Memories in my head are racked up in bundles. There’s a common thread stringing them together across time and space.
Today, I was on a trip to T&T Supermarket, which is where I go for a little emotional lift, the kind very much needed on a grey winter day. I like trying to assemble recipes where identifying the ingredients is half the fun. I found a frozen roasted eel filet in a freezer, and it tugged a memory thread that caused all of this to fall out of long-term storage.
Kahnawake catfish in the mist
When I was a kid, my dad took me fishing for catfish in the dark of night in Kahnawà:ke. We put on hip waders at the car, and an old woman led us through the bush, down the banks, to trudge through the mud to our own spot. About forty locals had gathered in the night to celebrate together. The mud and water around my legs made them feel warm, while my upper body was shrouded in a fog that hung in the night air. We chatted quietly, tossing out fishing lines adorned with small balls of Wonder Bread or kernels corn as bait. The line whistled through the air on the cast, then *plopped* into the muddy water to await being found by a catfish. Once hooked, you slid the catfish along the surface, and when you had three or four, walked back to the area where smokers had been set up on the shore. You added your fish to the bottom racks, and took a cooked catfish off an upper rack if you were hungry. They ran all night, filling the fog with salty, smokey aromas that made my head swim. Ideally, you added more fish than you ate, and the extras would feed the rest of the community.
The whole night felt like a dream. Hot-cold, dry-damp, we moved between worlds. Lanterns were hung on trees to light our way. It’s one of the coolest things dad ever did with me. For one night, I belonged to this community fully.
If you are wondering how this is a story about eels, I cannot tell you. They were catfish, but I guess my brain has linked catfish and eels. Maybe because they both can be smoked?
Frasier: The Innkeeper
The year is 1995. There’s an episode of Frasier centered on Frasier and Niles’ disastrous attempt to buy and run an upscale French restaurant. The situation quickly escalates when the entire kitchen staff quits, and the brothers are forced to manage the dinner service themselves. Frasier instructs Niles, “Now quick, Niles, kill five eels!” because every restaurant critic has ordered the chef’s specialty, anguille. A frantic Niles attempts to kill the live eels by hacking at the aquarium tank with a cleaver. An exasperated Daphne then grabs an eel with her bare hands and slams its head on the counter, handing it to a shocked Niles.
I’m not doing it justice, hence the video clip below.
Without fail, whenever the lights flicker or the power goes out entirely, no matter where I am in the world, I intone solemnly, “The eels are ready” and laugh. Why is this one of my treasured memories? No idea.
Yes, but I’m Chinese.
The next eel memory comes sometime in the year 2000. I have left my startup IT company, and am now working for MCAP in downtown Toronto. I’m very much out of my depth in a city, and my friend Greg Lam decides that taking me out for lunch will help me find something to love about the big city. He takes me to the tiniest restaurant, basically an alley with 8 tables. It’s small, dark, and the signs outside have no English, nor do the menus. I’m fumbling my way through it, trying to figure out a lunch order. Thinking that Greg has been there before, and must have some experience with it, I ask him what he recommends. He explains that he just points at a different item each time and enjoys whatever they bring out.
I like this adventurous spirit very much, and want to try it myself, but I can’t resist asking him, “But can’t you just read the kanji?” (referring to the characters in the menu). He looks at me and laughs, saying, “Yes, but I’m Chinese.”
This is the day that I learn that while Chinese and Japanese ideograms are the same kanji characters, which Japan adopted from China around the 5th century AD, some characters have the same meaning and appearance, some have different meanings or variations in Japanese due to separate evolution. And we’re in a Japanese, not Chinese, restaurant.
This is also the day that I learn that I very much like unagi don (BBQ smoked eel on rice). Japanese freshwater eels are brushed with kabayaki sauce (a rich, sweet, and savory sauce made from soy sauce, mirin, and sake) and grilled before serving over a bowl of short-grain Japanese rice. It’s on my extensive list of comfort foods.
Summary
I’m going to think of fellowship in the dark, laugh about the idea of tossing a toaster into the eel tank to kill them, and make myself a bowl of unagi don in my own kitchen. This is what happens when I tug a memory thread and things start tumbling out of my brain.