a1678: "Pisket" - Jeremie Fish (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jean-Marie Florestal <sonice1953@yahoo.com>

Curious about “Pisket,” Jeremie Fish

Growing up in Jeremie, the summer months would bring a
delicacy to our daily diet. Lamentably, the harvest
season lasted about a week only. This delicacy is
about dozens of very small fish that filled our plates
the same way that rice does, except that the fish is
approximately four to six times bigger than a grain of
rice. We called it in Creole “Pisket.” I have found it
frozen in oriental supermarkets in Miami, as an import
from China, under at least two names. One of them is
Silver Fish. Lately, the same frozen box is labeled
Anchovies. Because of the major difference in size –
anchovies are much bigger - I have serious doubts
about “Pisket” being the same anchovies used as pizza
topping. But, what puzzled me about the fish is its
supply pattern.

The night before the fish is available, there would be
severe thunderstorms with blinding lightning and heavy
rain. Sure enough, the following day, we could hear
those welcoming voices from women street vendors
announcing that our favorite dish is there for sale.
By the time it is no longer available, the town would
have consumed billions of them. According to the
fishermen, pisket is caught in coffee-bag-like nets at
the estuary of the Grand’Anse river, and has a gray
silvery color. It is available about three to four
periods of time per year, during the summer time.
Because it shows up overnight, my guess is that the
fish is newly born on the first day of availability in
the river. The first batch of them is bigger than the
last ones of the harvest season. They tend to be
whiter after cooking on the first days, while
gradually becoming grayer and smaller on their last
harvest days.

Let me describe the effect on the townspeople of
Jeremie the first day that pisket appears each year.
The presence of the fish brings an atmosphere of
festivities to town. Though I have no scientific
statistical data on it, I estimate that about 75% of
households in Jeremie eat “pisket” on the first day it
is available. It usually replaces the meat and fish in
our diet. I could imagine that for the butchers during
 “pisket” season, this was as low as business could
get. Sales of beef, pork, goat and fish, an important
part of the Jeremian’s daily diet, besides rice and
beans, would be reduced to strict minimum. We ate
“pisket” with almost everything. We ate it as a meat
substitute for the main meal of the day, lunch, or
with bread, cassava, and some times at night with
rice. It is not unusual to find it on the breakfast
table. As Jeremians did it, sometimes it was difficult
to differentiate the meals we ate by the time we
consumed them.

Pisket was sold by the cup. The sellers, mostly women,
carried them on their heads, in recycled five-gallon
aluminum container filled with water that originally
packed olive oil. The women used a twisted and rounded
towel between their heads and the container as shock
absorber. They walked miles to carry the fish to their
market. Because it was perishable, most of the pisket
is sold in residential neighborhoods. Sellers brought
with the sellers passing in front of the houses
calling at the top of their lungs, Pisket, Pisket,
Pisket… Usually, only the salted and dried pisket,
called “tablet pisket,” is sold in the open air
market. The cooking is like most fish with plenty of
seasoning and hot pepper. Though the hot pepper and
plenty of olive oil could discourage many, to the
town's people, the dish, as cooked, brought cheers to
their lives.

The explanations given on the origin of “Pisket” when
I was growing up in Jeremie never satisfied me. Some
claimed the fish was harvested at the adult stage.
That explanation is inconsistent with the sudden
appearance of it in the water. Others believed it came
from water condensation in the air. After watching TV
documentaries on the salmon migratory and reproduction
patterns here in the U.S., I wonder if there is not a
fish in Jeremie, with similar mode of reproduction,
that spawns “Pisket.” If so, what is the name of that
fish? If not, can any biologist on the list provide
the explanation?


Jean-Marie


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