Live Small PT 3: Sharks are falling into the jaws of man

I have almost finished reading Carl Safina’s book, 'song for the blue ocean’, 440 pages of dense material and the world’s smallest font.

(Please see Read This, side margin. I highly recommend the book, and was happy to hear recently my youngest son has started into it).

Throughout, a ‘live small’ philosophy is encouraged, based on Safina’s first-hand observations of some of mankind’s insatiable appetites.

An earlier post, Live Small Pt 2, mentioned events on the East Coast of Canada. Now we travel to another East Coast, simultaneously so different and so much the same.

“Hong Kong is a modern metropolis of six million bust souls, a comfortable, clean, safe, hustling city, with dense morning mists, workers on bamboo lattices building skyscrapers, and businesses and products with names like Very Good Trading Company and Double Happiness Cigarettes.” (pg. 404, song for the blue ocean)

And everywhere, shops.

“Ah! The place we have been looking for. Baskets and tubs of live frogs, turtles, salamanders, and aquarium plants clutter the sidewalks. Shop after shop (many selling cyanide-caught fish that die immediately after eating their first large meal because their innards have been severely damaged by the poison) of live aquarium fishes line the street.”

The following sign caught Safina’s eye:

“We import all kinds raw shark fins, make all kinds shark fin products, selling shark fins, shark fin fiber.”


[“Shark fin soup - a high price in many ways”: PHOTO LINK]

As you’ll soon see, the Chinese use shark fins in much the same way my mother used oatmeal. The same way, but very different again too.

“In the backs of many shops here, workers are drying and skinning the fins, then soaking them to get the fibers used in making soup. (A bowl of shark fin soup can cost $90.)”

“I pick up a package of shark fin fibers packed in cellophane, and in the directions on the back the secret of making shark fin soup is revealed to me for the first time:

Cook two hours with ham or chicken, in chicken broth.

“I stare at this for a few moments and read it twice. I can’t get over this! We are demolishing sharks worldwide to make ham-flavored chicken soup? I had heard that the fins add texture but no flavor. Apparently, this is true.

(My mother tossed a handful of oatmeal into her meatloaf - not for texture - in order to make it go farther.)

“In my own wasteful throwaway society, we do not appreciate the real value of so many things. Here, so many things are wasted because they are valued in ways that are not real.

“In every restaurant we’ve been to in Hong Kong, various soups featuring shark fins are an entire section in the menu. Just as buffalo tongues, passenger pigeons, and cranes once graced the menus of fancy restaurants in America.” (pg. 403)

Gone are the days of the five-foot-long cod fish on Canada’s East Coast.

Hopefully, soon, gone will be the days of slashing shark fins off the back of a shark (only to dispose of the rest, in many cases, in the ocean) to add texture to chicken soup.

Soon?

More to follow.

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Please click here to read Live Small PT 2: Mistakes charge compound interest.

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Recommended Reading: The birth of a good question

I’ve never seen a live salmon. I’ve never held a live salmon.

While walking with friend Don to our city’s fine Remembrance Day service last Thursday my question to him was inspired by a sentence or two from Carl Safina’s book, ‘song for the blue ocean.’

After seeing a salmon clubbed Safina writes:

“The gleaming fish goes still in a spreading pool of blood. This animal is bullet-shaped, sleek, strong-looking. Its back is purplish black. The sides, bright silver.”

“In the transition zone between the purple-black and silver, each scale is lavender or purple, in a different luminously iridescent shade, and framed in black. These scales together make a miniature gallery of abstract paintings, like an exhibit of similar lacquered works by the same artist, gathered and brilliantly displayed side by side so that the slight variations among them set up a subtle shimmer that draws the eye.”


["Wooden fish by John Doherty, Rosseau, Ontario": photo GH]

“With a magnifying glass, one could enter this gallery and stroll at leisure.”

I thought his words were intriguing. Fish scales as wondrous art. A walk through a gallery with magnifying glass in hand.

My margin notes read:

“We should see FISH as ART.”

But first, I’d have to catch or see or hold a salmon.

Thus my question to espresso.

Have you seen a live salmon? Have you held one?

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Within 2 or 3 years I should find myself standing on Vancouver Island in a spot my father saw “bank to bank salmon.”

Maybe then will be my chance to see even one.

See right side margin - Read This: song for the blue ocean

Visit more Recommended Reading here.

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Gord’s Grilled Goby: I’m onto something in a non-invasive way

I recently read that the bottom-feeding, aggressive goby has invaded many of SW Ontario’s lakes, rivers and streams - and had two immediate and enlightening reactions.

Nature is under attack from an invasive critter - and this time, it’s not man.


["Looks harmless enough, but it ain't": photo link]

But maybe man can help nature fight back.

"The goby is a bottom-dwelling fish that has great potential for causing impacts on Great Lakes fisheries. The round goby takes over prime spawning sites traditionally used by native species, competing with native fish for habitat and changing the balance of the ecosystem." [More information]

Now that sockeye salmon stocks are declining in Canada (see post below) perhaps we can turn our attention to the goby, in the same way Australians did concerning rabbits when that furry creature (to my bearded Aussie friend - I’m referring to the rabbits here) started to take over the continent down under.

Since most North Americans like to eat just about anything in sight perhaps we could add Goby on a Stick to our weekly menu.

Charcoal flavoured Goby, BBQ’d Goby w Lemon Sauce, Grilled Goby w Guinness - all winners.

My suggestion: Use our insatiable appetite to reduce the numbers of this invasive species.

[Originally the round goby and the tubenose goby were introduced into the St. Claire River in 1990, probably via contaminated ballast water of transoceanic ships. Round goby are thriving in the Great Lakes Basin because they are aggressive, voracious feeders which can forage in total darkness.]

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I’m onto something, aren’t I?

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Nature’s wealth is going through a recession too

Natural sockeye salmon numbers are down so low in the Fraser River that one day soon the majority of Canadians may be reduced to eating a factory farm replacement.


["The number returning from the sea - down substantially": photo link]

The lower quality replacement will sit on our plates alongside our factory farm pork, beef, chicken and lamb. (I’d include wieners but I think they’re still made from real chicken lips).

My suggestion: Reduce your intake of fish and meat, reduce our reliance on factory food, and give nature and natural herds a chance to rebound.

Ten to twenty years ought to do it and our average weight per person might return to near normal levels.

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Want to lose five pounds before Christmas?

Reduce meat in your meals by 50 per cent and skip the second helpings at Thanksgiving.

Am I onto something?

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Zoom w a View: Easy fishin’ in Fenelon Falls

Last Sunday, coffee and camera in hand, I caught my oldest son David trying to catch a fish.


He said he almost had one. Where have I heard that before?

A small cedar four-plex looks at home on Dave’s cedar railing.


More trips to Fenelon are planned, to help when the twins arrive in September.


My son won’t be fishing then. Enjoy it while you can, son.

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I’m not a fisherman. Are you?

I prefer my workshop. Another four-plex is needed.

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