ie

ONE LOVELY summer long ago I sailed south from Rupert in Bill Tocher’s fishpacker, bound for Kemano. Why Kemano [ don’t remember, and it isn’t important

now,

‘fwo important things about that little voyage remain. One was ‘that the wine-dark sea was alive with phosphorescence and by night the salmon and porpoises made flaming tracks in the water beside our. bow.

The other memorable thing was that Bill Tocher taught me to ap- preciate quaiity fish, an ability not ‘universal among the British Col- ‘umbians, many of whom can’t tell ‘cork from tuna. |

“On the first day out Bill chop- ped up a small spring salmon for ‘bait and with it we caught red snappers at depths so awesome

.that when they camie to the sur- face their eyes and tongues were bulging because of the pressure

hange. .

Bill’s living depended on the act that people had been taught . ‘0 pay for salmon and sneer at ~~ ‘ock fishes, but, as he pointed

out, if they trusted their own taste uds instead of listening to what other peopie told them, they ; Might recognize that red snapper ‘as at least as good as salmon and, to some like tim, better.

That was almost 40 years ago. It has taken most of that time for red snapper prices to catch up to and occasionally pass salmon prices atthe supermarkets. That’ S how we are.

Our first suspicions are of ‘things foreign — foreign meaning anything or anybody from the

ast wastelands beyond the

“Our second suspicion, almost as trong, is for things unfamiliar, even though they may be native to

‘If we weren’t introduced to red napper before age six, to hell. ith it. The same went for mussels and a bale of other fine ‘oods of the ocean.

PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

We're the same way now about the mackerel which have come nozth to Vancouver Island, riding that erratic warm Pacific current we call El Nino; which is also responsible for flooding the Mississippi and giving us a lousy summer,

Once again, we are hostile. Like the eight-year-old who comes to dinner and won’t eat baked potatoes because in his house they eat mashed potatoes and rejects brown bread because kis Mum has white bread. You don’t know whether to leave the little wretch hungry or throttle him.

No matter what the popular negativism, my vote is for mackerel ahead of either salmon or snapper.

T hold so strongly to that view that some unpleasantness devel- oped between me and a waiter in an Edinburgh fish restaurant - because he insisted I should have Scottish salmon instead.

I didn’t want pale pastel sal-

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‘PAUL MARTIN TO |

VISIT SOJONKY CAMPAIGN

HEADQUARTERS

Alam pleased to invite you to meet Paul Martin M.P., Official : Opposition Critic for Environment and Associate Finance Critic on Tuesday, July 20 at my campaign headquarters - 207 1331 Marine Drive. We look forward to seeing you between 5:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.in.”

Audrey Sojonky Liberal Candidate

_ Federal Riding of Capilano-Howe Sound : |

mon. | wanted the richest, red blooded fish of the sea, mackerel, the flesh slightly off-white and laced with a dark strip of fat down each fillet.

I didn’t get them in Edinburgh and if the fishermen of B.C. have anything to say in the matter, I won't get them here. They are strange. Away with them.

The mackerel is one of a family of piratical oceanic fish. They never stop moving.

Like their relatives, the tuna, they have no swim bladder and carinot hover in the water. They are torpedo shaped, very fast and fun to catch on a rod.

There is some excuse for their unpopularity. Just as a cob of corn begins to go stale the instant it is pulled from a stalk, so also the mackerel deteriorates from the instant it is caught.

The fat of its flesh changes more rapidly than that of most fish.

Even fast-freezing isneta complete solution; as sports fish- ermen with home freezers have learned, all fish fat can develop an unpleasant taste while still frozen.

4&4 They are torpedo shaped, very

fast and fun to catch on a rod.39

The fish is not spoiled but it is what is called ‘‘off.’’ One off mackerel is enough to put some people off for a lifetime.

But is this an insuperable x prob- lem?

Our fishing indastry found ways in past years to process shark flesh for food. That wasn’t easy.

Sharks extrude their urine through the flesh and skin and unless handled properly at the in- stant of being caught present a toilet training problem, something sharkmeat eaters don’t think about much.

And although my taste is for mackerel so fresh you still feel pi-

from B43, 990

ty for them, they have been popu- lar for generations on the Atlantic Coast as salted fish. .

Just don’t call them junk fish, that’s all, because a lot of us know better.

We have memories that are sweeter, brighter, stronger and finer.

Mackerel nourished bones and - blood. :

Mackere! turned us into greater lovers, fonder fathers and made us smarter than the ordinary run of people, which is why we like - mackerel.

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