Man vs. Fish, Round 2!

“Ayu!” Raquel screamed through the throngs of people. We’d found it, the allegedly delicious river fish served whole, complete with guts, brains and bones. Tucked in between a fried noodles place and an ancient Japanese float, home of the Kami, Japanese Gods of Nature, a woman was grilling fresh ayu. Two Japanese teenagers had ordered one of the eight inch fish, caught in a nearby mossy river, then skewered and salted. The chef held their order over a bed of hot coals and carefully turned the fish back and forth before handing it to the young couple. They looked apprehensive as they sized up their meal.

 

Not wanting to get discouraged, I hastily ordered one of the ayu and a beer to wash it down. (My last experience with the fish was anything but pleasant).  The chef selected an ayu, already crusted in salt, and lowered it over the bed of coals. To my dismay, she grilled the fish for less than a minute before handing it to me. Wait! I wanted to say. That can’t be enough time to fully cook the viscera! But my Japanese skills are laughable, so instead I politely nodded and paid her for the fish.

 
 

I sized up the ayu. Its bony face stared back at me with eyes crusted in salt. Its fins looked like they’d choke me as soon as I tried to swallow one. Unsure of where to start, I bit into the plumpest part of the fish, its belly. Hot guts flowed into my mouth. It was salty and fishy and, actually, not that bad. Am I chewing intestines? I pondered as I masticated the strangely textured organs. Do fish even have intestines?

A note to eaters of ayu: Don’t look into the fish’s abdomen. I did, and immediately regretted it.  At the back of an empty cavity, dotted with brown and green specks of fish guts, the spine and ribs joined together, daring me to eat the bony cage. Sanity returned before I ate the fish’s eyes or brains, and I remembered: people normally eat the sides of the fish, not the guts! I sunk my teeth into the ayu’s tiny flank.

Oishi! It was salty and rich! Reminiscent of salmon perhaps, but different, delicious! The bones added a nice crunchy texture to the tasty meat. Half the fish was gone before I remembered to offer my wife a bite. She nibbled the ayu’s side and smiled. This really was a tasty fish!

I enjoyed every bite of that delicious ayu (the spine and fins were crunchy and especially delicious) until I chomped into the gills. They tasted how I imagine the filter of poorly maintained fish tank would taste, like rotten algae and fish shit. Isn’t that what gills are? They’re oxygen filters. Eating gills is like eating the lungs from a chain-smoking monkey. I gagged at the thought, then chugged beer, desperate to be rid of the vile taste.

 

The nearby Japanese teenagers noticed my disgust and politely giggled to eachother. I wanted to explain, possibly through pantomime, that the fish was delicious, just the gills were nasty, but I didn’t bother. I think everyone likes that feeling of belonging, of being home. That feeling that one only really gets when foreigners get excited or confused or even repulsed by something the locals take for granted. So I said nothing, and let them belong.

Instead I wandered off in search of the Gods and the delicious sights and sounds the mortals of the festival were offering them.

 

Joe Darris currently lives in Japan. If you enjoyed this story, please +1 and share with your friends and family!

 

Try the Moss Flavored Fish Organs!

Japanese people, like hipsters and bleeding hearts, like to eat seasonally. If I ask about a fruit or vegetable in the wrong seasons my students are completely confused. After tedious explanation, one of them inevitably looks up the word on their phone and understanding dawns.

“Ah, radishes! Hai, hai. Radishes now? Radish is a winter vegetable.”

“But they’re so big, and cheap! The grocery store is overflowing with them!” I reason.

“Hai, hai. Radishes are a winter vegetable. Very delicious. Hai, hai.”

Whatever, it works for me. We used to frequent the Farmer’s Market, so I can dig seasonal vegetables. Though in Japan, seasonally means more than just tomatoes in the summer and radishes in the winter.

The current seasonal specialty is ayu. It’s a river fish about 8 inches long that is typically skewered, salted and grilled whole. It’s known for its “delicious organs flavored from river moss that grow in limpid streams,” Yum! I mean, who can resist that? I tried an ayu, moss flavored organs and everything, and I thought it was disgusting. But I blame the unagi.

I love of unagi, or bar-b-q’d river eel. You’re probably tried some at a sushi restaurant. It’s that grilled piece of deliciousness often wrapped with a nori belt and slathered in sauce. I’ve never eaten more than a piece or two at once, but there are restaurants here that sell nothing more than slabs of unagi. They’re easy to spot; they’re the places belching clouds of wonderfully greasy smoke into the air.

My wife and I went to an unagi place our first week and got the “medium-sized” portion.

The chef presented us with a bowl of rice and huge chunks of delicious unagi. I happily inhaled mine, marveling at the richness and fastness of the eel, pausing only to sip at the ubiquitous miso soup and inescapable vegetable jello (I’m all for being adventurous, but vegetable jello is disgusting. I’ll take the horse-hoof variety any day). Beyond satisfied, we happily paid our tab, and stepped out of the air-conditioned restaurant into the heat of Tajimi city.

Immediately my heart began to pump faster, desperate to keep the oxygen flowing through the rivers of grease. We both began to sweat. Normally, my wife’s armpits lure me in with the tantalizing aroma of cantaloupe and sweet onions. But today, something was wrong. No overripe cantaloupe tickled my olfactory senses, no tangy and slightly acrid onion balanced out her sweaty bouquet. Instead, my nostrils were assaulted with just one pungent musk: unagi.

Delirious, we began to wander. We needed to buy something. Lunchboxes? Chop sticks? Samurai swords? None of it made sense anymore. I’ve only ever felt that way from food twice before. Once from The Buffet in Las Vegas (enough said) and once from a sandwich from Big Bites. The sandwich was filled with chicken strips, cheese steak, fried pickles, onion rings, French fries, a block of cheese, and slathered in Bar-B-Q and mayonnaise. I was high for hours. Tunnel vision, mood swings, nausea, hallucinations. The works.

One bowl of unagi did the same thing.

In our delirium we wandered into a Valor and what should I find but ayu. I’d heard all about this little fish and was determined to try it. It was already skewered, salted and roasted, completely whole. The head still attached to the spine, the viscera still inside. It had been prepped and cooked hours ago, then refrigerated. Raquel tried to dissuade me from eating this typical festival dish cold, but I was deafened by the unagi.

“Everyone says it’s delicious!” I protested.

“Yes, when it’s fresh! You shouldn’t eat it cold, and especially not after all that unagi.”

I ignored her. What did she know? She stunk like eel anyway. I purchased one of the fish, already skewered, roasted and packaged in plastic wrap. Some dim ray of wisdom shined through the cloud of unagi and I knew not to eat it then. So I brought it back to the hotel, victorious. My wifey passed out. I mindlessly flipped through Japanese TV,

Hours later I sampled the ayu’s moss-flavored organs. It was revolting. Second in its nastiness only to vegetable jello. The skin was chewy and the little meat there was was riddled with bones. Each bite had a different texture and consistency. One bite contained the chewy heart, the next, green goo that spattered as I bit into the cold flesh. The moss-flavor was especially strong in the… liver?

Disgusted, I put the remains of the fish aside. Maybe without any unagi in my stomach it’ll be more appetizing. But even after a night of sleep, the thought of eating the last of the ayu’s flesh, spine and intestines was repulsive, and I finally threw it away, defeated.

But mark my words, I’ll eat their moss flavored organs at the festival in Kyoto tomorrow, this time hot and fresh, without any unagi pumping through my veins.