Random Thoughts, Part 14
Posted: Wednesday, September 21, 2011
by Dianne Lehmann
Artisan Jewelry from SyZyGy
Something's a Little Bit Fishy
I don't get what the attraction is with keeping fish. You can't pet them (well I have petted Koi, but we're not about to put a pond in our backyard … though my sister did in hers … go figure). You can't hug them either. Youcan talk to them, but they will totally ignore you. At least a cat will pretend to listen.
I will have to say that those first fish we got were quite cute. Bernd fell in love with them at first sight. Up until he first saw them, we had never kept an aquarium. They were these tiny puffer fish with funny faces and cute little beaky mouths and he just had to have them. Only problem was that they had to be kept in brackish (slightly salty but not as salty as the ocean) water. So here wewere, storing water in gallon jugs out in the sun in order to burn off the chlorine, testing the aquarium water for pH, buying the proper kind of salt for the water and testing the salinity, cleaning the dang thing and feeding the two little guys live worms every day.
Eventually, Bernd thought that they needed a friend and we researched what other fish might tolerate a brackish environment. We ended up with a Bumble Bee Gobi. He was also very cute. What was not so cute was the plecostomus that we eventually purchased to fix the algae problem. They look a lot like catfish. I've never found catfish to be attractive … or tasty for that matter. The appearance of chickens doesn't cause me to swoon either, but I might salivate.
The puffers didn't live all that long (many fish do not) and Bernd became tired of the salty tank. Because the Gobi would also tolerate fresh water, he bought some neon something or others. Prior to that, the plecostomus had outgrown the tank and we had found him/her a new home. And since the tank was now fresh water, Bernd thought some real plants would be nice. But what no one tells you is that just about all the plants you buy in the pet stores are infested with snail eggs. Even if there is just one egg, you will soon have a plethora of snails. They can reproduce quite nicely all on their own; no separate sexes here.
To fix the problem of the snails and also the algae, he then bought a hoard of little African frogs. They were air breathing, but could hold their breath for a very long time. They would lie on the bottom of the tank and do nothing all day. They did not eat the snail eggs. They did not eat the algae. But they liked the fish food just fine. We were reduced to having to daily stick our, well washed and then well rinsed with distilled water, hands into the tank to squish the eggs against the sides of the aquarium. Not fun.
Eventually, to my great relief, Bernd grew tired of how much work it had all become. And because so many of the fish had died anyway, he dismantled it all and put the thought of keeping fishes out of his mind.
So, what brought this all on? Bernd has a strep throat right now and is taking antibiotics for it which reminded me of the other thing we had to do with aquarium. Fish get sick on top of everything else and you have to put antibiotics into the water to cure them. Did you know that you can buy powdered tetracycline, erythromycin and other antibiotics at the pet store? Oh! That was the name of those fish … tetras … hmmm.
Fish, Mice and Cats
Seems like just about all cats love to eat fish of one sort or another. Our current cat, Winnie, likes tuna best. But most kinds of fish are preferable to say chicken or turkey. She won't even look at beef.
It's been said that the perfect food for cats is one average sized mouse each day. They should eat the entire mouse. The brains and other organs have the taurine that is essential to feline health. The mouse's stomach usually contains all the carbohydrate (from what it ate) that a cat needs. The bones have calcium (lord only knows what the cat's digestive system does with mouse teeth) and even the hair provides proteins. So why aren't we feeding our cats whole, ground-up canned mice?
I can understand why cats would enjoy eating mice, but why do they like fish so much? Especially when the fats in fish are not really the sorts of fats that are good for cats. Cats actually do best with the fats that are worst for people. I just don't see cats in the wild eating fish. They'd have to get wet to catch them. Our Winnie shakes her paw furiously if it gets the tiniest bit of water on it. So how has it developed that house cats love fish so much? And do you know how big a tuna fish is? Winnie is a big girl, but the smallest tuna will outweigh her by at least 16 times. I just don't get it.
Tilapia Schmilapia
Bernd thinks that tilapia is just about the most perfect fish to eat. I buy it frozen at our local supermarket (It's called Fry's and they finished a remodel recently that really does allow them to call themselves a supermarket … goodness, you can buy lawn furniture there!). They come individually vacuum packed, thaw quickly, cook quickly and don't taste like much but what you season them with.
The only problem I have with this tilapia is that it is farmed. This means that most likely, they’ve added antibiotics to the water in which the fish live because when you get that many fish living in as small a space as they do, that they will get sick is pretty much a given. Antibiotics are added before the fact rather than after.
Bernd has a method of preparation that he prefers above all else. It includes, black pepper, granulated onion and lots and lots of paprika. The fish is sautéed in a pan over medium heat using grape seed oil. The tilapia is sautéed until the paprika blackens slightly. Tilapia fixed this way along with whipped potatoes and homemade creamed spinach is his favorite thing to take to work for lunch. He takes the fish separate of the rest and heats the rest first. He then adds the fish and finishes the heating. This keeps it from smelling too fishy and annoying the rest of his co-workers … more or less.
The only problem is that he swears it tastes best when I make it. I've shown him how I do it. He's done it exactly that way. And he still swears that it's not as good as mine. I don't get it. As you may have figured out, there are a lot of things I don't get. But I dutifully cook his fish for him because I love him. It has absolutely nothing to do with flattery. Really.
Things I have Learned
As similar as Bernd and I are, we are not the same. Could get dull otherwise.
Every time I try to get Winnie to eat some other flavor of cat food, I fail.
Perseverance can be seen as a virtue, but then there is that nagging little definition of insanity to deal with.
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