FISH

It’s no great secret that I’ve never been too fond of eating fish. I guess it’s because I didn’t grow up with it, so it was as unfamiliar as eating bugs or insects.

Mum always loved seafood, but Dad, like his father before him, banned it from the household for its smell, so she rarely cooked it. I seem to recall that she particularly loved scallops and would buy them from the Hobart wharf when Dad was away — I think they were one shilling for a billycan full. I remember trying one, but I found the roe part totally unpalatable.

Robert despaired of me when we were married — fish dishes have to be his favourite — but eventually resigned himself to eating seafood when we went out.

Our children very soon picked up my dislike, but by then food authorities were telling us that fish should form part of a healthy diet. Cod liver oil was even considered to be a necessity for children’s adequate growth and so I tried to spoon this into them with as much success as could have been expected. Their catch-cry was ‘Fish is for cats!’

Years passed and my dislike of fish waned. I even grew to like it. Now that we’ve moved from our former home by the seaside, I often get a craving for a meal of fish, not so easily come by these days now that we live inland. It is obviously true that absence makes the heart grow fonder.