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| How does your food go from this... |
It’s not what you think. We’re not kicking back with a line
in the water, or nursing a hot toddy over a hole in the ice. And there’s no
catch and release policy. It is
‘Catch and Kill’ day at Liaison, and there is
not much nostalgia involved.
It is a city kids’ fishing trip, as our students trek over
to the nearby Asian market, a cooler full of water in tow. The merchants might
think we are strange (they have never said), but are always happy to scoop a
dozen or so tilapia from their live tanks and deposit them unceremoniously into
the cooler. They handle live fish every day, so this non-event is a contrast to
what lies in store back in the classroom.
One by one, the students, with varying degrees of
trepidation, dip into the cooler to catch a fish with their bare hands, while
trying to avoid the spiny back and dorsal fins. For most, it is the first time
they have ever handled a whole fish, dead or alive. Some are repulsed at the
prospect of knocking it on the head to kill it: others find filleting to be the
greatest challenge.
The chef-instructors focus on the latter, but there’s a
secondary message that they want to relay. Every piece of meat, fish or poultry
that budding cooks and chefs will serve to their customers was at one time, a
living, breathing being. We must respect and honour that life, and the process
involved in bringing it to the table.
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| ......to this? |
