My Korea: Trout
I was standing waist deep in subzero degree water, as evidenced by the chunks of ice floating precariously close to my nether regions, in the middle of January, being jostled by thirty Korean men all attempting to catch fish with their bare hands and intermittently plunging my own arms into the freezing water in an attempt to do the same. It was the Hwacheon Ice Fishing Festival and my intimate introduction to the otherwise inconspicuous trout. While I wish I could say that in this extreme environment I experienced mental clarity or some deep philosophical revelation, I would be lying if I told you that my thoughts strayed very far from various descriptive expletives and the gnawing feeling that some parts of my body would not be functioning after the ten minutes I had volunteered for this. Multiple times I ejected myself from the pool, despite the calls from spectators to get back in the water, because I needed to see my feet to guarantee they were still there.
Fast-forward a month to the weekend after Valentine’s Day. I had coordinated with some friends to get my girlfriend out of the house while I went to town in the kitchen. A starter of grapes, olives and hummus and a dessert of chocolate-apple lava cupcakes with a strawberry sauce bracketed the main course of lemon trout, selected as a symbolic vengeance, that I had sprinted down to the market to get an hour before. The first fishmonger waved me on to the next one who pointed me down the street and around the corner. When I finally found trout, I watched as it was expertly taken apart into beautifully precise sashimi. Then I realized that I wanted the whole fish and mimed frantically until the confused fisherman handed me two headless, gutless fish – so fresh they were still twitching. Being the culinary savant that I am, I served the fish undercooked and chewy and had to sheepishly sneak it back into the oven.
It was not until last month that I finally learned what trout is supposed to taste like. After four hours of lying in the sun on a criminally unpopulated beach on Jeung Island, my aforementioned lady-love and I wandered into a nearby restaurant advertising sushi and sashimi. It was just after 2 p.m. and the restaurant was empty except for a family of four who were on their way out soon after we sat down. We were escorted to our table by the waiter, and we were immediately served a small plate of raw salmon, white fish and squid as well as a rice soup and a yogurt-topped salad. The meal had not been cheap, and after a few minutes I leaned across the table and half-whispered, “I hope this is not all we paid for.”
No sooner had the words slipped my lips than an enormous platter of raw fish was brought to our table followed by tempura, then by more salad, more fish and finally by my good friend the trout. Smoked to sweet, salty, flakey perfection, he was a welcome surprise at the end of an incredible meal.
It took me three times to get trout quite right. The first time he was still alive and trying to get away from me. The second time he was raw but heading in the right direction, and by the third time, with no effort or expectation, he had made himself just right. I am sure I will spend the rest of my life looking for that same fish again. I might do well to stop looking now and just wait for him to find me.