Wednesday, June 26, 2019

A Change of Pace


I’m a meat eater, beef and pork, with occasional chicken. Not much on fish but am examining dietary choices with a goal of weight loss and health improvement.

Tonight I will be cooking cod, which I haven’t eaten in ages.

 We, no matter our age, are influenced by our childhood diet.  My mother dearly loved salted cod which she bought in wooden boxes. Surprisingly, to me, you can still buy it that way. I was not a fan. Being a sheep rancher’s daughter, she was big on boiled mutton. I’ll eat it to be polite but mutton and lamb don’t make it over my threshold.

My mother loathed fowl and wouldn’t eat any, period! On occasions she would prepare it for the rest of the family.

For a large portion of my youth, we were poachers and mainly ate venison, elk, trout, and the occasional rabbit. My father and I refused to eat liver. In spite, my sister eats liver and onions.

Thanks to the internet, recipes are easy to find. The one I will try is a lemon/parsley seasoned baked cod.

A final note. If the package doesn’t say wild caught, I won’t buy it. I’m deeply suspicious of farmed fish.

7 comments:

Brig said...

I grew up hating brains & eggs, & liver which my mom liked to cook. My dad for all he hunted a lot did not like game birds, and wasn't a big fish eater as well. He always gave away the birds and fish to those who were too old to go hunting or fishing.
He made an awesome deer jerky.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Brig
Never a fan of brains no matter how they were prepared. We were never bird hunters. Once I potted a couple of Mallards with a .22 in some wetlands on our place. Made a horse wade out so I could pick them up. Ended up giving them to a neighbor. The horse wasn't thrilled.

Old NFO said...

Grew up eating birds, squirrels, and rabbits. Both my parents lived through the depression, and could and did eat almost anything. Ate lots of fish, catfish being the primary, but bass, crappie, and bream in season. Being in the Navy, I got used to fresh fish. I don't eat fish now, since I live more than 500 miles from the coast.

LL said...

I eat striated muscle tissue (which would include steaks, roasts, etc.). I don't eat guts, which is smooth muscle tissue such as hearts, livers, and entrails. Don't offer it to me. I will reject it. To me, seafood must be fresh. The exception to that could be frozen shrimp, which I like, even though they're not as good as fresh shrimp.

We all are creatures of our upbringing when it comes to dietary preferences - or so it seems to me.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Old NFO
Lived in the Seattle area for 18 years. When my father came to visit, it was all seafood, all the time. Strange town, Elliot Bay has tons of squid and hardly anyplace around has calamari. Maybe my favorite seafood.

LL
The only organ meat I eat is heart, and I don't seek it out. The cod tonight was frozen. It turned out ok for my palate which is pedestrian at best. Gourmet is wasted on me. Box wine and rye whisky is fine by me. I do like shrimp.

Want weird? When I was in the Army I looked forward to C Ration days.

Fredd said...

I've never been a picky eater. Being of Norwegian descent, ate a lot of seafood (no tentacles, pleasse). Ludafisk, pickled herring, all good stuff. But so is salmon, cod, sole, halibut and game fish such as trout and bass. If you catch a big enough mess of bluegill, those are good, too, except filleting 100 bluegill tests my patience.

I didn't mind C-Rations, either, during my extended stint as an enlisted army guy. MRE's were gourmet to me, great stuff. And my trips to Houston and eating the 'food' on Aunt Sally's table, that has girded my loins for everything that passes as nutrition on this earth.

No mutton, though. Or squirrel, dog, horse or cat. I guess I AM picky.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Fredd
Ex wife was first generation Norsky. Loathed Ludafisk. We did eat a lot of fiskaballs. Not bad.