The Escolar Escapade

Tuesday night, when my writing organs were all constipated and absolutely no creative thoughts were flowing through the pipes whatsoever, I did what any other writer would do when suffering from stubborn writer's block. I walked over to my neighbor's house, commandeered a rocking chair on their front porch, and drank a few of their beers while we shared stories of past episodes of violent gastric distress. I have no idea how we got started on this topic, but I think it may have been when Lawyer Boy reminded everyone of that time that I threw up everything that I had eaten in the past decade after a run-in with some particularly ferocious red-headed sluts.

In the course of trying to one-up each other with the most ridiculous Hurricane Colon story of the night, I brought forth the Escolar Escapade, a harrowing tale of what a fish called escolar will bring forth in your person (or rather, out of your person), should you choose to feast on its flesh. Erin, Edward, and LB unanimously declared the story so insane that they demanded I share it with all of you. It's part tale of intestinal pyrotechnics at their best, and part dire public service warning. Read on, for your own health.

One night a few months before I got married, while I was living with Mom and Dad, Dad brought home a huge paper package of fish from the local fishmonger (I could not resist using that word). He said it was called escolar, and it was a thick, white fish that none of us had tried before. He had been amazed that it was for sale on the cheap, but Freddy Fishmonger had assured him that it was just on special, and it was quite delicious--in other words, it wasn't on sale because it was weird and no one was buying it. Really.

Well, all of us are dedicated foodies, so we were delighted to have a new fish to try. Mom and I pulled together some side dishes; retrospectively, we should have cooked things that we thought we might never want to eat again after that night. Dad cooked the fish simply, as Fishmonger had instructed him to: Drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with a little salt and pepper, and broiled. We set the table with high hopes and hungry anticipation, topped off our wine glasses, and laid into the platter of fish. I had gone for a run just before dinner, and so was interested in eating an obscene amount of food, the amount most commonly seen on a linebacker's cafeteria tray; Dad is 5'11 and 185 pounds, so he chunked off a sizeable portion of escolar, too. Mom, who is apparently a culinary clairvoyant, took only the recommended portion for one person. We began to eat.

Even though I know all too well and all too painfully what would come to pass after the escolar dinner, thinking of how good that fish was makes my mouth water even now. It was the best fish I'd ever had. It was thick and juicy, buttery and supple, without any greasiness at all. Cooked with just the oil, salt, and pepper, it had only a mild fish flavor, and had a wonderful, bacon-y richness to it. We were all blown away by how good it was. So cheap, and the best fish we'd ever had! The best fish we'd ever had, and yet we'd never seen it on a restaurant menu! Never heard other foodies rave about it! How did no one else know the gourmet glory they were missing?

Apparently, everyone else had Googled escolar before they actually ate it, which was why they never ate it. Having not consulted the Google-y gods before dinner, we were unaware of the consequences of our actions, so Dad and I went back for seconds. Maybe thirds. Maybe we licked the platter, and fought over who got to nibble the remaining bitlets off the serving fork. It might have happened, is all I'm saying.

We cleaned up dinner, still raving about our fantastic fish find, still totally innocent to the horror that lurked right around the corner like an evil, greasy goblin.

Dad said later that he had started to feel nauseated about half an hour after dinner, so he took some Alka-Seltzer and went to bed. I didn't start feeling funky till right when I got into bed, but I chalked it up to the fact that I had overeaten like a piggy little puppy at an All-You-Can-Chow Pedigree buffet. I was nauseated, but unfortunately, not so much that I felt I couldn't go in to work the next day.

The next morning dawned as usual, and I wandered into the bathroom. What happened next was so beyond horrifying that it's difficult to describe without sending you running for the hills, with images worse than Britney Spears On Ice burned into your brain.

Unbeknownst to me the previous night, when I had tried to cram as much escolar into my mouth in the shortest amount of time possible, escolar is equivalent to eating a big, delicious, meaty laxative. Large portions of its flesh are completely indigestible, leaving your body with no choice but to turn itself into a loaded machine gun, expelling fish-fat with a force commensurate with actual warfare.

And this is no ordinary gastric warfare. The enemy fights dirty in this battle, and please bear in mind when I say what I'm about to say, that I am trying to be polite. When escolar begins to fire using you as the barrel of the gun, the end result looks like you opened a can of Orange Crush and poured it directly into the bowl of the toilet. All of it. Think for a second about the ensuing panic.

Escolar causes a condition called Kerriorrhoea, which is Hawaiian for "diarrhea Bazooka." It involves huge amounts of orange oil and worst of all, a slight inability to control its arrival. It also involves hiding in the bathroom all day, staying home from work, and trying to find a feminine way to explain to your girlfriends that you can't go on that weekend road trip you had planned, for fear of ruining the upholstery of the car.

The above-mentioned leakage actually happened to someone I know. I am not naming names, but he was half responsible for the miracle of life that was the birth of Grace.

On the upside, the effects of escolaritis will have leaked out of your system in around a day. On the downside, you'll never want to drink Orange Crush again.

But years later, you will still be thinking of how damn delicious that fish was.