Sharks
Written by Major Tom
Filed under: Personal and Family
October 1, 2007
About a couple of days ago, I felt like I didn’t want any of the food that was being prepared at home. Maybe it’s a cardinal rule that one could not eat house food almost all the time, one needs to pleasure the palate with restaurant food once in a while (funny how house food sounds so much like dog food), in order to stifle the numbing effect of gastronomic routine in the house.
So that day, I hopped into my small but compact white car and wandered into town. I was thinking of my favorite Chinese soup in Food Paradise in the middle of downtown area but parking there is such a major hassle that with merely an hour to go before the clock strikes noon, I didn’t had much time to loiter around and be indecisive.
There was this carinderia that was just near our place, in fact not more than a half kilometer in distance and it suddenly came to my mind that there’s an exotic food available there that I thought could sufficiently satisfy my momentary gusto for “outside” food that very time. It’s a food preparation that I am somehow familiar with even from childhood and although it was one food that one does not usually eat on a daily basis, I could recall how I savored it for quite a number of times before. You’d wonder by now what this interesting food is all about and I tell you know, it’s one foodstuff with shark meat curried and spiced-up in rich yellowish soup, and guess what, no vegetables in it.
It is interesting to note that I have two very stark memories from childhood involving this food preparation. When I was so little, like 5 or 6 years old, my grandfather took me marketing in downtown public market and after he bought his sweepstakes at a nearby Chinese store, he took me to an area occupied with makeshift food stalls where the foodstuffs there were presented on a table and one merely has to point to any of them, and one would have it. As my grandfather and me was about to sit down, he told me that we were going to eat shark for that downtown meal. I was suddenly amazed by his pronouncement and I was taken a little bit aback by the idea of eating sharks, since in the movies they eat people instead. But since I was such a small child, I didn’t ask any question anymore and just put morsels of shark meat into my mouth, somehow appreciating it’s spicy and very unique taste.
When I was in highschool, my father took me also to the area with the same proximity as that to where my grandfather had taken me once before and also had told me that he wanted to eat that food with shark meat in it. As we sat down, he tried to waken up some childish amazement in me saying broadly that what we were going to eat were actually sharks, known in movies as ruthless and cruel.
I don’t know why I am narrating this but that one morning when I wanted to eat outside and ended up eating shark meat bathed in yellow sauce, resulted in the onset of particular memories of old. It was a bit uncanny that both my grandfather and my father took me to the same area, to eat the same foodstuff, in instances separated by years, while the conversations involved were so similar and familiar.
I wonder now that perhaps these two very stark memories have some meaning to my present life, now that I suddenly remember them. But I couldn’t fathom the meaning so much and put some connotation to them except that perhaps, they were of a highly unusual occurrence, to ever be in the same situation in two separate instances in the past, like a déjà vu, with two of the most important persons in my life and while both have already gone away from this mortal realm.
Sharks are mean. But scientific studies say they do not actually attack humans unless provoked or has smelt blood from fresh meat in the water. Like what they say of snakes.
I have also read once how shark is one of the few living creatures that have actually been here for a very long period of time, perhaps from the beginning of life, and have largely remain unchanged in form and appearance. Like what I’ve read also about crocodiles and most especially cockroaches.
Sharks have very slender bodily features and could swim with such unmatched agility that their survival schemes are known to be so proficient and stupendous that like what they say about cockroaches, they are bound to survive even a nuclear holocaust.
As shark fins, they are so highly priced by Chinese food patrons and touted to bring good health and longetivity.
This somehow makes me wonder if humans are slowly but surely overpowering the shark population in the seas, that one day, they might just disappear. I hope not.
Last time I’ve been to my local Chinese, I can’t recall them serving shark meat… I think it’s banned here, not really sure. Anyway, I had a taste of that shark meat donkeys years ago, but sadly can’t remember what it tasted like… does it taste like chicken??
I see sharks here (in human form) everyday, he he
Comment by pining — October 1, 2007 @ 9:32 pm
Hala ka. You’re eating endangered species. Hehe. Sharkfin soup is tasty. I also love it.
Comment by Abaniko — October 1, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
exotic delicacy of the pangasinenses: dogmeat.
Comment by chelsea — October 2, 2007 @ 3:38 am
To Pining: It’s more like beef but more tender. Sharkfin trdae here is still legal but perhaps in the future, it wouldn’t be as such since global conservationists are pointing to the dwindling stocks of sharks in the seas.
Comment by Major Tom — October 2, 2007 @ 7:16 am
To Niko: Oo nga no, pero is shark a protected specie in the local shore. Murag daghan pa man ga baligya nga shark fins to local traders here.
Maybe one day it’ll be illegal to poach or fish for sharks in the local seas.
Comment by Major Tom — October 2, 2007 @ 7:19 am
To chelsea: I’ve tasted dog meat before—just once—about so many years ago and it just fine, tasty and spicy. But I think dog meat is definitely illegal here as I’ve seen a number of TV expose on them.
Comment by Major Tom — October 2, 2007 @ 7:23 am
Bitaw pud. Funny because when I went to Singapore for a meeting, we were having sharkfin soup and the host was proud to have served it to us. She even said to me to take this opportunity to indulge in the delicacy as there is no sharkfin in the Philippines since it’s expensive. Boba at ignorante pala sya. Busit. Di nya alam dami nga sharks sa atin. Hehe.
