Journal lingqi's Journal: October 4th, 2004 2
October 4th, 2004 (4:21pm)
Urgh! I am so busy these days.
October had swung by and the weather cooled off tremendously. In the perpetual wet cloudy days, every day another patch of rice field, the day before full of arched rice stalks from the weight of the fruition of a year, become barren and nothing left but cut stalks and the muddy ground below, rice peels in a pile burning on the side of the field, producing noxious smoke. I hardly have time to take my time to reflect on such change of season anymore. Time flies by like wind, not only is it fast, it comes and goes intangibly like the blotches of colour outside flashing across the window on a fast moving train.
NHK morning drama has entered a new season. I think I finally got the grasp that the said morning dramas are always about 6 monthes long. I admit to my schadenfreude for the previous series's completion, because while the main actress is indeed very pretty, the show was a warehouse of boredom compressed and cut into 15 minute segments. I am not here to talk extensively about NHK morning drama (which as far as i know a very small percentage of japanese male population ever casts eyes upon), but rather that I realized that the new series would probably be the last one I will be able to watch extensively. While I am not a zealous fan for the particular, erm, art form, watching the show on my morning commute as a diversion and a practice for listening to something besides the news had become a ritual here. A notable indicator of this particular lifestyle that I have settled into. To be confronted with these indicators of the end of an accustomed life, no matter how foreign it started out originally, is admittably the cause of some anxiety. Ironically the life that is supposed to be familiar (the life back in the US) now seem to hold many unknowns and undoubtedly many surprises.
The supermarked called "Big House" near my residence is truly an amazing place. I have many times mused at their fine and eclectic selections of fish, but I am repeatedly tempted to go at it one more time. Last weekend I took a stroll there to find some harmless salmon and tai (bream) for a simple soup dish, but ended up staring in amazement at a huge Ankou (angler fish) and bought home some haze (goby) and some ankimo (angler fish liver). It did not end there, of course. Of the things I didn't buy there are many. In fact, a tropical fish that I frequently seen while diving also made it onto the shelf at the supermarket. There were also plates of these other tiny round but extremely thin fishes. They were about the size of a coaster, and are not much thicker either. I cannot imagine how they would be cooked, as they appear to belong in an aquarium rather than on the dinner table.
The Ankou was humongous. It was a bit bigger than a deflated basketball with a disproportionally small tail. They laid the fish bottom up in the styrofoam container, and the bottom was slimy and white. The large mouth that opens upwards could not be seen. When I peeled the fish in an attempt to look underneath it (look at its "up"-side,) thick columns of mucus lingered from its black and disagreeably textured skin on its other side onto the container's bottom, as if the fish is part of a huge snot-ball some giant just sneezed out. As much as ankou is one of my favourite foods, I decided to leave the snivel covered fish alone.
That said, goby fish is no any more pleasant to look at. (Disclaimer, I am no longer so sure what I ate WAS a goby. Maybe it was a specie of frogfish) This is another fish that drells on the bottom or near stones, so the unexposed bottom side is white and... sloshy. It was about 30cm long, with a bony head and many protrusions from it. The eyesocket sits well above the head and bones make these two alcoves where the tiny eyes look out, much like a frog. The shelter/alcoves shares small resemblance to arches of Sydney's Opera House. The skin was slimy but prickly at the same time. Many lines of these little hook/teeth-like protrutions run along the back side of the fish, under a layer of slime-like substance. The stomache was exceptionally soft and sloshed, like a rubber bag with questionable durabitily half full of water. Touching it was of no pleasant experience.
Nonetheless, I decided that for 250yen, it would be a reasonable amount to try to see if this would taste good. A general rule I follew is that the uglier the fish the better they tend to taste. I unfortunately did not have the requisite 4,000 yen to spare on that huge ankou just for experimental purposes, and besides the fact it was large enough to feed a small army - or at least drive the appetite thereof away for a while, which in some sense serves the same purpose.
My experiment did not produce encouraging results. I was to find out later that the skin should have been peeled before cooking, along with whatever that was sloshing along the interior. While I was eating the said fish, a bladder-like organ that was either the esophagus or the stomage broke open, and its interior - undistinguishable substance of questionable colour and a whole, small shrimp, spread into the plate. While I consider myself fairly adventurous in dining, the sight of partially digested food of my food somehow brought about some unmitigated horror in my stomache.
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Probably will continue about hawaii in the next episode. With all my being, I hope time will allow that to be tuesday. Must run off to Piano now.
p.s. speaking of Piano. Debussy has an uncanny ability to make incredibly difficult pieces of music seem easy, much to the dismay of my hands.
Ankimo!! (Score:3, Informative)
Ankou is monkfish, I had it in an Indian-Fusion place here and it was lovely. Strangely it does not have the typical flaky fish-flesh, but rather it seems to be stringy, but instead of flat strings, it is like in a knot. Hard to describe, but easy on the palate...