Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

Onion and sausages and lovely salad and cans of soft drink make up the
picnic meal. I love the kitchen’s tomato salad and as only a few appreciate
it, then it is all the more for me.
Back at CTC I visit Peter at Property because I received a call to collect
thongs and my special socks that Peter Hartung had brought with him on
his Saturday visit with Christopher and David. I ask him about the carp
because he is a local and he will know what is to be done with them. He
advises they are fine to eat, a bit muddy because they feed on the bottom of
the river and scoop up the mud. ‘It is a bit of an acquired taste but it is fine
to eat’, he says, ‘but be generous about cutting off the head and tail’.
I follow instructions, yet again! I come up with four lots of three fillets, and so
I place two lots in Gladwrap in the freezer. I prepare the others for the
evening’s meal. Huey’s help comes in handy, perhaps because he is a
Vietnamese chef. He shows me how to make criss-cross cuts and place
lemongrass and salt into the groves, then heat up the wok. All the while I see
fellows sneaking about, glancing suspiciously into the kitchenette, wondering
if I am contaminating the place and the wok by preparing the fish. Bingo, in
time crispy pieces of European carp are ready to be devoured.
Abdul readily accepts the piece I offer. As I sit with my cell door open a
fellow looks in. I offer him a little too. He looks around to see that no-one
is witnessing this moment, takes the piece and munches on it, not fainting
or vomiting but smiling. With a ‘Yea, that’s OK’ he hurries out of my cell.
The next evenings I prepare the pieces myself. I am pleased with the lot.
The other fellow who was in on this matter resides in a cottage and I never
get around to sharing the fish with him. A few days later when I bump into
him, I remind him of the carp but he did not mind in the least that he had
missed out on eating European carp.
Later I hear that there are some Vietnamese who fish for carp regularly and
prepare them well and even sell them. The secret lies in the preparation, as
Peter informed me. ‘Prepare it right and you’ll eat anything!’, he says. I
think that is what cooking is all about – but I still shy away from tripe, no
matter how well disguised it comes on the dinner plate. Preparation is the
key. Does this include deception as well?
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