Fish or Cut Bait
“Hey, Sweetheart, should I pick up anything on my way home?” John asked, as the cell phone crackled. I thought the call would evaporate. “Some sliced turkey,” I shouted, as if speaking louder would help the connection. “What are we having, chef’s salad?”
“No, I ran out of fish food.” Silence at the other end.
It’s been three years since I had a maple tree removed in the front yard. Now, in place of the stump is a hole big enough for a pond. I’d read that cultivating a water element would bring prosperity. It was the summer of 2001, and everyone was embracing Fung Shui, the ancient Japanese art of “spatial design,” -- an antidote for the Y2K frenzy that made us feel that our lives had become overly technical. I invested seven thousand dollars to erect the five thousand gallon site complete with an eight-foot cast-iron fountain. Prosperity doesn’t come cheap.
We piled into the car and headed south for an hour until we reached the koi farm, a backyard-run deal with impressive pools filled with even more impressive specimens. I caught sight of a big white fish with one single red dot planted on his forehead.
“I like that one,” pointing out the one that resembled the Japanese flag. “Twelve hundred…dollars,” countered Matt, the koi farmer. “It’s a tancho, very special.” John and I have three children between us and college funds to think about. “Not exactly what I had in mind,” I said, silently adding up the numbers and wondering why we hadn’t gone, instead, to the fish department of Wal-Mart. “Any ‘red tag’ fish?” I asked with conviction. “I don’t mind seconds.” Matt looked at me with disappointment and shuffled me off to a big plastic drum. “These guys are a hundred bucks each -- they’ll grow,” he said, walking away to cultivate a sale with a couple that had just pulled up in a limited-edition Range Rover. “Okay kids, over here!” I yelled and did my best to convince them that these were the ringers.
It’s hard to convince even a five-year-old to walk away from a pool of showstoppers in lieu of a group that looked like overgrown carnival prizes. They each, however, left with a fish that they named, and an immediate rivalry was started to see whose would grow the fastest. Before leaving the farm I did calculate my budget, and bought two bluebloods -- a pair of kushi-beni, aptly named “lipstick” in Japanese because of the red ring of color around their mouths. Two weeks after bringing them home, one kushi died, and I was flabbergasted to find out that live fish don’t come with a warrantee.
For three winters, I waited patiently to catch a glimpse of the investment of koi. Each year, each fish grew a bit bigger and brighter. As the ice thawed, their body temperature rose, and they shook off the faint slumber of the freezing cold water. And each spring, I would anticipate that this year the pond would look magnificent.
Each summer is a battle against algae, each autumn an onslaught of falling leaves to be skimmed before they bottom out in a layer of sludge. Three years of trying to establish a beautiful water garden and all I had to show for it was a pond that looked like a huge trough of pea soup. String algae had taken over the interior walls. Once, while removing it with my bare hands, I fell in, and immerged looking like, the “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” As the fish surfaced to get a hint of sunlight they eyed me with disdain. Cold blooded things. How in the world do folks see these animals as pets? I’ve heard that in Japan a pedigree can sell for over twenty thousand US dollars.
Luckily, the nearest koi enthusiast was right across the street. Ted, a long time Woodstocker who owned The Corner Cupboard Deli, had offered help if it was needed. I cut across the lawn and let myself into his tiny yard. Behind the gate was a small but perfect example of what offensively loomed in my own yard. Tall water irises rose from the corners, their blue heads plump with color, and clean water flowed through the pump, which Ted had fashioned from an old whisky barrel. As I peered into the deep water, a white behemoth surfaced and opened its huge mouth. I was speechless in the presence of this fish which looked as if you could put it on a leash and take it for a walk.
“That’s Big White,” Ted said in his characteristically relaxed voice. “Had him since the time he was this big.” He showed me four inches with his hand. I shook my head in disbelief and guilt for the muck hole I had created. “I need you, Obi-one…you’re my only hope,” I said humbly. Ted took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, lit it slowly, and smiled. He put his arm around my shoulder and added with the consternation of a doctor, “What are you feeding them?” “Cold cuts,” I said -- half statement, half question. He lowered his head and laughed. Ted was the “cold cut king.” How he got away with preparing sandwiches for his patrons with a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth was beyond me. “Oy!” he replied with compassion.
The next day I woke to see a foursome scrutinizing the conditions. Ted, and his ever cheerful wife, Mary, looked up as I hustled outside in my bathrobe. “Don’t take it so bad,” she consoled. “We went through the same thing.” She was dressed plainly in polyester and eyed my velvet leopard robe as if I had beamed in from Planet Strange. “You know Suki,” Ted interrupted, introducing a woman I had known from a distance for many years, “and her husband Tim?” I greeted them with one hand and clasped my robe at the neck with the other. Suki and Tim did not seem amused. “Why would you have fish if you can’t seem them?” she asked flatly. I’d heard from Ted that they were serious afficionados. I felt so exposed.
I weighed the seriousness with which she asked her question, as they huddled around me like a team initiating a rookie; I told them I would do what ever it took. “They don’t care much for meat,” I added. The group looked at me as if I had two heads, both with antennae.
We relocated our wet pets to a five hundred gallon holding tank; prepared it with filters and an oxygen supply; pumped out the pond; spent eight hours power-washing the interior, and bucketed out the goop. John designed and installed a new filtration system that bordered on overkill and filled the now spotless cavity with a tanker load of clean water. Just as the holding tank was showing signs of “green tea,” the fish were introduced to their renovated digs. The price tag of their watery abode now stood at ten thousand. As a gift for making such a wholehearted attempt, Suki offered me three well-grown fish. She was also renovating her pond and was weeding out the mutts.
