I'm borrowing the title and theme of this blog from one of my favorite travel writers Anthony Bourdain, who writes a great chapter about the distant and discarded association that we, as westerners, make between the food that shows up on our plates and the place it actually comes from. Bourdain does a great, and not to mention graphically grotesque job of illustrating that if you want to get to the heart of food, you must explore how—really how—it actually lands, all daintily garnished in front of you. Ok so this tale won't be quite as extreme as Bourdain's but you'll get the idea.

On the island of Mamitupu, in San Blas I learned that lobster doesn't really come from that green bubbly tank in the supermarket and fish doesn't really live on crushed ice and in a glass case. I met Eskie, an elder member of the Kuna tribe, who wanted to show me just where they did come from. Eskie was a thin, sinewy guy with a visually unavoidable gold canine tooth (see photo). One afternoon, we took off in his long canoe, Eskie dressed in his lobster hunting outfit—a blue mesh tank top, some grey Hanes briefs, and flippers. He paddled me out to a rock formation and tightened his weapon: a yardstick-looking piece of beach wood with a loosely wound wire noose at the end—a device that vaguely resembled a butterfly net without netting. Nearby us in their canoes, some Kuna women did some fishing of their own.

He ran our boat up onto a small island and we swam out off the coast. Once out by the coral, and without warning, Eskie gave a short and screechy war cry, as if to warn the lobsters he was coming, and dove beneath the surface. From my floating snorkel pose, I saw Eskie maneuver down and spike a sea urchin with his lobster getter, then deposit it on the ocean floor, outside the lobster lair. This was to bait the crustacean out, being that apparently, no lobster can resist a good sea urchin.

Eskie arose to the surface and took a gulp of much needed air. He then dove down again this time with authority. Like some sort of possessed Caribbean seal. He propelled his body down and around the coral using his flippers like a tail. Then with the speed and accuracy of a cat, Eskie swept his grabber down into what looked like pure coral darkness. As he bubbled up to the surface I could see that in his hand, clapping and energetic, was a nice sized langosta.

Afterwards, we went fishing for Pargo. In Eskie's canoe, whittled and carved from the trunk of a giant tree, we paddled out. Using a $.15 spool of plastic string and a goldfish-sized hook, we began tempting the fish with bits of river shrimp we had collected earlier that day. Eskie caught several but I had no luck. I think it was because of the line. As the days catch sat flopping around on the bottom of the wooden canoe, the skies started to darken. Slowly and ominously, a cloud formed over us and I experienced one of the worst torrential downpours of my life. Water coming down in blankets, sheets, and duvet covers. After about 15 minutes of enduring the storm we decided to head home. The fish don't bite in the rain anyway.

Back on the island, Eskie got to work. The lobster sat innocently on the wood looking up at us with his beady little lobster eyes, as if to say "why me?" Eskie drove a giant carbon steel blade through the live lobsters spine, splitting in two, the still-pulsating crustation carcass. It died instantly. The thrashing of his tail and quivering of his tentacles suddenly and fatally stopped. I cringed. The fluids from his body pooled on the wooden dock and ran into the ocean. The once apologetic eyes were now blank stares. The two halves were thrown on a fiery red griddle and served with a few neon green moon wedges of fresh lime.

The fish were handled in much the same way: a cleaver-like razor zipping through the breathing flesh, separating the head and body like some sort of deranged autopsy: the dregs brushed aside and into the water to feed the next and perhaps more fortunate member of the food chain. I squinted my eyes. The skin was scraped with the back of the blade as if to clean it of all mortality and wildness. Removing all life. Deep velvet red fish blood and bubbly green lobster entrails ran down the table and onto my feet.

About 15 minutes later I was back at that familiar place. Sitting with my meal in front of me. Though I hadn't actually caught anything myself, I felt a little more informed. A little more aware. I had seen, from start to finish, my meal evolve—there was no ordering off a menu or pointing aimlessly to the fishmonger. I had seen where my food had come from.

As Bourdain'd say, ‘I've seen my food die. It changed me. I didn't feel good about it. It was, in fact, unpleasant and extreme. I felt guilty. A little bit ashamed. I felt bad for the lobster, imagining his panic, pain and fear. But in the end, he tasted delicious.'

View photos from this article

Back to more Panama Reports

Comments (0)

Write comment

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment