by Josep Pla
The sardine – to return to the sardine – is, then, perhaps an animal that inhabits both surface and deep water. Sometimes it sails and splashes along the waterline; at others, it shows signs of living in the depths. From the point of view of a fish’s life, the demarcation line between sunny and shadowy zones is quite imprecise. It is very likely that most of the fish who contribute to our nourishment and live near our coast are animals of an undetermined zone. There are migrating fish that pass our country by. Others migrate from the surface to the depths and vice versa. Others move from the diaphanous to the aphotic zone, in other words, migrate from the coast to the sea’s abysses, slipping down the sloping plain that is the Mediterranean shelf. These shifts and migrations happen in one sense or another according to the time of year. Fish have their set, fatal moments, which nothing can trigger or delay. Don’t count on groupers in January…But apart from all this, which is quite peripheral, what do we really know about things of the sea and fish? Theories proliferate. Hypotheses are endless. But there is little specific data. In brief, our knowledge derives from what we have learned as fishers of dishes. We know that sardines, mullet, soles, groupers are delicious and that, when spring comes, conger eel with fresh peas is a tasty dish with an exceptional flavor…
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Hooks are items that man must have created the second he learned how to manipulate metals. It is such a simple shape and so practical and efficient that its prehistoric nature is quite evident. The hook is an invention like the wheel: a wonder of guile and skill. The hook is behind an infinite number of fishing methods: from those that use a fishing rod, which is improved yearly, those without a rod – like the longline or kite-line fishing – or those based on traps for predators. For a hook can catch a fish with or without bait.
Rod fishing has created a huge bibliography, activated the pens of distinguished writers and produced delightful commentaries on fresh- and saltwater anglers. Freshwater anglers are everywhere reputed to be peaceful, thoughtful, stubborn and averse to raucous behavior. They’d deserve a habitat that makes their lives easier and increases the likelihood of success. At the rate we are going, however, anglers will soon enter the category of heroes. They will seem beings struck by adversity. Because in our country, where there is so much water in the sea, every day there are fewer fish, and in rivers that are so full of fish, every day there is less water. These contradictions leave a sour aftertaste. In any case, the number of rod fishers is increasing exponentially, especially freshwater ones. There were two or three great anglers in Fornells who specialized in catching fish in stormy weather. As homes were short on food after two or three days of storms, those anglers were highly regarded.
Anglers are totally misunderstood by the population at large. People think they are simpletons trying to while away the time, escaping the boredom of family life on the pretext of mindless distraction. But that’s a mistake. Although it may seem incredible, an angler is above all a most sensual individual. Hook fishers strive after a stupendous physical sensation, the one experienced when you catch a live being, through a series of fascinating tugs that directly impact the person fishing. A rod fisher, like the longline fisher with his kite, feels the electric tug of his prey in the palm of his hand. It is an ineffable experience: it is pure bliss, a sense of physical control mixed with sensuous ecstasy, the fisher’s own startling will for power affirmed through the palm of the hand and communicated to the fisher’s every sense: a feeling that cannot err.
No fishing device communicates so directly the tug, or if you will, the fish’s bite, on bait and hook as the line an angler holds in his hand. So we shouldn’t be surprised by the perennial popularity of this type of fishing or the growing prestige it accrues on all sides. It is an intense assault on the nervous system – direct, unique and spectacular.
We should note that the intensity of feeling doesn’t depend on the weight or size of the catch. It depends, in essence, on the fish’s energy, on its rampant hunger. At the moment of the bite, even if every fish has its individual way of biting, hunger can make all fish seem a similar size. It does not matter whether you are fishing small, brightly colored rainbow wrasses, whose mouths are shaped like the barrel of a musket, all set to suck, or blackbelly rosefish with wider, greedier mouths – the angler with a kite line feels strong pulls, stunning, electrical frissons. Obviously, the moment after the bite, the size and weight of the fish are registered: once caught, the small fish’s reactions diminish, it becomes moribund; on the other hand the fifth or sixth tug of a grouper or sea bass can have the same striking intensity as the first. Some fish seem more delicate, they bite more directly and languidly. This does not depend on the animal’s size either. It depends initially on its level of hunger; then on the resistance it puts into its final struggle against death.
