Got Fish?

On the second day, I traumatized my little brother.

I picked up my 16-year old brother Anatole from the Casablanca airport and we immediately took the train south to the fabled city of Marrakesh.

A friend of mine owns a beautiful riad in the medina there (Riad Al-Jana, 6 Derb Si Mustapha), an oasis of beauty, style, comfort and elegance in the midst of Marrakesh’s incredibly busy and chaotic narrow alleyways. And the meals are sumptuous banquets. In fact, I threatened to run off with the cook, lol.

So Anatole, naturally, was feeling pretty good about life, and when we took a chauffeured Land Cruiser the two and a half hours down to Safi on the coast, he had no reason to suspect a thing. Hehe.

Visiting a fishing port for the first time can be an interesting experience for anyone. But for a vegetarian?

We bought this big fish (I forget the name) to bring back to the riad, and spent a good 20 minutes watching the fishermen expertly carve it out, cutting out its eyeballs, scooping out entrails, skinning the inedible parts, ripping out its teeth. Anatole, already pretty pale from a long winter in Iowa, made it to a nice shade of green.

Then they started on the shark…

For lunch, we had fresh fried fish, while Anatole stuck to vegetables. Nonetheless, I felt it was my duty and the proper brotherly thing to do to get him better acquainted with the local sea life:

I’m so thoughtful like that.