Catch of the Day

Today, we paid a visit to Tuki Trout Farm where Just add Water Daughter (Evie) had the great and indefinable joy of catching her first ever fish. It only took about 5 minutes, once we figured out what we were doing.  It was made so easy for us that its almost certain that Evie now believes that every time you drop a line in the water, within a few minutes, you will pull out a trout. And the sheer excitement on her face when she actually landed that 400 gram rainbow trout in her net was an absolute delight to behold. We followed this with five more. Three kilos worth of fish. We brought four of them home to eat and left the other two at the farm where they will be smoked or used on the menu.

When we brought those fish home and prepared them for cooking, I was very surprised to see Evie enthusiasm and curiosity about  the fish as I salted them on the kitchen sink. Being a girl, she is usually grossed out by such things.  Its rarer still, for her to be interested in any way in participating in preparing a meal. But with these fish, she was very curious. Poking the glassy, lifeless eyes with her fingers, sticking her fingers in the fishes mouth to feel if it had teeth or a tounge. Poking the inside of the carcass, asking, "arent you going to clean the blood out from in there?" She helped me salt them, garnish with lemon, garlic and parsley, and wrap in foil to be put into the oven.

This was a telling development. Could be shes just gonna be a mad fisher girl or woman. Could be this was just a one off novelty, and when we get her her own fishing rod, she will lose interest when the fish no longer practically jump into the net, leaving it sitting in the shed, or corner of her room gathering dust.   On the other hand, it might be indicative of something  else. Could the connection between the animal she caught herself, a living thing, and the preparation of it to eat for her dinner, brought a whole new dimension to her experience of life?

Society today is almost completely cut off and disengaged from the origins of everything it consumes. The fish we eat are filleted and boned and wrapped in plastic so that we would not even be aware that they are fish. "Fish" for Evie's generation might mean no more than a slab of something white or pink as opposed to a slab of something red.  From the energy that lights our homes, to the phones we now rely on for connectivity to the "organic"chicken breasts we buy from the supermarket. We are completely removed from all of its production, sources,  origins, and the impact it may be having on the environment, our bodies and even our minds, and collectively, as a culture. Everything we do has been reduced to a financial transaction.  Is it any wonder then, that catching a fish to eat is the most exciting, bonding experience a 9 year old, and a 44 year old can have?

 In so many ways we are being reduced to being merely the consumers of goods and services. Children who grow up in this way, know nothing else.  We saw a young boy get stung by a wasp at the trout farm.  He was crying and in pain so his dad bought him a bottle of coke to calm him down. An innocuous transaction in one sense. A terrible conditioning for that boys experience in another. When Evie pulled her first trout out of the water, her whole being lit up with excitement. This suggests something different is possible.  Everyday, we and our children are being taught that consumption, of goods or experiences is what will  make us happy.  But this certainly hasnt been my experience. Sure, experiences add up to a life lived. But like farmed fish, people appear to be increasingly corralled into a narrower, narrower damn of production and consumption. I happen to think that this life leaves us frustrated, angry, and a little sadder.

 It may come to the point some time in the future  when the only way you can experience the primal joy of fishing is by doing what we did, and going to a purpose built farm and paying for it. And what a sad future that will be. But are we actually living in that future now without realising it?

We are trying to kick back against this kind of  world. Not because of our ideals, but because we are frustrated  with the mode of our lives.  Life on our society's terms is becoming very expensive.  And as John Seymour says, neccessity is often the best driver of self sufficiency. Peasants of every age knew local free food sources, and how to provide for themselves because they had to.  We want to grow as much of our own food as possible. We forage free food and research edible weeds and ways to provide for ourselves. I read books about natural farming practices and research wine making and other forms self provision, It sometimes feels like a futile excercise. Even this is being turned into a for profit industry that is becoming very lucrative.  I look at our bath tub full of lettuce and spinach, and wonder if we will ever even come close to self sufficiency. We may not. But each fish we catch. Each loaf of bread we bake ourselves.  Each bucket of apples, blackberries, or other fruit we forage from roadsides, and use for something. Each positive experience we give to ourselves and our children that tells a different story,  is a step towards a different way of living.  And those little experiences hopefully add up over the long term to a different kind of future. For Us. And for Evie.