Why I don't Like Cooked (or cooking) Fish

Well, let's start with the cooking. Any pan you use will be impossible to rid of the smell of fish, so you need a dedicated pan, so the steak you make next week won't taste like fish.

And my history with cooked fish is not a good one. My parents never ate it because my father hated all fish, so I was never exposed to it . . . until boarding school in England.

Oh

MY

God.

This was the type of place you imagine from Charles Dickens' books.

The kind of place where if you didn't finish your meal you weren't allowed to leave the table. Well, calling it a "meal" is a gross exaggeration (with an emphasis on "gross"). So you can imagine what cuts of fish they used, how they prepared the "sauces" (the cooks were all from Spain because they worked so cheaply) and so that was my education in cooked fish.

I did not touch it again until my 20s, when I would occasionally try a bit of salmon from someone else's dish. Not so bad, usually. But things would happen that would put me completely off particular fish -- I used to love a particular scallop dish at a restaurant in San Francisco until one day I bit down on a nice, large crunchy bit of sand.

No more scallops for moi.

Lobster is too complicated, although I love it when it's just the meat. Same for crab. But I ain't making it.

I remember going to an Italian restaurant here in Montreal with my then-wife and I suggested maybe she try the Lobster Fra Diavolo, because we never cooked fish at home and she liked it, so she did.

We were both horrified when the waiter wheeled out a tray with a live lobster on it to tell us it was going to be hers. I don't have contact with her any more, so I don't know, but I bet she'll never eat lobster again.

No, sushi is my route. It's almost inconceivable that someone who dislikes cooked fish loves raw fish, but it's true. I love crunchy tobiko, smoky eel (unagi), of course maguro and toro (tuna) and have been known to eat hamachi and even uni (sea urchin -- never again!)

But maybe I'll try making that salmon teriyaki I've been promising Brigitte for months . . . could be a good way of breaking my dislike for cooked (and cooking) fish.

But as you know, it's Canadian Thanksgiving and I will make her my signature turkey breast with rosemary and garlic, basted with dijon and honey, and perfect gravy, and we'll have her amazing mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables and a nice rosé.

I'm too busy to make salmon teriyaki yet. There are other fish to fry.