Lunchtime Stories: So Much Sole

The Saturday before Super Bowl Sunday I decided to buy some fish. I even announced it on twitter. “I’m changing the Super Bowl diet to fish and kale.” There were no retweets.

I’d been eyeing the meat and fish section at my local organic grocer ever since my first visit, but never ventured to that side of the store. The store caters to the vegan and vegetarian crowd, I’m neither, but out of respect, and in search of acceptance, I act like one while I’m there. The fish and meat section is separated from the rest of the store by a busy little café area that serves up vegetarian dishes; you have to cross these tables to get to the meat. It’s a terrible walk; I imagine each individual judgment, “Omnivore!” “Meat-eater!” “Seal Clubber!” “Murderer.”

The meat is radiant. The beef is bright red, the lamb is burgundy, the chicken is yellow, (Chicken is yellow, I know that because I once ate organic chicken in Cuba.) the cuts are small. Organic meat is expensive, so they keep the weights down to keep the prices manageable. Salmon fillets are $10 each, tuna even more.  Then I see the Sole. Two fillets are less than six dollars. The description on the label says, “Fresh Wild-Caught Sole.” I imagine a solitary man on a small boat in a large lake surrounded by mountains: he caught my fish. I buy it.

Super Bowl Sunday comes. I do not cook my sole. My brother-in-law scoffs at the idea, “Dude, it’s the Super Bowl, we have to eat pizza.” We eat a lot of pizza. I lied to my twitterites.

Two more days pass and I know my sole is going bad in the fridge: I have to cook it tonight.

According to The Joy of Cooking, sole is flounder. Flounder are a flat fish. Both of their eyes are on the same side of their heads. They are bottom feeders. They’re from the ocean. My fisherman is replaced by fishermen. They have boots and nets and the sole flops about on a large deck. Their scales are a muddy beige; they look like giant skipping rocks.

My sole is white. I tear the cellophane and smell the sole. Not good, but not all the way bad either. Edible. There aren’t any sole specific recipes in The Joy of Cooking so I decide to marinate mine in olive oil, pepper, salt and garlic.

While the sole marinates on the kitchen counter I play video games against my brother-in-law in the living room. Then I start smelling the sole. “Do you smell that? It stinks like fish,” I tell him. “Unh? I don’t really smell it,” he says. This gives me confidence.

The sole sits on the counter for an hour before it hits the hot grill. Then the smell asserts itself, carried by the steam and sizzle. I remember what I learned in organic chemistry: those are the amines. This is all I remember about organic chemistry, but every time I smell that “fishy” smell, I say “amines” to myself.

When my wife gets home I serve her the sole, with kale. She wants to watch American Idol, but we’re still playing video games, so she goes downstairs to watch TV.

Twenty minutes later she comes back upstairs. “How was the fish?” I ask. “It was good,” she tells me,  “But as soon as I sat next to my dad he said, ‘why are you eating rotten fish?’”