On my last day in Korea last week we had a delicious Korean barbecue with all the trimmings, all washed down with a glass or two of Cass beer (pretty rubbish Korean beer). Towards the end of the meal the waitress brought across an innocent looking slab of fish which I recognised as skate and plonked it down on the table. My colleague said “ah you must try this” so I tucked in and grabbed a large portion with my chopsticks.

The moment it touched my tongue it almost reappeared on the plate, my mouth and nose were filled with an intense putrid taste of ammonia, as if the whole slab of fish had been dunked into a dirty urinal and left there for about two weeks. I gulped it down my throat without chewing and downed my glass of beer, immediately demanding a refill. My colleagues all laughed and tucked in, explaining that the fish was fermented, which I think is posh talk for rotten. “Do you actually like it” I asked, “no, not at all” one of them said, gulping it down, “I am the only one in my family who can bear this” another said. Why on earth bother then?

I asked them more about it in the car on the way back, breathing through my mouth the whole time and repeatedly rinsing my mouth with mineral water to get rid of the lingering smell/taste, I just didn’t get it, why have a lovely meal and then spoil it at the end, is this some guilt thing creeping in where they feel bad about enjoying the food and have to spoil it in some way? They laughed at my comments, one of the girls said that her father really enjoys eating it but his mother won’t let him into the house when he comes back from the restaurant because of the smell. Then one of them pointed out that we eat things in the west that are just as bad, we eat blue cheese which tastes of pungent mould. He’s got a point I guess!

Dingle Science Spot!!

The skate is a member of the shark family and deals with urine in an unusual way – through the skin. Urine contains urea which breaks down to ammonia when the fish is dead