9am on a rainy Tuesday, with rain boots at the ready, I am prepared to take on the gloomy weather…and a challenge of a different nature. “You are way to excited to be here,” was the first greeting from the fish counter staff. While most of the guys wouldn’t be on duty until 10, the early shift had been busy setting up since 7am. My requests to work with the fish department for a day to two had been met with bemusement. After many assurances that I would definitely not find the work to my taste, I was doubly confident that I would prove myself capable of shifting gears from the cash register to the fish counter.
With extra thick socks and jeans tucked into rubber boots, I was initiated into the ranks with a black apron and white latex gloves. First task, remove the head and guts of a bucketful of smelt. These locally caught “fries with eyes” were being prepped and sent to the deli for cooking. Working along the back wall faced with stainless steel work surfaces, my first of several teachers of the day filled me in on inner workings of the fish department. Over a growing pile of decapitated smelts, I learned that the market relies on 13 suppliers for the wide variety of seafood it offers. Upon arrival, fish are checked for imperfections before being cut or packed on ice. Some of the signs of good quality fish include clear eyes, shiny skin, and firmness when touched. Whole fish like salmon and tuna are systematically taken apart—the best pieces going out as fillets or sashimi blocks. Whatever meat is left is close to the bones and often striated with sinew, yielding small chunks to be used in poke.
After the heads had been pinched off of the smelt and their bellies removed, I was introduced to scraping. Expecting to use a dull knife to remove the thin stringy layers of tuna from the skin, I was surprised when I was presented with a well-used, slightly dented metal spoon. With admirable patience, the guys put up with my slow progress removing chunks of tuna flesh, checking for stray scales. With my trusty spoon in hand, I was led over to another workstation to pack salmon and flying fish eggs into small containers. The red, green black and bright orange salmon roe had the consistency of cooked couscous grains.
Eventually I upgraded from a spoon to a metal tool similar to a coil of saw blades, very effective for sending the plastic-like scales of a kampachi flying. Once that task was done, it was back to the spoon in order to pick away the meat from the bones of what had recently been a large whole salmon. Along the counters, the fish boys were at work cracking crab, shucking oysters, cutting tuna blocks and filleting black cod. In between picking over a monkfish liver or restocking prawns, the fish department staff fills orders for customers. All experienced fish cutters, the guys also know nuances like which customers expect exact weights, which like ice to keep their purchases cool, and which like to take the crab butter home with them.
...to be continued.
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