Something’s fishy
A prairie girl learns to cook goldeye
Diane Eros
Dealing with fish freaks me out. Beyond the can of tuna, I’ve never been sure how to cook it, cut it, and handle those thin, clear bones. It’s not that fish is difficult to cook with, it’s just that I’m from southeastern Manitoba. I know a lot more about red meat.
My only memory of fishing is this: I was 10, my brother was seven, and it was summer. We thought we should try fishing in the Seine River. On my first cast, my hook snagged a few layers of skin on my brother’s belly. He was yelling and laughing at the same time, as I tugged and pulled. I only realized what had happened when he stopped laughing and was only yelling. There was little blood, no trauma.
Sorry, I shouldn’t ruin your appetite, especially if I’m writing an article about food. How silly.
My point is that I am broadening my horizons and learning about Manitoba fish. I stopped by the Gimli Fish Market on my way home from school. I thought I was going to buy some pickerel but was charmed by the smoked goldeye’s bright red skin (that, as it turns out, is dyed). I bought two and got back onto the Number 60 bus.
Now, maybe it’s because I’m a prairie girl, but I felt out of place on the bus with my fish. I felt as though every passenger knew I had them. They could smell them, I just knew it (even though, I later realized, smoked goldeye doesn’t really smell at all). I wanted to put the bag of fish in my purse, out of mind and away from discerning noses, but it seemed like a disorderly thing to do. You can’t just slip fish into your purse. It would be like talking on the phone while naked, a friend later suggested. It’d be sort of an awkward thing that only you, the perpetrator, know you’ve done.
In spite of my fish-on-the-bus internal crisis, I was glad to have these two little smoked fishes, and I pinched their hard little noses though the wrapping paper, in complicity.
I got home and found out more about goldeye on the Internet. It turns out they are widely found in lakes and deep rivers in the region between Ontario, the Rockies, and Great Slave Lake. Goldeye was not particularly desirable until the late 19th century, when fishermen finally took the local aboriginals’ advice and smoked the fish on oak fires, significantly improving the taste.
Since then, goldeye has been considered a delicacy. According to the Oceans and Fisheries Canada website, the goldeye population was nearly wiped by the 1920s by overfishing. Today goldeye is commercially fished on the North and South Saskatchewan River in Manitoba as well as in Saskatchewan. The fish is almost exclusively processed here in Winnipeg.
I didn’t find much information about using smoked goldeye in recipes, so I modified a recipe that calls for smoked salmon. It is a smoked goldeye tartare and it is easy to make. Goldeye is a fairly mild fish compared to salmon, but it is rather fatty in texture. The lemon juice contrasts nicely, making the tartare fresh and crisp.
