Forty minutes. That`s how long it took me to do the hated laundry folding, including this and last week`s Dreaded Matching of the Socks. I don`t know why I let myself get so fussed over small tasks.
 
Freshest sushi I ever had we caught on my great uncle`s deep sea boat in Hawaii. Cleaned it on the boat.

I completely disappointed a childhood friend's parents and grandparents by not freaking out at the news that the dinner we'd just had was raccoon. But I'm generally put off of food by texture or flavor issues, not the idea of what it came from, so as far as I was concerned it was no different from the slightly stringy roast beef I previously thought I was eating. Learning later in life that raccoons are 99 44/100 percent pure Evil only makes the memory sweeter.

I've eaten fish that I've caught. I didn't clean it though. Or maybe I was sort of part of the cleaning process but it wasn't my responsibility or skill. I have vague memories of gutting the fish while my Dad stood over me guiding my knife hand.

Anyway: perch.

Also, all the smelt we caught ice fishing. You don't clean those, though. You just roll 'em in corn meal and fry 'em up.

I really don't like fish. This may or may not be because I come from a family of fishermen.

Sadly, my mother loved trout and my father loved catching it. It's actually why they bought the summer place in Vermont.

Anyway: perch

For some reason, we did not have to eat the perch caught from the lake. We would take them up to the hills and give them to the French Canadians.

I come from a family of city dwellers and a religion that doesn't allow hunting. I've never tried any of these animals.

I love fish, but when I was at the Aquarium I thought it was WRONG to serve them in the restaurant.

I am urban like Jesse, so most of the game I've had has been served to me in restaurants.

The year I was eight we lived on the beach in North Florida in a summer rental owned by a friend. People would go netfish for blues and I'd run down to the beach with my sand bucket and get the whiting they were going to throw back. Oh they were sooooooo good. It's amazing how much fantastic food happends because people are poor. Fried green tomatoes, barbecue, cassoulet, bread pudding, mac-n-cheese...

I laugh now whenever I see whiting priced higher than bluefish in a market. They were trash fish.

Judaism doesn't allow hunting? It's religiously mandatory that you farm-raise meat? Hmm. I guess to mandate a kosher kill. I'd just never thought about it. But surely you could trap and then kill, right?

Well, the rules for kosher slaughter means that an animal that's shot with a gun (or a bow and arrow, or killed with anything other than a knife) can't be eaten, and there are also rules against killing animals needlessly, so that means no hunting for recreation, either. Trapping and then killing is iffy -- I don't know enough about the details of the law to totally say.

So, what, come the apocalypse, all the kosher Jews are screwed? How did they survive before tame animals? I don't get it...