by Katerina Nikolas

Created on: January 18, 2010   Last Updated: May 01, 2012

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every Greek woman is born knowing how to gut and scale a fish. Within a small Greek fishing community being unable to automatically gut a fish or lay an olive net properly beneath a tree is nothing less than incompetence.  Coming from a country where I either purchased fish from a fish monger who would do all the nasty messy bits as second nature, or even sometimes buying it from the chill cabinet ready filleted, suddenly finding myself amidst the world of fish gutting came as a surprise.

I could of course ask the fishmonger at the fish market away up in town to do it for me, if I chose to purchase fish there. Although I live by the sea fish is an expensive purchase, as the price is regulated by the sea police. Even if I did succumb to the expense of this it would necessitate driving immediately home with the smell of fish lingering in the car for the next month. Anyway this place is full of fish thieves and it’s not really a safe purchase to leave in ones car. I recall one time having a bag of small fish on the floor of the car, stopping for a moment to pop into a shop, and finding a cat exiting the car through the window with a fish in its mouth.  

However, within the local fishing village I have a number of fisherman friends, who quite often gift a fish to me, or a bag of the things. One of the most common fish in the area is known as ‘kuynegos’ which translates as grey striped mullet. These like to eat squid as bait which has to be caught first to tempt the fish. This is done on moonless nights when the squid are more liable to bite. Naturally I am totally appreciative of such gifts, as the catch will be fresh from the sea and is guaranteed to taste perfect, but, and there’s a big but, I need to gut and scale the thing.  

A fisherman explained the process to me and I duly took the first fine looking fish home and armed myself with a knife. His instructions had been perfectly clear. Clean the scales from the fish with a sharp knife. I held the fish and attempted to scale it only to find it wouldn not keep still, though I could have sworn the thing was dead. However, careful scraping against the grain removed most of the scales and I was on my way.

The hard part comes without doubt with the gutting of the fish. For this messy proceedure it is advisable to don some rubber gloves. Again the instructions are quite straight forward. Insert a knife

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