The fishing rod dulls these sensations. When you hold a rod, the dramatic thrill of the captured prey is felt more by the rod than its owner. When you fish from a skiff, with the line in your hand, the feeling is much more immediate.
However, everything in this world has its checks and balances. Just as the angler feels excited by his catch, all his cunning rushes to his brain to ensure he secures it. These flights are mental and, consequently, less pleasant. An angler isn’t a gratuitous collector of fleeting sensations that vanish as quickly as they appear.
The bite is where hook fishing begins: then comes the pleasure of possessing the animal that has bitten. Not all fish that have been hooked are landed easily. Some are difficult to land. Some swallow the bait without the hook catching on its tissue; a quick movement and the hook is dislodged and expelled. When a grouper, a really vigorous fish, feels it has been hooked, it enters the first underwater hollow it can find and stays there; if the fisher isn’t skilled, there is a risk, as we mentioned before, that the line will be severed when it rubs against the ridges around the lair. Other fish break the line with a frenzied, furious tug. It’s quite common to catch a fish and find a hook in its entrails when you open it up.
An angler’s skill consists in slowly tiring the fish in order to avoid a line break and its loss. You have to know how far you can let the rod bend, and tense the line without it breaking. That way the fish tires and lets itself be hoisted to the surface. When that moment comes, it is still very easy to lose your catch, because as the pressure of the water stops affecting the fish’s body, its flesh tends to swell and slacken, and if the hook isn’t properly embedded in its tissue, it can easily be vomited out. When the fish reaches the surface, you must have at the ready your landing net – that is, a net with a circular top. You must place the net expertly under the fish and, with a quick movement, land the fish. There is nothing more exciting than a good landing. It gives the same feeling of uplift that some financial and banking operations produce.
In any case, this is the only kind of fishing that gives the fisher direct, firsthand experience. Pulling on the rope of a seine, a trawling net or a creel and hoisting a longboat’s fine-mesh nets by hand or mechanically raising a trawler’s nets trigger curiosity, economic calculations and culinary hypotheses. But those fishing devices will never give you the sensuous elation generated by rods, longlines, kite lines, snaglines and troll fishing. Even so, of all these devices we have just named, a rod implies the presence of an element that distances the angler from the immediacy of a tug. The angler’s ideal is the line in the palm of his hand, and the easiest way to get that is the longline, basically a line with a series of hooks, which allows the fisherman to feel simultaneously three or four fish biting.
A hook can be used without bait, as a simple ploy. And that isn’t a modern form of fishing (spinning and jigging are contemporary with sailing boats), though it’s also true that this approach to fishing has been considerably refined.
The sea is home to all manner of predatory hunters. Big fish eat small fish. This is a fact that could be proved geometrically using the same method that Sp
inoza used to demonstrate his theorems. Watching a pod of dolphins following a shoal of anchovies or sardines for hour after hour isn’t what you’d call an edifying spectacle, even if it is an unforgettable sight. Watching a family of dentexes in mad pursuit of a string of sand smelt, driving them into the cul-de-sac of a bay is a similar spectacle.
Making the most of this instinct, anglers attach a feather to a line, conceal a hook and let it run through the sea. Sometimes, instead of a feather, they use a spoon that spins when pulled through the water, creating the impression of a swimming fish, or a small tin fish that gives a similar effect. These ploys are now efficiently manufactured. Then there is trolling: a line with a feather that hides the hook; previously, it was pulled from a sailing or rowing boat, profiting from a favorable wind. This kind of fishing is now much more productive because a motor-powered boat can give the line a steadier speed. The dragline shouldn’t be too loose or too tense; it should give the fake fish a realistic speed. The result is that by dint of the predatory nature of fish that we’ve mentioned, when a fish sees the fake fish speeding through its waters, it pursues it, devours it and is hooked.
