【September】"Salt-Grilled Pacific Saury Set Meal" Scented with Memories of Autumn
Whenever the saury season arrived, it was my job to bring the charcoal grill out into the garden and cook. I handled the gutting, too. I’d cook newly-harvested rice in a clay pot, make miso soup (as best I could, anyway,) and decorate the table with Japanese pampas grass to complete our special autumn feast. We would open the windows and listen to the bell crickets; enjoying the moon not with dumplings, but with freshly grilled saury. That was the autumn tradition for my wife and me.
But the person who would praise me, saying, "Only you can get it just right, dear," was no longer here. I tried grilling it once to offer at the family altar, but watching over the charcoal fire all alone in the garden was so depressing that I never did it again. Instead, when I’d get a craving for saury, I’d go to the Yayoi Ken in the neighborhood. That was my autumn now.
"…Isn't saury bitter?"
The question snapped me back to reality.
Sitting before me was not my wife, but my ten-year-old granddaughter. She had come to stay at my house by herself for the weekend, but she did nothing but fiddle with her smartphone. Swallowing the scolding that was about to burst out, I asked her what she wanted for dinner, and she replied with a single word: "Hamburg steak."
It’s not that I couldn't make it, but I doubted my cooking was what she was looking for. I happened to be craving a Salt-Grilled Saury Set Meal myself. Seizing the chance, I took her out to Yayoi Ken. Perhaps feeling awkward about me eating in silence, my granddaughter had finally spoken up.
"That little bit of bitterness is the good part, isn't it?"
When I laughed, my granddaughter tilted her head. If saury is prepped properly, the bitterness actually enhances the sweetness of the fatty meat. You can always trust Yayoi Ken to get that right. I can tell they always handle the saury with care; the skin is crisp, and the meat is fluffy. They serve it grilled, and always at the right temperature. It rivals even the saury I used to grill. That is why I come to eat here every year.
But my granddaughter wouldn’t want to hear all that, so I didn’t say it. Instead, my granddaughter watched my hands with admiration as I silently picked the meat from the fish.
"The bones are so clean, like in a drawing."
My granddaughter asked if she could take a picture of my saury, which I had eaten clean leaving only the head and tail. I was taken aback, but I had no reason to refuse. After she took a few shots, I noticed that her cheeks, as she fiddled with her smartphone, were flushed a tangerine color. When they were having fun or feeling happy, both my wife and my daughter used to show their excitement just like that.
"Look, it already got a 'Like'."
On the smartphone screen my granddaughter thrust at me was the photo of the saury I had finished eating. A small red heart was dancing above it. I laughed, not really understanding what it was about, and my granddaughter grinned broadly back at me.
Her smile, the first she had shown since arriving at my house, overlapped with the image of my wife. That’s right... I should buy some pampas grass on the way home. Even without the moon, with these round, tangerine-colored cheeks here, I’m sure my wife would be pleased.
Story: Momo Tachibana Illustration: Mog Hatakeyama