You are what you eat. Sometimes.
Recently, I had a yummy dinner the likes of which I haven’t had for perhaps 50 years.
It was fried aku bones.
Yep, many families used to dine on aku bones when available. No, you don’t eat the skeletal remains, but you’d nibble on the flesh of the bones of fish, which were seasoned with salt and pepper and served as a casual meal.
You were able to buy uncooked aku bones at your neighborhood market; if it sold aku filet, it would have had the aku bones – remnants of the fish – the home chefs would buy and then serve. Ono stuff.
But I don’t know how long ago that markets pulled the plug on aku bones. After all, it’s supposed to be a discarded item. If they’re still sold, it must be a regional secret.
But my nephew, who was on a mission to purchase aku filets at Tamashiro Market in Palama, noticed the availability of aku bones. He managed to score enough and save some for me.
These bones were simply wrapped up in a market’s pink paper, and given to regular customers. I mean, come on, you can’t buy/sell steak bones, so why can you sell aku bones?
Folks of a certain vintage will remember aku bones. You’d have to grab the bones with your fingers cuz you couldn’t use a knife and fork to cut the flesh off the fish, since there wasn’t much on the bone. Yet if you had two or three of these critters, you had a meal in the old days.
After salt and peppering – you could add a dash of garlic – you simply fried till it was koge – blackened or charred – and some folks deep-fried the aku bones. White rice wouldn’t have been the only other component you’d need to have a feast. Since the bone would be a hand-held item, a musubi would have been the perfect partner.
Then you’d suck away, till every morsel of the aku flesh would be slurped and consumed. But eating the aku bones required some skill and caution, because the bones were sharp and subject to poke and wound you. So you’d have to learn to use your tongue to navigate. Honest!
This all might sound gross and disgusting, but if you have elders in your household, ask ‘em about aku bones. It was an incredible edible, only consumed at home. You’d never serve it to guests at your dinner table and you’re never find it on a restaurant menu. But if you remember and treasured aku bones, you’d never forget ‘em.
So: If you’re a fan of fried aku bones, share your memories here.