“If you want to train them to eat out of your hand, get some fried shrimp. Stand in the same spot every day and offer it to them. “These three,” she said, pointing out the adoptees, “are already trained.”
I was a gourmet wannabe but was resigned to serving the conventional fish fare -- floating cereal sticks. If it was fried shrimp they wanted, it was fried shrimp they’d get! That night I breaded and sautéed an army-sized batch of popcorn minis and stood by the pond in hopeful anticipation. I dropped one in and watched as it floated for a minute then started its slow descent.
No takers.
The fish swam by the appetizer with indifference. I broke the next one in half and again watched as it was passed by my less than entertained school of fish. One after another I dropped the breaded shrimp into the pond, until a rainbow of colors from the oil slick convinced me to stop. I had tried lettuce, bread, broccoli, cold cuts, raw catfish, and now fried shrimp. Either this group of fish had no taste buds or I was one terrible koi hobbyist.
Ted and Mary retired to greener pastures in Colorado and dismantled their pond. Suki got Big White. I received four others, including an overweight eleven-year-old goldfish which meandered sideways through the water, half due to her size and half due to an old bout with tail rot. They also bestowed on us a giant pot of water irises which became the spawning ground for our pregnant females.
“They’re having a real party with that plant,” I told Ted on his last day in town. “Don’t count on breeding,” he said, squelching my exuberance. “It’s very hard for a beginner to raise baby koi. Besides, the fish will devour the fertilized eggs.” I was glad to hear that they had a penchant for anything gourmet.
Two months later I spotted movement in one of the three fountain bowls and was caught off guard. Little tadpoles, I thought. But how in the world would a frog have gotten up here? To my delight and amazement they were tiny fish, the smallest fry imaginable. The fertilized eggs had been swept through the pond, been sucked up through the fountain’s pump, and were sprayed into the air, only to land in the bottom fountain bowl. We immediately set up a house aquarium to incubate the five siblings; but within a month’s time four mysteriously died. As autumn was well in progress, the one survivor was about to meet his destiny.
“Well, Buddy, this is it. If you stay inside you’re sure to go the way of your brothers,” I said, lowering him into what I thought would be his swan song. “If you’re here in the spring, I’ll name you Lucky.”
It wasn’t until late the following summer that John stood out by the pond shouting, “Hey, it’s Lucky! He made it!” The little sucker outweighed the odds by sticking close to the submerged iris plant, away from the bigger fish. He was orange with black markings, a spot over one eye, like a pirate’s eye patch. Lucky, indeed! John and I stood arm in arm looking at the baby, as if we had just become grandparents. I ran into Suki at the market, and she asked how the pond was looking.
“Oh, the water is clear, and the fish seem happy enough.” I was trying my best to convince her that the three she gave me were in good hands. “Good,” she answered with what felt like the slightest bit of condescension. I was eager to impress her. I told her the miraculous story of Lucky and she brushed it off by saying, “That happens.” “Yep, everything is just great,” I added. “They’re getting big and we love watching the colors develop as they grow.”
The fish sponsored by John’s young son, originally black and silver, had surfaced the first spring with a drastic change to light blue. The second year it emerged with butterfly fins, and the following year sported a light-blue nose. That last move certainly closed the gap on the rivalry started three years earlier by the children. My son, Austin, walked off in disgust after seeing this “blue wonder,” remarking with considerable jealousy that the only thing left for this fish to do was to “grow friggin’ legs and walk out of the pond.”
“That happens,” she said, again, placing her groceries on the conveyer belt.
“What I don’t get,” I said, “Is the trick with the fried shrimp.”
She looked at me incredulously. “What?”
“The fried shrimp -- forget about them taking it from my hand, they won’t even go near the stuff.”
“Who said anything about fried shrimp?”
“You said give ‘em fried shrimp.”
“I said dried shrimp.”
“What the hell is dried shrimp?”
“You get it at the pet store.” She looked me over and cracked a derisive smile. “Fish don’t eat popcorn shrimp.”
I purchased a peanut-sized can of dried krill for twenty- five bucks and made an appointment with a hearing specialist. I pinched one of the crispy critters between my fingers and held it in the water until my joints were numb. Sure enough, one of Suki’s protégés came close and snatched it from me. By the end of a full season every last one of them had learned the trick. Now seeing me at the water’s edge brings all seventeen tearing down the surface, their tails wagging them forward, like a pack of greyhounds after a rabbit.
Koi are the ultimate pet. And, just like four-legged domestics they have distinct personalities. But they don’t need walking or grooming, don’t mind being outside in the rain, and if, by chance or vacation, you don’t feed them for a day, the ASPCA doesn’t come looking for you. In all, it took four years, almost twelve thousand dollars, and countless trips to the supermarket for me to be trained.
Popcorn Shrimp (for Humans)
5 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
1/2 cups Japanese bread crumbs (Panko)
1/2 teaspoons tarragon, dried
1 pound small shrimp, peeled and deveined
Directions:
1. Preheat broiler. Line broiler pan with aluminum foil. Spray foil with vegetable cooking spray.
2. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, mustard, parsley, lemon juice and hot pepper sauce. Mix well. On a sheet of waxed paper, combine bread crumbs and tarragon. Mix well.
3. Dip shrimp in mayonnaise mixture, turning to coat. Dredge shrimp in bread crumb mixture, turning to coat and patting so crumbs adhere.
4. Place shrimp on prepared pan. Broil 4 inches from heat, turning once, until golden brown, about 5 minutes.
Serves 4.
