auto known better: a fish tale

907 Princess Anne Street, Downtown Fredericksburg

www.donatelifevirginia.org

Auto Known Better

A fish tale

By Rim Vining

Some of you know me and some don't but trust me, I have a closet full of tinfoil hats. So on a scale of one to ten… let's talk fish!

Only Detroit and Madison Avenue could market sports cars named after fish and have the drivers think they look cool… Corvette Stingray! Plymouth Barracuda! AMC Marlin! Other countries gave it a shot as well… Opel Manta, Hyundai Tiberon or perhaps the Perodua Kelisa from Malaysia! Look that one up.

The summers of my adolescence were spent working in a family restaurant in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware that my grandparents started in the 1930's. Yes, the same summer vacation locale that our current president Joe Biden frequents and yes, I waited on both he and his father back in the day. And for all you art lovers, Rehoboth was also the summer home and inspirational sanctuary for Howard Pyle the patriarch of the modern illustrator. Think of his pupil N.C. Wyeth and Treasure Island.

It is a wonderful seaside town with all the colorful characters one might expect including the local fish mongers and merchants. Being a beach resort seafood was always on the menu so even a kid from the city learned the basics: scaling fish, shucking clams & oysters, cleaning soft shell crabs and learning that seafood should not be cooked to death! Tender, moist and flakey is preferred.

Having some knowledge of the basics, imagine my surprise to find one of our local food purveyors offering a most novel way of marketing fish.

If you have ever been to a butcher's shop they almost always have a "cuts of meat" poster on the wall so you can educate yourself before buying. Leg, shank, shoulder, butt, hams ribs, tenderloin, flank, skirt, etc. Nowhere on the cow is there a cut of beef called a London broil, that's a recipe. So have you ever seen a "cuts of fish" poster? A fish is scaled and cleaned then either baked whole, (head on or off) filleted, or cut into steaks and that's pretty much it or at least that's what I thought. Evidently farm raised salmon now has "cuts of fillet" including loins, bellies and bites! You can buy the whole filet which includes all these choice cuts for about $10.99 per pound. Sold separately the choice belly will cost you a few dollars more and the bigger side up from the belly now called the loin adds a few more dollars as well but wait… the loin sold without the skin has now reached a miraculous $18.99 per pound! Do yourself a favor and buy a knife.

Personally I'm working on the fish bites marketing angle. (not angler) This is that tiny end of the filet like the small bits of beef the butcher sells as "stew beef." Will fish bites be the new "wings"? Spice them up and batter them? Deep fry with aioli? Reconstitute and bake up some fish tots for a new twist on fish and chips? They have outdone themselves. We are being trolled.

Which brings me back to the fish story wondering if there is natural association between a car's name and its odor. After 20 years of restoring old cars and fifty driving British tin I think there is. Jaguars and MGs definitely have a wet tweed essence some find quite alluring while Corvette Stingrays lean towards Jade East, Old Spice and Lucky Strikes. Old Mustangs have their own "parked in the barn" quality as well. As for the Malaysian Kelisa… not sure but as adults they eat the other fish.

next. I guess the all electric Sushi is

Rim Vining, humorist, friend and a devoted community volunteer autoknownbetter@gmail.com