Day 26

Air / Water temperature: 24°C (19°C at night) / 9°C

Wind direction / Bft: East / 1

Area: OSTREIDIA (timid trembling on the surface) – Nautical chart showing the route

Combuse: Yellowtail kingfish (3 kg) remove intestines and scale, separate head and tail. Mix to make a sauce ½ teaspoon ground turmeric, 2 tablespoons hot chilli powder and 2 tablespoons of coconut oil. Grind in a mortar to make a paste 30 g ginger, 6 cloves of garlic and 1 tablespoon salt. Heat 1 tablespoon of coconut oil in a pan, add 1 tablespoon brown mustard seeds, 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds, 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, fry until fragrant. Add ginger-garlic-paste from mortar and fry briefly. Add 1 finely chopped onion and fry until soft. Stir in the coconut oil and spice sauce and fry briefly. Deglaze with 1 L of water. Add 2 tablespoons tamarind concentrate and 6 sprigs curry leaves, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add fish head and tail, simmer for 30 minutes over low heat, turn the head and tail occasionally. Salt and pepper the body of the fish, rub it with a little bit of oil, squeeze a few slices of ginger into the abdominal cavity and set on a baking tray. Bake the fish in the oven at 220º for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 180º degrees and cook for another 20 minutes. Serve the baked fish and the boiled fish together with some rice. (More recipes from the Chief cook of «PS Narina»)

A bit of carelessness on my part resulted once more in a tiny cut in my left index finger – no thanks to an oyster I relished just before I embarked on my voyage. While I was prising the flaps of its shell open with a knife its sharp edge pierced into my flesh. I survived, the oyster didn’t. Be that as it may, this battle scar continues to trouble me a bit even after one month, particularly as the cut seems not to want to heal. Perhaps I should have gripped the oyster with a towel – or with a gauntlet or metal chain-glove which makes its wearer look like a horse-rider lining up to meet his opponent in a tourney against conch-ili-culture, whereby the mass of rattling steel would stand in unique disparity against the morsel of tender meat it’s fighting to expose. That alone can be enough reason to avoid the protection of such chains. Moreover, it just feels right to hold the oyster with the left hand, even if it means risking a cut or two in the skin. Is this about giving the creature a chance to resist, or about you trying to feel less dominant? Do we wish to feel that we are in contrast to the oyster and, as such, a sense of our superiority? Do we seek out this tiny pain because it intensifies the existential side of oyster consumption? In the context of food consumption, in no other case is the time span between killing and consuming as short as it is in the case of eating oysters – the exodus mostly moves straight into our throat. That’s what brings the dialectical relationship between our superiority and the death of the oyster clearly to the fore. Would a glove or towel conceal this relationship, something cooked reveal or bring out something raw?

Now Oskar is exploring the minute pool of blood that has flowed from my index finger onto the floor: it’s just a drop, but for Oskar it’s a small sea, in which he can well sail his own paper boat.

Next day (27)

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