I've probably eaten at least 50,000 meals so far in my life. Some have been quite memorable, but of all of them there's really only one that stands out as the "perfect" one. And it's the only meal I really remember from my childhood.
One day my father brought home a few small fish. They were maybe 10 inches long and had a very pointy nose -- he called them "needlefish." i know now that they are commonly known as pike mackerel. He cooked the fish under the broiler in our electric stove. He seasoned them with shoyu, which he preferred over Chinese soy sauce (back then the only brand of shoyu available was Kikkoman), and he put the pot of leftover rice from the day before on the table.
My mom didn't like fish so this was a special meal just for my dad and me. I couldn't have been more than six, but I still remember the wonderful salty crispy skin on the fish and the tasty brown meat. We ate, as we always did when it was just the two of us, with our fingers. He would hold out his hand, palm up, with the fingers together, and tell me that the hand was "the natural fork." And when he ate with his fingers it was very neat. Just a small bit of the rice, with a small piece of fish. I would try and copy his movements so that nothing would fall and be wasted.
Since then I've taught myself how to cook a lot of things. And I've watched many wonderful cooks and listened to them talk about their food. But I've never learned how to grill a fish with shoyu so that it comes out crispy and moist. Maybe I just want to preserve the memory of that day and that one perfect meal with my father.
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