Vacation Highlight: Eating Trout
Here’s a little highlight from our trip: Toby caught a fish, a trout. Actually he caught a lot of fish—maybe twenty a day. But on the first day he caught a fish, we took it home and he cooked it. He fried it up in about a pound of butter and some sliced apples that he picked off a tree that was growing by the cabin. He said he wanted to eat a meal that came from the lake. More power to him.
Personally, I do not like fish. But to be a good sport I tried a bite. I figured it couldn’t be that bad since it was fried in all that butter. Surely the butter would at least taste good.
It did not. It tasted like swamp. I suppose it didn’t help that I had seen what was inside the fish when he cleaned it. Some seeds, bugs and a shiny Lifesaver wrapper. I don’t know, something about a fish eating trash just doesn’t do it for me. But then it could also be that trout are just fishy fish and I do not like the taste of fish. Anyway, at least I tried it.
After Toby ate the fish he admitted that it wasn’t all that good. Hmph, I thought. He could have told me that before I tried a bite. Oh well. That’s what camping is all about I guess. At least if I ever get stranded out in nature some day and I’m forced to fish to stay alive, I’ll know that horrible taste is totally normal and I won’t die from it.
It was such a pretty fish. Too bad he had to die, though I suppose he was going to to die anyway from that Lifesaver wrapper. I’m sure that wouldn’t digest very well. Good thing we let all those other fish go. I do have some really great under-water movies of catching fish. I’ll try to put a short one up one of these days.
10 Comments
gingermog
Bummer that the first fish Toby cooked tasted awful. I hope some of the others were better. I’ve never eaten a fresh fish that was bad. I suppose it must be from whatever its eaten or maybe some fish flesh is just not nice? I’ve sampled plenty from the supermarket that has been rank, but then I am slightly a fish snob, growing up next to the sea the fish was guaranteed to be fresh. I’ve never been fishing though. I was always ‘too little” to go with my sisters and brother-in-law. Gutting fish looked and smelled gross so I was glad to escape that experience.
Have a great day.
Melissa
I will never understand the need for the hunter to eat his prey, for the fisher to eat his catch. Ever.
We used to go fishing for trout when I was a kid. I think partly because my dad liked it, but mostly because it was free food, and we were pretty poor, so the idea of eating something that tasted like swamp was better than the idea of eating nothing. :o)
But I don’t like ANY fish to this day. Regardless of whether it’s eaten pink “salmon” eggs or lifesaver wrappers or whatever they feed farm-raised salmon. It’s all gross.
And no amount of butter can salvage the taste of swamp.
Glad you guys are back to the land of Traders Joe’s and Vons. :o)
BeachMama
Fish are fish and depending on the time of day, the fish you caught and the spices you have they can taste differently each time you catch one of the same kind. As for killing a pretty fish, God gave us those pretty fish to enjoy.
gingermog
I’m confused by the idea of swamp flavored fish? Why would that be? Trout is a mild tasting fish? Tasty to me but maybe I’ve only ever had farmed trout.
Toby
The best meal I ever had was on the fifth day of a seven day hike. I was missing my dehydrated dinner that night for some reason and a couple of my friends snagged a salmon out of the nearby creek. We also had a whole pot full of crawdads. This was in the Marble Mountain wilderness area; we had already hiked thirty or forty miles, ten miles that day alone. It’s a terrific sense of independence and you are actually experiencing the land rather than just passing through. That creek is now a mystical place that I will always remember.
As for the rest of the fish, I crushed the barbs on the hooks so that it was very easy to release them, without even pulling them into the boat.
The trout was a little fishy, but not that bad. It was a lake trout and I fried it with the skin on. They’re better for breakfast.
Calee
I love that eating fishy, swampy trout was labeled as a vacation highlight :)
gingermog
Toby your seven day hike sounds like a marvelous experience. I think I will put down go fishing, gut and cook my own fish as an ambition to achieve next summer. I agree there is something special about sourcing and cooking your own food from the land. best prawns I’ve ever had were the ones I used to find in the seaweed around rocks as a child, catch in my shrimping net and 20 minutes later cook them up n boiling water. Have a great day.
The Chatty Housewife
We always ate our camping-fish shake-n-baked with pancake mix and fried in a little oil. I can’t remember if that made it any better or not.
Clownfish
I prefer my trout on the grill. In the cavity I put: salt, pepper and half slices of lemon. Trout for me, has always been a light, flakey, fresh tasting fish that flakes nicely from the bones. – I say, try another recipe so that your trout tasting days don’t end on a bad note. Oh ya, it’s good for you too.
Kuky
Swamp tasting? Yuck! And you talking about what was inside that fish made me think of a post I saw somewhere recently about what was inside albatross chicks. Don’t look it up, it’s so sad.
And have you ever had fish prepared Chinese style? Well, I call it Chinese style because my aunt and mom make it that way, not because it’s the proper name. It’s baked in the oven with ginger and then they add green onions, warmed oil, and soy sauce on top. I think it’s yummy. It’s the only way I like certain fish.