Comment by Abaniko — October 2, 2007 @ 8:35 am
I don’t really know if i’ve eaten shark meat before. Maybe I did. But I’m afraid of their retribution. The scary scenes of “Jaws” seems to repeat over my head. he he.
Comment by lazarus — October 2, 2007 @ 10:31 am
To Niko: Mao man. I think there’s so much shark population here that a friend once told me that an area of the sea just adjacent to this city is so infested with sharks that you actually see them lounging around with their sharp and protruding fins.
Comment by Major Tom — October 2, 2007 @ 11:50 am
To Lazarus: Many say that the Steven Speilberg film was really a misnomer or a misrepresentation of the real nature of sharks as studies shows that shark attacks on humans are but considerably low.
Comment by Major Tom — October 2, 2007 @ 11:52 am
Overfishing and the high demand will soon render them extinct. I too have tasted shark in my younger years. But when I took up environmental biology and ecology that it dawn on me that humans will soon devour everything in sight.
I have dived with sharks and they fascinate me. It sad that we have misunderstood them and only now do we come to understan the rue nature of these wonderful creatures.
Comment by Schumey — October 2, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
i haven’t really tasted shark meat but your description of how it was curried reminds me of how stingray is cooked. it’s delicious..
[sorry for sleeping in your blog. i was here early morning and decided to sleep again until i was almost late today and i wasn’t able to type anything! same with sngl’s blog.
]
Comment by ipanema — October 2, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
di pa ako nakatikim ng shark, yung sa mga dimsum sharks fin lang natikman ko pero i doubt kung tlagang sharksfin yun, parang pork lang na may flavor. kasi palagay ko mahal dapat kung tunay na sharksfin yun
Comment by iskoo — October 2, 2007 @ 10:29 pm
Baby sharks are good to eat. I remember a friend of mine from Iloilo cooked a dish called “linabog” ( if I remember correctly). Boy it was delicious
Comment by bw — October 3, 2007 @ 6:42 am
Sharkmeat is sold in our local wet market, though i havent tasted one.
My classmate find it weird though when i told them that I love to eat octopus.
Comment by Richmond — October 3, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Hmm…interesting! I have not tried shark meat yet. Does it tastes like other fishes?
Comment by momoftwo — October 4, 2007 @ 1:11 am
To Schumey: Swimming with sharks; now that’s awesome. I thought one could only be allowed to swim with whales. Reminds me of the ocean documentaries in National Geographic. They look so mean though, despite the expert pronouncements on them.
Comment by Major Tom — October 4, 2007 @ 4:42 am
To ipanema: There’s great semblance to how stingray’s meat are cooked coz I’ve tasted them also once before. Malay recipes are full of these I know—stingrays, sharks, octopus and the like.
Oh, never the mind about sleeping on my blog. I do that once in a while also especially right now when I am so down with flu. Gee, I AM SO DOWN WITH FLU actually that I never felt so very, very weak for many, many years. Pero, okay okay naman ngayon with constant medication.
Comment by Major Tom — October 4, 2007 @ 4:47 am
To iskoo: Ako rin, hindi pa ako nakatikim so that I am very curious about it. Walang nag-seserve yata dito sa aming bayan ng shark sin soup kaya baka sa Manila meron.
Comment by Major Tom — October 4, 2007 @ 4:52 am
To BW: Basta Ilonggo ang magluto talagang masarap. I remember that my father loves to eat at Casa Ilonga and we always went there and the meals were always satisfying by any means.
Comment by Major Tom — October 4, 2007 @ 4:55 am
To richmond: Uhmn, octopus is good, especially the dried ones. Masarap ihalo sa gulay. Years ago, I could still see some small sharks being available at the public market here pero ngayon wala na. Baka mas strikto na ngayon ang gobyerno dito—protected specie siguro yan eh..
Comment by Major Tom — October 4, 2007 @ 4:58 am
To momoftwo: Sort of…kindof…but not entirely. It taste more like meat from the sea, like what they say about tuna, whose taste is so unlike the ordinary fish on our table. It’s a cross really between beef and chicken in taste…
Comment by Major Tom — October 4, 2007 @ 5:01 am
I’ve tasted stingray meat before, but that was long long time ago. But shark? Never.. by the way, did you know that sharks, especially the fins, contain a high amount of lead? I read this in a factoid while visiting Ocean Park in HK. Something to think about before eating those endangered masters of the sea.
Comment by snglguy — October 4, 2007 @ 7:57 am
Incidentally, is the Alavar restaurant still in operation? I always eat there whenever I was in Zamboanga on business.
Comment by snglguy — October 4, 2007 @ 8:00 am
To sngl: That’s not good at all. That would stop shark fin afficionado from eating too much of it.
Yep, Alavar Seafood is still in operation and in fact had gotten better with refurbished environment and larger eating area. The crabs there are still eloquent, I think they have a mysterious way of cooking it.
Comment by Major Tom — October 4, 2007 @ 8:04 am
For a minute there, I thought you were gonna blog about being caught by the police while driving out of your house..heheh…anyway, where’s this sharkmeat dish place? Could you give directions to go there?
You do mean sharkmeat and not sharkfin, right?
Comment by Gypsy — October 4, 2007 @ 9:01 am
To Gypsy: Yep, it’s sharkmeat and not shark fin. From our place, you could go walking in 10 minutes, without taking any curves or detour , and you’re there. It is so close to us, somwhere where there is a mini flea market.
Comment by Major Tom — October 4, 2007 @ 10:03 am