life last year when I made pork stir-fry was also a scary experience, come to think of it. I know how to cook chicken. I’ve been doing it for years and I know how to tell when it’s done and how to keep from spreading salmonella all over the kitchen. But I don’t know how to handle other kinds of raw animal.

What’s scary about salmon is that it’s pink when it starts and it’s pink when it’s finished. My cookbook said to cook the fish for 4-6 minutes in the oven for every 1/2-inch of thickness. My filet was probably 3/4-inch thick and I didn’t trust my cookbook. I cooked it for well over fifteen minutes, used up three forks checking it at various points during those fifteen minute (because I was afraid of reusing a fork that might have touched raw seafood) and was so preoccupied with wondering whether it was done after I took it out of the oven that I unthinkingly picked up the hot pan with my bare hands and ended up with a large, painful blister on my left pinky.

I’m not entirely sure why raw fish scares me so much. Raw poultry doesn’t do this to me, and raw eggs certainly don’t. Somehow the little microscopic creatures that live in fish seem so much more dangerous to me than the little things that live in other animal products. DO NOT UNDERCOOK! the label on my fish warned me, as did my cookbook, while detailing several precautionary measures that anyone endeavoring to work with raw fish ought to keep in mind, including scrubbing down every surface that may have come in contact with the meat with soap and hot water.

The salmon was good, though, and easy. I think I may make a habit of this, and perhaps even get up the nerve to cut up and marinate my own salmon filet someday (provided, of course, I don’t die of fish poisoning tomorrow). And I feel very proud of myself for being so very healthy and consuming my very first weekly portion of omega-3 fatty acids.

Good for me!