A while back I saw that Tilapia, a fresh water fish, was on sale at my local butcher shop. However, this was not the filet you purchased in the store, but the whole fish, head to tail. I purchased it with reservation about cooking it and my wife’s reaction to seeing the whole fish. But I have attended celebrations with my friends from Sierra Leone where fresh whole Tilapia is one of the featured food items.
I did not know what to do so the fish sat in my freezer for a long time. Now we have our African ‘niece’ living with us while she finishes graduate school in social work and gets a job in the field. On occasion she has cooked for us some of her favorite recipes from Sierra Leone. These dishes are what we call ‘slow food’, food that takes time to prepare and needs to be enjoyed slowly. We have enjoyed these meals which used a variety of spices.
The other day we were talking about what day she could cook for us. My wife works the dinner hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays so we were talking about what other day she could cook the African version of what we call ‘black eyed peas’. I happen to mention the two Tilapia fish in the freezer and how my wife liked Tilapia but not the looks of the African dish. So we decided she would cook the fish for ourselves tonight. When I came to the kitchen table I was surprised to see this display of fish and vegetables. I took this picture with my phone camera, which is not very good quality but gives you a sense of the presentation of the dinner.
To some this dinner meal, served with boiled potatoes, might look appetizing, (My ‘niece”), to some interesting (me) and some seeing the head and tail of the fish is disgusting ( my wife).
When I was in the advertising field I learned that it was not reality that people purchased but the perception of reality. The same could be said for many other fields, like politics. Money buys perception which generates votes. My perception and my nieces’ perception of reality of this fish dish no longer exist. We ate it.
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