I am by far a notoriously strict non-vegetarian who definitely lacks the will power and strength of mind to stay away from meat or seafood, the latter being my food of choice. I have the greatest of admiration for my friends who have converted to vegetarianism, but then again they are few and far between, few enough to be counted on the fingers of my hands. I have heard people tout vegetarianism with conviction and gusto, read countless printed material that preaches its merits and virtues, but just when I'm about to have a change of heart and turn vegetarian myself, the smell of fried fish or the sight of crab, shrimp, lobster, and other assorted seafood makes me dig in my heels. Can't say the same for meat though ... not a big meat lover, but I'm positive I definitely can't renounce seafood, EVER!
I'm the kind who goes to the aquarium, sees all these beautiful fish swimming in their tanks, and is assailed by an urge to rush home and cook some spicy fish curry for dinner. As if the right place for fish, in my mind, is the cooking pot and not the aquarium! Strange how the mind works! I guess I might have picked up this fondness for seafood from my paternal grandmother whom I used to visit during my summer vacation as a child. I would hold her hand and traipse along with her to the market on Sundays, and one of my favorite stops was always the fish stalls in the market where my grandmother would pick and choose the best ones to be cooked for lunch that day. I would watch the maid gut and clean the fish and prepare it for cooking, but it was always my grandmother who actually made the fish curry. She was the chef nonpareil, the connoisseur who took the making of fish curry to the level of an art form. She would have a special earthen pot singularly dedicated for cooking the fish curry, her belief being that the clay or mud pot brought out the unique flavor of the fish unlike a metal one. It did, I most certainly would say.
My father inherited this love for seafood from his mother, and I seem to have got the trait from him, I guess. I remember one of his postings in Kerala as an officer in the Southern Railways, and his living quarters was right next to the ocean. We would walk on the beach and buy freshly caught fish directly from the fishermen as they hauled their catch ashore, a memory etched in my mind to this day. I was a little child then, but I vividly remember eating fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and never growing tired of eating it for every meal. The same went for crab, prawns, and lobster. Cracking the crab shell was an art honed to perfection, and I remember my old grandmother getting at the succulent crab meat with a nicely rounded pebble/rock when she had lost her teeth and couldn't bite into the crab any longer.
Came the husband and the kid, and I find their tastes are quite different from mine. The husband and I eat a lot of vegetables, and of course, a lot of seafood as well, but the husband eats fish only when it's hot and freshly cooked. I, however, am of the opinion that fish curry tastes better when it ages a day or two( in the fridge, of course!). The kid, on the other hand, is a meat enthusiast. It's chicken every day for him, or the meal is not complete. Suits me very well, I should say. My love for seafood continues unabated and living virtually close to the Pacific Ocean has only helped me revel in it more! As for my vegetarian friends, my admiration for them keeps growing as well, in tandem with my love for the ocean inhabitants!
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