Fishin' for Food

I am the only non-fisherman in a house full of fisherman. (Can you guess who is not in that photo?)

While every now and then I don’t mind the thrill of a good cast and a fish to reel in, I don’t touch hooks, lures, worms or fish. I don’t use my teeth to break a line. I don’t search out the best fishing haunts or relish waking up with the sun to discover what will be the catch of the day. And least of all, I never engage in the exchange of the Great Fishing Tales.

Bella thinks her fishing skills are genetically imbued, an insight she garnered earlier this month when we shared with her an album her bio-father had sent to CAS for her. Bubaloo just really seems to enjoy fishing. Wifey lives for it.

Surrounded by three fishermen with open access to a lake full of bass, perch, trout and crappies, there has been no shortage of fish. It started out with bringing the small ones home to cook up for a snack. Each catch was precious cause it was some sort of first. And, as they began to hook the larger ones, it evolved into keeping the large ones for meals.

We’ve had countless meals of fish, and I’m fished out. I’m even eyeing the cans of tuna I foolishly bought earlier in the week with contempt.

I like fish, I really do. But I’ve gotten caught in the trap of being unable to eat what is brought from lake to plate.

From 1991 to 2001, I was a vegetarian. I really did believe, and still do believe, that you should be willing and able to be self-sufficient and sustainable with food and part of that philosophy includes a respect of the lifecycle and that we kill to feed ourselves. We rely on pretty horrid means to eat meat and are amply removed from that process because we don’t kill the animals ourselves.

I sort of like to think that if I had to raise chicken and cattle for food, that I’d be able to raise, kill and eat them as necessary.

The fish on my dinner plate this week has taught me a new lesson. I can raise animals. I could even possibly kill them if I had to. I cannot, however, bring myself to eat what we directly bring to our plates. I’m repulsed. I gag. I can’t eat it with any sense of enjoyment.

Exactly what I’m going to do with this, I don’t quite know yet.