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khiemtranI had an interesting seafood dish in a restaurant in KL last week. It was a plate of seasoned, battered fish pieces, of the sort you'd normally gobble down in a flash. These ones, however, came with a dire warning. Each of the pieces were laced with hard bones of various sizes. I think they may have been from a chopped up fish head.
There was a time, when I was a child, when I would have considered this the most horrible dish ever. Instead, I found it an illuminating experience. The bones force you to slow down when you eat. You suck the outside of each portion first, to get as much of the easy flavour as possible. Then you start nibbling, slowly carefully. Feeling with your tongue to make sure you haven't missed one of the little white daggers. You eat it as though it was the most delicious fish you would eat in your life and you need to savour the experience.
And then something funny happens. It turns into the most delicious fish you have eaten in your life. When you slow down and give it your full concentration, all your senses start to kick in. The world shrinks to just the food before your mouth. Even the tiniest thread of flash tastes sweet, as does the satisfaction of extracting a clean set of bones from your lips.
At the end of the meal, you feel relaxed and gratified, and more aware of some of the pleasures you've been missing in the other food you've eaten.
There was a time, when I was a child, when I would have considered this the most horrible dish ever. Instead, I found it an illuminating experience. The bones force you to slow down when you eat. You suck the outside of each portion first, to get as much of the easy flavour as possible. Then you start nibbling, slowly carefully. Feeling with your tongue to make sure you haven't missed one of the little white daggers. You eat it as though it was the most delicious fish you would eat in your life and you need to savour the experience.
And then something funny happens. It turns into the most delicious fish you have eaten in your life. When you slow down and give it your full concentration, all your senses start to kick in. The world shrinks to just the food before your mouth. Even the tiniest thread of flash tastes sweet, as does the satisfaction of extracting a clean set of bones from your lips.
At the end of the meal, you feel relaxed and gratified, and more aware of some of the pleasures you've been missing in the other food you've eaten.
