Gifts of the Sea

One of the many things I have noticed since being here is that Ukrainians love seafood.

I mentioned in my truly Ukrainian adventure post that I ate a lot of fish when I went home with my friend Annie. And by a lot, I mean it was part of a meal (or more than one meal) everyday. I also posted pictures of the frozen seafood bins at Mega Market in my Notes on Ukraine post. One of my favorite things is the individual street vendors that sell fish laid out on plastic bags outside the Metro stops. And the vast array of "fresh" fish arranged artfully on beds of lettuce (with dead staring eyes) behind the glass in the meat section at the grocery never ceases to amaze us.

So yesterday when we were out walking, Traci suggested that we go to дари моря (Dari Morya or "Gifts of the Sea"). It's a grocery store where you can get little else but fish and other sorts of sea life. You could smell it a block away - that oceany seafood smell, sort of how Pike's Place Market smells in warm weather. Along every wall in the square-shaped market was glass casing where fish of every kind was arranged and on display for everyone to see. We walked along and looked at all the sizes, shapes, and kinds of seafood that they had available. I have never seen so many different kinds of fish in one place. (Except maybe at Pike's Place Market...)

Anyway, we were just walking along, minding our business and having a good look at all the fish when we came to a long line of people that were standing next to these huge tanks of fish. So we stood behind the last lady in line to see what everyone was waiting for and as I glanced over her shoulder, I witnessed one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen...

There was a man with a net that was catching fish from this giant tank (that, by the way, was so packed that the fish could hardly swim around) and tossing them into a pair of crates that were up on the counter. Then there was a woman that was taking the fish out of the crates and bagging them (still very much alive and flailing around) as people picked the ones they wanted. After she bagged them, she handed them to the men who were working in the small room behind her. What were they doing in that room, you wonder? Oh, I'll tell you what they were doing in there... They were slamming the fish against the counter top to kill them! And if they didn't die after one or two hard slams, they would lay them on the counter and take a big rubber mallet and beat them dead. Yep, you heard me.

But that's not even the worst part... After they beat the fish to death, they held them by the tail and de-scaled them. They had these metal grater things that they were running up the fish's body, against the grain of their scales, and rubbing all their scales off. Not only did it sound like staples flying around in a blender, but there were scales flying everywhere.

I'm usually pretty good at the dead-pan face when there are things that shock me. I mean, I've walked past the street vendors selling rolls of pig fat, skinned rabbits, fish, blood sausage, and various kinds of panties and I've been able to keep my jaw from dropping. But yesterday as we stood in that line of eager fish-buyers, I could not hide my shock. Apparently Traci turned around to say something to me at one point, and my eyes were like saucers and my mouth was hanging wide open. I'm pretty sure that was when people realized were were from "out of town" because then everyone started looking at us. The seemingly inconspicuous shots I was trying to take with the not-so-inconspicuous Nikon could have been the giveaway too, but I don't know.

Anyway, it was quite the experience. One that I will probably never forget, no matter how much I'd like to... I left thinking two things: 1.) How do people eat the fish that they just watched get bludgeoned to death before their eyes? and 2.) I can think of a lot of other "gifts of the sea" that I'd enjoy much more.

The over-crowded tank of fish