The soul of the snoek

Snoek is an important food fish and provides a livelihood for many people around our shores. It is also loved and loathed in equal measure – for some folk, there is nothing better than braaied snoek; for others, it’s the worst kind of seafood and practica

Every year, massive shoals of snoek migrate down the West Coast of South Africa. Their arrival is eagerly awaited by the local communities. Typically in the early winter months, the snoek appear and the boats take to the water. Scores of snoek ski-boats – deep hulled, with powerful engines – arrive overnight in the coastal villages closest to where the snoek are sighted. For the next few weeks there is frenzied activity and excitement during the snoek run. At sunrise fishermen brave the stormy seas and head out in search of the snoek. The sound of boat hulls pounding against the swell can be heard from the shore kilometres away.

In the afternoon, the boats return to harbour, holds filled with snoek and engines on full throttle. The race is on – the first boats back fetch the best prices for their catch. Later in the day, as more boats arrive, the price per snoek drops steadily. It is very much a supply and demand phenomenon.

What happens next is quite extraordinary. The ski-boats pull up alongside the quay and the snoek are auctioned per boatload to the highest bidder, by way of an idiosyncratic process. The skipper initiates the procedure by suggesting a price, per snoek, for the boatload. The crew then pick up the offers from the quayside bidders by chanting the best price per snoek so far: ‘Ek het ’n tien’ (I have a ten – i.e. I have an offer of 10 rands), and discrete signals are exchanged between the langanas (snoek hawkers) and the skipper, until the final price is settled.

Once the deal is closed the snoek are unceremoniously flung out of the boat onto the jetty. Have a look at the expressions on their faces – they don’t like this at all. After that, they are gutted and salted before being packed onto the back of a bakkie and driven to the suburbs of Cape Town to be sold at the roadside.

… The next time you come across a snoek, don’t pass it by. Stop and have a good look. Of course, I am not talking about the filleted and packaged, unpatriotic, imported supermarket variety. I’m referring rather to the real thing – a fresh, head-on complete West Coast snoek. To be obtained either in a fish shop or preferably from a hawker’s roadside bakkie. Pick it up if you can, for a close encounter. Particularly, scrutinise its human-like face. It tells the story of a Great Injustice. The stubborn, protruding jaw and downturned mouth express surprise, sadness, resignation… Those huge eyes seem to be appealing, attempting to convey something. Peer back, through the eye and into the soul of the snoek and discover your own inner snoek.

What is the Great Injustice? ... It has to do with the injustice of Life itself: the realisation that, for one creature to survive it needs to sustain itself by devouring other life forms. So, while on the one hand we cherish life and go to great lengths to preserve it, on the other we are hard-wired to eat other animals. In fact, we go to great lengths to capture, select and farm animals for the sole purpose of slaughtering and eating them – and that is just the way it is.

A visit to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park with my brother-in-law brought this home to me graphically. Two events from that trip stand out. The first was witnessing a hawk relentlessly attacking another, injured hawk. I have no idea what the argument was about. The injured hawk, with a broken wing, was sprawled helplessly on the ground while the attacker launched assault after assault with the obvious purpose of killing it. There was no noise. No screeching or squawking. And the victim displayed no emotion – no anger or fear. I’ll never forget the doomed hawk’s expression. The second event involved a cheetah chasing and killing a young

springbok. Once again, it was the silence that struck me. When the springbok was captured, the moment before its death it had the same expression – acceptance, resignation. Both dying animals had the ‘snoek look’.

…

The eyes of the snoek are sad and appealing. But also, I like to think, knowing and understanding, perhaps recognising our shortcomings as a species and that we too are caught up as bystanders in something that is existentially imperative but morally indefensible. Whereas we have succeeded in overriding many of our basic instincts, we have not been able to stop eating animals. Thus, while society has criminalised physical and sexual assault within our own species, at the same time we allow, and indeed embrace, the killing of other creatures. While a few admirable individuals are able to defy their predatory instincts – most notably the ethical vegans – the rest of us mortals succumb and feel only vaguely uncomfortable about doing so, by relying on the remarkable powers of our psychological defences.

What if, one day, Life was removed from our diet? One way of this happening would be if enough people were able to suppress their carnivoristic cravings to swing a majority vote for the herbivores. This is what happened with smoking, where gradually, over many years, public opinion shifted as the numbers of nonsmokers increased and smoking bans were introduced in public places. Frankly, I do not foresee that there will be a time when vegetarians become the majority.

Rather, I see science and technology providing the solution – by the in-vitro production of meat on an industrial scale, with the central nervous system, and consequently Life, taken out of the equation. Indeed, the first cultured hamburger patty was produced in 2013. While not yet able to compete with a Big Mac for taste and affordability (it costs over R4 million), the challenges associated with improving flavour, as well as with upscaling production and cost reduction, are no doubt being addressed by food scientists around the world right now. Indeed, Memphis Meats, backed by Bill Gates and Richard Branson, is developing a method of producing beef, chicken and duck without the need to raise animals for slaughter. In the meantime, we continue to catch snoek.

The point is, I get the feeling that the snoek, looking at us, sees our shortcomings and, like Mandela, forgives us. In any event, that’s what I like to think. It’s also the reason why I choose not to braai a snoek with its head on.

Excerpts from Snoek on the Couch. Order it from Print Matters Heritage (printmatters. co.za) for R325 – all proceeds go to research to benefit West Coast fishermen.