The Way Home by Mark Boyle

Author:Mark Boyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2019-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

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As the pike lies dead on the butcher’s block, fierce and beautiful and ancient and strong, I remember the moment I killed him. He was flipping around on the grass, tired but still fighting hard, his eye – the one that I could see – fully alive with none of the fear you might expect. Of all the wild creatures of Ireland, the pike is one of those I’m least concerned about killing. Still, taking the life of another creature – especially one so wild and free as this – should only ever be done with the reluctance of one who needs to eat.

The pike had displayed no such civilised sentimentality as he pounced on what he thought was another fish at the end of my invisible line. A fatal error of judgement. Instead of getting food, he was becoming food. I tried to keep this in mind as I held him on the cold stone, before whacking him over the head – once, twice, three times – until his eye opened up with that enlightened look of one who suddenly understands something no living creature knows, or can ever know.

Squeezing the underside of the pike gently, the remains of his previous dinners squidge their way out of his anal opening, from which I slit him all the way to the gills. His internal organs come out easily. I feel something hard in his intestines and, curious, I cut them open to discover a small piece of gravel. These guts will be an offering to the local wildlife later.

With two angled cuts behind the gills, off comes the head, before I work my way through the fins. All of this offal goes into a pot, along with his innards and the scales I’ve scraped off, and will soon be cooked on the rocket stove before being left to stew in a hay box, where it will slowly become chowder. Brains, bones, fins, skin, heart, eyes – potent stuff. I cut his body into steaks, keeping the liver for the pan – there will be more than enough for myself and the five others who live on the smallholding.

The pike soup is thick. I’m no scientist, and have no desire to be, but as I drink the first cup my body tells me it is packed with nutrition and goodness. It couldn’t not be. In the old times this bone and offal soup would be passed around from neighbour to neighbour, each boiling it up and getting a turn out of it. But those were the days before easy come, easy go. Now even some of my friends who are local food advocates won’t eat it. Too fishy, they say.

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