The key to this kind of fishing is to ensure that you pull the line through suitable places. You will catch sea bass by the edge of a beach; dentexes or white bream near a reef or underground rock, in an underwater strait, in an area of guaranteed nourishment. You must know how to pull the lure through the middle of the water and avoid dragging it along the seabed, and that requires someone expert on the rudder who knows the lay of the land. If lines catch on rocks, all will inevitably be lost.
This method will give the fisherman an immediate reaction if he is patient enough to hold the line. That’s not usually the case, and he often ties the line to a handle or oarlock, sometimes attaching a small bell to signal a bite. I don’t mean to say that it’s not exciting to hear the bell ring; however, if you don’t keep hold of the line, you miss out on those strong tugs. Once the prey has bitten, you must be able to control the line, allowing it to slacken and pull so the fish tires and can be landed. At the end you should have the landing net poised.
And that’s the system of fishing with a hook without bait, the success of which is based on the predatory instincts of the fish themselves.
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In Fornells I always thought that fish caught on a kite line or in a wicker creel – rainbow wrasse and rosefish – are infinitely subtler on the palate than sea bream, big walleye, picarel and turbot. Those fish have wonderful colors. A painter could never replicate their obsessively eye-catching variety. They are excellent in soup or fried in the pan. Some think their juices make a better soup than swallowtail sea perch; they make subtler broth, but never as intense. The big-mouthed, brightly colored rosefish isn’t as delicate as rainbow wrasse, and has a mass of bones that makes it quite unapproachable. But by the sea, in the morning, at breakfast time, one is so hungry!
When October comes, people fish using a xarambec – which is a rather more intricate kite line – with giant sea snails or slugs caught in dragnets as bait to hook axillary and green wrasses. These fish have fascinating colors and, considering their size, are more sumptuous than the smaller fish we mentioned previously: axillary wrasses are a velvety deep blue and green wrasses are lighter, the color of a freckled brick. They should be eaten fried in good olive oil, leaving the skin pink, toasted and croustillant. This word “croustillant” hardly seems adequate. It is used to suggest the most exquisite heights that can be reached by a fish that is roasted or cooked on a spit. Now people think that frying fish is something anyone can do. But frying fish is a difficult art and very few have the right touch. A fish that is fried properly is one that preserves tender, succulent, delicate flesh under pink, toasted, croustillant skin. Few people can find that point and most serve up almost raw or completely burnt and dry fish. And that’s what I want to stress: the great challenge of fried fish is the same as that posed by grilled lamb’s leg or shoulder.
The sardine is the best of the blue fish. In spring, when it’s plump and oozing fat, it is one of the best fish in the sea, provided you don’t have to eat it every day, of course. The best times to eat sardine are at breakfast when they’re freshly caught and in the evening, as a second supper, when caught late at night. Freshness is the key to this fish: if it’s been kept in ice, it inevitably loses flavor. Moreover, even though fresh, a sardine changes its flavor in proportion to the distance from the sea one is eating it. By the water’s edge it has all the delicious taste and virtues possible. Three miles inland it almost keeps up; by seven it is not what it was at source. All things being equal, the best sardines are eaten by the sea, grilled on embers and not gutted. That is the eternal, ancient way to prepare this blue fish. It is crucial to know when the flame is just right: sardines that are too dry or too smoked are worthless; the skin should be cooked and the flesh white and never bloody, so the skin easily comes away from the flesh: that perhaps is the perfect moment.
Could anything be tastier in spring than a plate of grilled sardines? Fat, fresh and full of life…the oil gleaming with mute intensity on scales seared by flames. The light creates small glittering pinpoints on the bluey scales, like a swarm of fireflies. You can eat a lot: one leads to another. This nourishment sparks an intense stream of feeling in my body. Sardines make me experience a liquid flow of emotion. Feelings and effusions of goodness, love of justice and humanity. And beauty, of course. Fortunately, these feelings tend to be abstract and that renders them quite innocuous. This reaction on my part is so predictable I’ve sometimes wondered whether Celtic states of emotional, poetic density aren’t down to the important role sardines play in their diet.
