Story time, I often shop at a local farmer's market where they sell live fish that you have to purchase whole. One day, I asked them to clean two fish for me. Following the lead of a Eastern European gentleman in front of me, I told them to clean it but keep everything for me, including the fish heads. When they passed the bag of fish to me though, it felt way too light, so I opened my bag right there and realized the heads were gone. I had to ask again and the guy in the back had to fetch my fish heads from the discard bin (just filled with fish parts, nothing dirty or contaminated).
That got me thinking, if I were to forgo the heads, I would have paid for 6lbs of fish only to take home maybe 4 lbs. The two heads (huge!) would make a big meal for me and my husband. It's buffalo carps so their heads are big if that makes sense. The thing is, I'm not even doing it for the sake of bring frugal. Growing up in Southeast Asia, that's what everyone ate back home! It's actually like a delicacy. Sometimes my mom would even ask the fish lady at the market to save her some extra heads if someone else didn't want it, so that we don't have to fight over it at dinner.
Here in the midwest though, it probably sounds like an outrageous idea to others. In fact, at that fish stall, I have only seen mainly people of different ethnicities buying from them. Not to sound stereotypical, but some midwestern born and raised guys even came to ask me why I didn't feel bad for the fish, which was alive and swimming until I bought it. Anyhow, that's another story.
Is there anything that you learned growing up, either from your family, or from where you are, without realizing that it is a frugal thing?
July 20, 2018 at 02:49PM
