snoek

Let me say it here: I visited South Africa, and I loved snoek. In fact, snarfing fried snoek'n'chips in a Hout Bay eatery was one of the highlights of my trip. Snoek is a cross between catfish and halibut, but somehow better than both. If you skip the oiliest parts, it's juicy and flavorful. Fresh out of the sea, batter-dipped and fried, served with hot sauce (for the daring) or ketchup (for the bland), it's tough to top.

All of this has come roaring back to my memory thanks to this delightful article by Calvin Trillin of The New Yorker.

A snoek (technically, Thyrsites atun) is not gruesome-looking but it does look ferocious. Apparently, it actually is ferocious. A book that Jeffrey has owned since boyhood, “The Sea Fishes of Southern Africa,” by J. L. B. Smith, says, “Justly feared by all who deal with them, as they are vicious brutes able to inflict terrible wounds with the great fangs, the bite said to prevent coagulation of the blood.” Another restaurant proprietor we spoke to about the absence of snoek on the menu told us that white people—the bulk of a pricey restaurant’s clientele, even in the new South Africa—might be happy to have snoek at a braai in the back yard but tend to avoid it in a restaurant because they don’t want to deal with all of those bones in public. I myself wouldn’t mind picking out bones on the stage of a sold-out concert hall, assuming that the taste of the fish in front of me made that worth my while, but I have to admit that snoek bones are both plentiful and formidable. They are often several inches long and remarkably straight. If mice went in for the decathlon, they’d use snoek bones as javelins.

Oh, just read the whole thing.