Have You Ever Watched an Asian Woman Eat A Fish Head?
It’s quite jarring but you can’t look away
Content Warning: This might get disgusting…
My mom is from the Philippines. I think that I mention that in a few of my stories. I’m not sure if the fish eyes and head thing is just a Filipino thing, just my mom, or more widespread.
I get that coming from a country where eating everything you can find is common, particularly in the countryside. My mom told me about the time that her large family one time had to find a stray dog on the side of the road and eat it so that they wouldn’t starve. I love puppies and just the thought that my bloodline was linked to that kind of carnage disturbs me a bit.
Anyway, back to eating fish. The fish my mom would eat would either be grilled well or fried. Either way, when she got down to the part where the head was, she would just start crunching away on the head and particularly around the eyes.
As a kid, I didn’t really eat anything that had a face. I was a vegetarian for a large part of my childhood. My mom was not. She ate everything that had a face, and the face itself. Okay, so I’ve never seen her eat the face off of a cow but I wouldn’t put it past her.
Plus, it would probably be a pig. Considering the Filipino connection, a pig’s face in the form of Lechon, or a whole roasted pig with an apple in its mouth, I don’t doubt at all that she’s gone right for the face and eyes on that thing too.
I didn’t even touch it and I know that some of my Filipino friends would say that I’m not Filipino enough for not trying it and that I’m not Filipino enough because of that.
Oh, well, I’d rather not gross myself out so I’m going to leave that whole pig eating to the rest of you.
Even though it grossed me out to see my mom doing all of this, I still just couldn’t look away. The biting, the gnawing, the crunching, the desecration and destruction of an animal’s face. They once saw and sensed the world with that thing.
My mom thought that it was delicious. There must be something of value or even nutritional value to sucking out the meat from the head and draining whatever’s left inside the eyes. I thought about breaking my vegetarianism a couple of times just to see what it would be like.
Luckily, I’ve never tried it, or am I lucky? Would it just be something that I’d naturally take to because of my Filipino ancestry? Hmm, what an interesting concept to consider! I’m not a vegetarian anymore and I’ve eaten things with eyes and faces at some point, like chickens, cows, fish, and even pigs even though they’re my least favorite protein.
This would certainly move me away from my more white meat and non-meat leanings in the past and what I’ve considered for my future diets but it would be something that I could say that I’ve tried and tick off of my bucket list. Heck, now that I’ve thought long and hard about it and written about my mom’s eating habits, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it?
I would have to try it with my partner, Mike. Heck, he ate my mom’s fried pig ears. I could not touch them because ears, yuck, but now that I’ve been told by other Filipinos what I’m missing, it doesn’t sound so bad and my partner liked them. He doesn’t like disgusting food so I assume they were good.
My partner got to share in the experience of eating a part of a head with my mom. My mom makes a good ear, head, eyes, or whatever, or so I’m told.
Crunch, crunch, crunch is all I can think about. It still slightly grosses me out but now the more I think about it, I think I’m actually talking myself into it. I never imagined that writing this memory out would get me to consider it.
I just thought that I would get my readers to experience the yuck with me enough to where they couldn’t look away but now, who knows what will happen next?
UNRELATED LESSON: A three-bean salad is a great appetizer idea for your next family gathering. Since it’s summer now, you can bring this versatile dish to all of your gatherings: weddings, funerals, 4th of July, Labor Day, etc. It’s a great idea if you’re not much of a cook as you could probably get away with making this one a bit lazily.
