W1: My shame.

As a product of two parents with little available time for preparing meals and even less available knowledge regarding how to prepare them, I typically relish food of any kind. I cannot recall any childhood dishes that force me to recoil in nostalgic pain. I can, however, remember years of shame brought on by one of my darkest vices: canned, stinky fish. From popularly accepted canned tuna and salmon to infamous choices like sardines and anchovies, I love them all.

As a child, I found traditional lunch meats like bologna and turkey boring and lacking in flavor, pungent or otherwise. I found that a serving of chunky tuna with mayonnaise and a slice of tomato, however, provided a unique, mild flavor and a sensual fishy odor that made my nostrils dance. I was amazed by how intense and savory anchovies could make a pizza. I also appreciated the way sardines canned in mustard or hot sauce saved me the trouble of adding a condiment and admired their potential practicality as non-perishable staples when preparing for a nuclear winter.

I found, however, that a genuine appreciation of smelly fish—even middle-of-the-road options like tuna—aroused levels of suspicion and deep-seated resentment comparable only to that of McCarthy era whistle blowers. Claims to “like the taste” or “not mind the smell” seemed to provide an insufficient argument for daring to consume anything out of a tin. Fellow students made jabs at my post-lunchtime breath. Adults thought my taste for fish was an affectation or a desperate bid for attention. After requesting anchovies on my allotted quarter of our family pizza at a restaurant, waitresses would inevitably raise their eyebrows and glance at my parents as if to ask, “Did you hear what your son just said? Does he kiss his grandmother with that mouth?”

Despite my trials, I never ended my affair with canned fish. At one point I became eligible for my school’s free lunch program, and even then I would trade my meals for a friend’s daily ration of tuna salad and crackers. The two of us came to value our unique lunchtime transactions and maintained a long, healthy business relationship. Still, underneath my companion’s fair dealing and begrudging friendliness, I suspected that he, too, recognized me as a canned fish sympathizer not to be trusted. I knew that, like the North Pole-patterned Beach Cliff lighthouse, I would stand alone, forever, on the shores of Sardine Isle.

"...and if you gaze into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cattle_class/