Fish Heads in the Fridge

A busy day yesterday. Several of the projects we are working on made some progress so that was fun. Monday night I sat with Henry and Patricia and went over the recipe for a marinade for smoked fish. We talked about what we liked and what we thought might work. After an hour of conversation and a lot of good guess work on their part to figure out what we were talking about, Henry set off on his bicycle to buy fish, fruit and spices.

After Henry returned, we set to work to finish cleaning and filleting the fish, cutting up the pineapple and cutting off a chunk from the block of brown sugar. Fortunately, they have a blender so we put in all the spices and got them liquefied. Then the fish went in to the liquid and we set it in my house for the night. It smelled nice in my apartment from the marinade. Having worked on the fish outside the rather tenacious odour of fish was left to waft to stray cats in the neighbourhood.

In the morning we began the task of getting the charcoal ready and burning. The charcoal we had on hand from a previous barbecue had managed to absorb a fair amount of humidity so it was a challenge to get it going. Eventually we succeeded and the temperature in the smoker climbed and the fish was laid on the bamboo slats. Two hours later the first of the fish was done and we all tried a wee bit. Another hour and even the heads were looking great. A pot of smoked fish heads resides in my fridge now (that will really make future glasses of ice tea have a great taste) and they will be distributed this afternoon for people to make fish soup with. We will see if they make a good soup.

We enjoyed smoked fish for lunch and everyone was more than pleased. I made some smoked fish, mango and spaghetti type dish which was rather delicious.

As we sat for lunch, Flavio, the carpenter arrived with 180 top bars. They looked wonderful and fit nicely. Today we buy the material for the lids and the hives will be ready for bees.

While smoking the fish near my apartment, we also began heating some honey from our hives and filtering it through a nylon stocking (clean) and bottling it. It was nice to see a wee bit of results from the hives we set up. These are the bees which will be put into the new concrete hives so we do know they can produce some honey.

After lunch, I headed to the rapidito to go with Chepe to look at his land and help him with laying out contour lines. We started walking up a very steep path from his house. As we began the ascent we talked about the smoke house. I mentioned that it only took two hours to smoke the fish. Chepe was obviously on another track (not hard to be thinking that my Spanish is on a different planet) and thought I was asking if it was a two hour climb to his land. He shook his head and said, “No – only forty minutes”. Yikes. We hiked for only ten minutes and then stopped at a friend’s place and rode the rest of the way in his four wheel drive truck. I have no idea of how they carry produce and so forth up and down those hills.

We spent an hour or so setting up the level. The level consisted of a forty foot hose with two ends of clear plastic. Fill the hose with water and then attach the ends to two tall sticks. This gives you an accurate level and works quite well over a distance. We had trouble with a leaky hose which cut our time short. As well, Chepe had failed to bring any extra hands (he only has seventeen people in his house) to help with marking the lines. However, I did get a good idea of the land layout and, as it was very high up, a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside. It would be wonderful if he actually lays out the land in beds on the contour. He could quite readily add a great deal of income potential to his operation and save labour at the same time.

The town square is now full of small booths for vendors of food, trinkets and carnival accessories. Streets are more and more crowded and the buses and rapiditos have to use alternate streets. The fair is coming to town!

Bryan