Other blue fish: anchovy, mackerel, chad and horse mackerel. In Fornells, the myth reigned that Cadaqués anchovies preserved in olive oil were something exquisite and unrivaled. I would later verify the truth in the myth of those remote anchovies. Big common mackerel is richer than the smaller varieties commonly known as quintos. The same thing occurs with mackerel as with sardines, though more intensely: they are excellent one day, especially when cut open, with garlic and parsley, but better to space them out than repeat. All blue fish are a bit stodgy, and if they are to maintain their standing, they shouldn’t be visited too frequently. In any case, a mackerel broth in the early morning, when the fish have been freshly caught, is excellent. Scad and horse mackerel are inferior blue fish.
People who’ve been to France praise to the skies maquereaux au vin blanc. Our cuisine is still primitive with regard to fish and hasn’t managed to raise the tone of mackerel. Anyway, that French dish is apparently the highest degree of perfection a fillet of blue fish can attain. Here, anchovies are never eaten fresh, always tinned or bottled.
Contrary to what many think, the bogue isn’t a blue fish. It is a rock fish that’s caught with a bogue net and creel near underwater rocks at a reasonable depth. It is a skinny fish best eaten grilled just after it’s been caught, served with a strong vinaigrette. The sand smelt is a small fish that eats the vegetation along the shore and has a slightly bitter flavor, the bitter taste of sunny pastures. The dentex, which hunts sand smelt, consumes them nonstop, encircling them in coastal hollows, where they can be caught by making a din from your boat, with a cast net, in a rather crude, Tartarin-style of fishing.
Sometimes, in winter, nature becomes quite providential with impoverished folk who try their hand with a seine. In the theological system of the world, this must be the origin of the rather average kind of fish – bogues and small rays – that are caught with a seine. In any case, when you’ve not eaten ray for some time, fried in the pan, with an endive salad, it makes a very pleasant dish. Conversely, sand eels are always delicious. They are a very small serpentine fish, long, thin, streaked with blue, with eyes that bulge out like the eye of a needle. A big fry up of crispy sand eels is one of the finest dishes you can eat along our shoreline.
Of cours
e, everything I’ve said about fish is up for discussion: I’m not pretending it’s gospel. They are mere personal opinions that sometimes chimed, sometimes dissented, with opinions generally voiced in Fornells at the time. While I’m at it, I should say that disagreement was more common than not. In some areas, there was always obvious unanimity. For example, as regards groupers. And rock mussels as well. We reckoned local rock mussels were first rate, unrivaled. We knew that rice with mussels, snails and limpets could never go wrong, was always a safe bet. When we are certain of something, we are happier. Mussels from Cape Creus, the Torroella coast, Begur shoreline and the Formigues Islands, you are a blessing from God. Now that human might and the general disarray have almost wiped you out, I am pleased to remember you in a melancholy mood as one of the tastiest dishes of my youth! In my view, limpets don’t have the same quality as mussels: they are much inferior and taste rather insipid. Sea urchins caught in the January low tides, eaten with bread and red wine, are loved by some and loathed by others. In my book, their intrinsic sweetness makes them uninteresting and tasteless.
All these Fornells debates generally refer to fish caught by anglers known as landlubbers, those who work close to terra firma. Issues around fish caught by fishing smacks – people still used smacks at the time – in more remote areas, in winter, weren’t the subject of our conversations. The odd old fisherman who had sailed in those boats would talk of monkfish garnished with a few potatoes as something spectacular. I did notice, however, that fishermen had a different diet in winter and summer. Obviously, it is the same cuisine, but in winter they always add a spoonful or two of aioli to fish stews and broth, which enhances the flavor and makes your body euphoric and your throat thirsty. Wine increases the euphoria, and all that creates a state of mind to withstand the cold.