Growing up in West Texas, I was aware that supermarkets didn’t sell fresh fish. Back then, supermarkets didn’t even have the common frozen fish we see now.
All I knew about food was beef, always beef, and I knew very little about other food. Even as an adult, I didn’t know how to cook fish and had never ordered fish at a restaurant because I wasn’t accustomed to that taste.
When I was a child, my family would sometimes go fishing in a freshwater lake, clean the fish, coat them in cornmeal, and deep fry them. I always thought of it as camping rather than a regular meal. For some reason, I never associated eating fish with a normal lifestyle. Additionally, we also ate snakes that my father shot with a gun.
It wasn’t just about food; it was about survival.
Decades later, I took a boat trip to a location in the Aegean Sea, where I attended an event. After the boat stopped, the crew cast fishing lines into the water and caught some fish that were swimming in the water. A chef cleaned the fish and grilled them. What surprised me was when he placed the fish on a plate and brought it to me, expecting me to enjoy it.
I watched closely how others ate, using a knife to cut the fish from the back, flipping it to one side, carefully removing the bones in the middle, and setting them aside. I followed suit, making some mistakes along the way. We sat around a table, eating with no other side dishes, just a whole fish.
That moment was an eye-opener for me. I had never imagined eating fish in this manner, in its pure form. The taste of the fish was absolutely delicious, and the experience was somewhat shocking to me.
Then my thoughts turned to the saying that God filled the oceans with fish. An obvious thought struck me – food is all around us, swimming around us, waiting for us to catch and eat them.
Dietary practices around the world have enabled humans to survive. We don’t need to run faster than animals or till the land, at least not in certain circumstances. We just need to pick up a fishing rod, cast it into the water, and catch our food, especially for those living near water.
I wondered if it would be possible to replicate this practice at home, but with one condition: finding a market that sells fresh fish.
I am fortunate to live in an area with fish markets, and I constantly marvel at the abundant seafood resources here. From snapper, tilapia, various bass, sea bass, sharks, mackerel, and more, all neatly displayed on ice, ready to be cleaned and consumed. The presentation of whole fish rather than fillets has a unique theatricality, reminding us of what we are eating and what we should be consuming.
It definitely can go wrong in the process of preparing fish. After falling in love with the taste of sea bass, I decided to buy a real yellowtail and skin it myself. Three hours later, I finally did it and understood why YouTube videos advise wearing gloves and using pliers; my hands swelled from toxins!
Handling most fish is much easier, and after that experience, I opted for more familiar species of fish.
Hosting a fresh seafood dinner sounds like a good idea, but there’s a problem – many Americans today are extremely sensitive to real food. For a long time, our food has been packaged perfectly in supermarkets, ready to be microwaved and consumed like industrial products.
Chain restaurants provide food this way, and people at home expect the same experience.
Dr. Little Kennedy, soon to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services, recently pointed out that many foods are filled with strange chemicals, unusual sweeteners, and dyes to enhance the taste beyond its natural flavor, once you start eating this way, it’s hard to stop.
Looking at ingredient lists, it’s hard to find foods that are safe to eat – even the most common tonic water can’t avoid high fructose corn syrup.
Today, many people, especially the combined forces of “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) and “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) dream of returning to whole foods and true health. This will be a challenging journey because, frankly speaking, Americans are addicted to low-quality foods, lacking the taste buds and appetite to accept real food.
If you want to take a crash course in giving up processed foods, I strongly suggest you simply choose a whole fish placed on a plate with no side dishes – that’s your food, nothing else, it’s as simple as that. Eating this way is a pleasure and miraculously resets your taste buds and perception.
People’s fear of cooking skills primarily stems from one reason. For some obscure reason, people think cooking fish is difficult, when in reality, it is very straightforward. I usually buy whole fish from the fish market and have them clean it for me. Then, I marinate the fish with salt and/or sugar for an hour, place it on a metal baking dish greased with olive oil, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and bake the fish for about 30 minutes.
It’s as simple as that – ready to eat, place the whole fish on a plate with no other side dishes. It gives you a sense of satisfaction, like discovering who you are biologically and anthropologically.
Sadly, most dinner guests aren’t prepared to accept such hospitality.
The most frequent customers at my fish shop are usually those born overseas or individuals who want to preserve their ethnic roots and traditions. They come from all over the world, but usually not from America. At least, that has been my experience, which sheds light on the declining health of our citizens for a long time, perhaps dietary reasons are at play.
The coalition of MAGA and MAHA is one of the most remarkable events of our time, as one group is seen as right-wing, and the other is left-wing.
One day, we will all realize that the institutions overtaxing and over-regulating businesses have also messed up our food supply and medication. Once viewed through this lens, everything becomes apparent, but just six months ago, it wasn’t.
Personally, as a defender of the free market, I always believed that being optimistic about chemical additives in food and pesticides was necessary. I don’t know what made me realize that the free enterprise itself needs to take a serious stance on all of this. Perhaps it was the realization that the same people giving us mRNA vaccines were also supporting lab-grown meat and various other artificial foods that made it clear to me.
In just a few months, there has been a dramatic cultural shift, with a new alliance forming, breaking all modern precedents. The food freedom movement joins forces with health freedom movements, constitutional support movements, and religious freedom movements, all rallying together alongside the free speech movement and free enterprise movement.
It’s as if millions of people suddenly realized that freedom is all-encompassing, determined to rebuild the world based on this principle.
These are deep reflections, but ultimately, it all comes down to the choices people make in their lives. Perhaps you want to join me in celebrating real food, starting with a naturally presented whole fish, freshly caught from the water, grilled over fire, and served in its pure form on the dinner table.