There's something fishy about bouillabaisse!

Proper, real, professional bouillabaisse -- Obviously not mine!

     Out here in rural Japan, there isn't a whole lot to entertain the pair of us on a Saturday night (except for pre-recorded TV, but more on that in a soon-to-come post.)  I wouldn't want to say we're "starved for entertainment," but, well, actually we are! I know -- we could always go "clubbing" in not-so-far-away Tokyo.  But anybody who knows us even a little would laugh at that prospect.  Trendy, we ain't!

     I have, however, become much more interested in cooking, since that's my major form of entertainment nowadays. Well, maybe it's not the cooking itself that I find so appealing.  Rather, it's chasing down the ingredients at the supermarkets here in Ogawa-machi.  But that, too, is a blog post for another day.

     However, recently I myself became the best source of entertainment in this household.  I had David doubled over with peals of genuine laughter with just this one sentence:  "I think I might make some bouillabaisse this coming week."   Does that seem funny?  Not really.  But David actually howled with laughter.  

My idea of cooked fish

      "Why?" you may ask.  Well, he loves seafood.  I hate it. It's a simple as that.  He comes from an island nation, where fish-and-chips is the national dish.  I hail from America's Midwest, the suburbs of Chicago.  You know, the place that Robert Frost wrote about in his famous poem of the same name:  "Chicago Hog Butcher for the World."  My mother came from Iowa, famous for corn and Dubuque Ham, which results when you feed that corn to pigs.  My father came from Wisconsin, "America's Dairyland," famous for its cheese, which comes from cows.  What do I know about fish?  Growing up, I always thought fish came in one shape -- sticks -- and from a rectangular box covered in waxed paper labelled "Mrs. Paul's."  

    When I go to a Japanese supermarket, I generally avoid the fish aisle completely.  For one thing, it smells, well, fishy.  For another, things in there look so lifelike.  Heads, tails, fins, glassy eyes  -- oftentimes suckers and curled-up tentacles, too. All arranged in schools -- they clearly died with their friends. Japanese people go into the "Fresh Fish" section of the store to buy fish. They look at it thoughtfully,  turning over the packages while judging the contents'  freshness.  They choose carefully and presumably go directly home to whip it up into wonderful, healthy seafood dishes that will delight their nuclear families. 

Japan's dead fish

      If I go to the fish section at all, it's mostly as a tourist attraction.  No need for Tokyo's famous Tsukiji Fish Market in my life!  I just go to the local supermarket and find schools of scaly dead things galore.  'Course I could always do that in Penang, too, though there the smell was even fishier, if that's possible.  David once said (with love), "Hon, your idea of cooking fish is buying a salmon steak and plopping it into the George Foreman grill until it's dry."  No argument there!

Penang's dead fish

     However, the other day among the marked-down goods at the local grocery store, I saw some packets of bouillabaisse soup  or juice or broth or whatever you call it.  Ready-made, it was and half price.  I thought, "Hmm. . . . this would really impress David.  And the stock is already prepared, so the rest should be quick and easy."  

    I proceeded cautiously, though.  I went home and looked up the recipe for bouillabaisse on the Internet. One said I was going to need "Mediterranean seafood" and lots of it.  Ha!  and Ha! again.  What IS "Mediterranean seafood" anyway?  Another super-chef who actually looked pretty normal in her Internet photo said this:  

   "According to tradition, there should be at least five different kinds of fish in a proper bouillabaisse. In Marseille, considered the mecca of bouillabaisse, they use at least seven, not counting the shellfish. The fish should be extremely fresh – caught and cooked the same day."

    Ha! once more.  Besides fish, I would apparently need "Cockles and mussels" alive, alive-O!"  And I was to serve it with "rustic bread" and "rouille," whatever that is. Oh, and homemade croutons should go on top. Hmm . . . .  Getting discouraged here!

    I decided to run it past David.  I said, "Dear, your birthday is this weekend.  (It actually was yesterday.)  Would you like me to make you some bouillabaisse for a special, celebratory meal?"  Once he'd picked himself up off the floor after his laughing fit, he said, ever-so-diplomatically, "There's a coupon for fish-and-chips at the family restaurant outside town. I get 10% off during my birthday month.  Should we just go there for my special meal and skip the bouillabaisse?"

    What a prince!  We're going there for lunch today.