What Culinary Delights Follow Shark?

Photo by Laurent Guiader, 2006.

Some of you may recall mention of our tasting shark unbeknownst to us whilst on this fair island. By us, I mean Sophie. And the guilty party was Laurent. A few weekends ago, we ventured a bit further. While on Ile des Pins, we decided to partake of the lovely dish buried in the ground above: bougna. Bougna is one of the Kanaks' traditional feast dishes. It generally contains taro, yam, sweet potato, banana and either pieces of chicken, fish, crab or lobster. All of this is wrapped in banana leaves and buried to cook in the ground under hot coals. Above, our Kanak friends are uncovering the meal we later ate, below.

Photo by Laurent Guiader, 2006.

New Caledonian Cuisine

Admittedly, due to having more time and enjoying a more relaxed atmosphere here on the island (which was untouched by the rumoured tsunami of last week - thank you, Tonga!), I have come to cook more often than in Paris. But I have not been cooking traditional New Caledonian fare - I suppose largely because I have been learning how to bake cheesecakes, roast sweet potatoes, and barbecue pineapple and mango skewers dipped in coconut -- all things that we have the ingredients for and everyone in the family likes. From time to time, I have tried a few New Caledonian recipes (found in the backs of TV guides next to pet tips and Sudoku), but I have not mastered one I could tell you about ...

Laurent, however, did manage to serve up a New Caledonian dish just a few nights ago, however. Our neighbour had given him some fish that he had been barbecuing: Laurent was only too thrilled to cook it up in a coconut sauce that night. It looked delicious, it must be said, but I let Laurent and Sophie share it out. When all was safely chewed and swallowed, he asked Sophie if she liked the fish. "Yes, good," she said. "Do you know what it was?" A wave of panic flashed through Sophie's eyes. "Oh no ... Laurent - you didn't ..." Yes, he did: he cooked up something Sophie and I would not normally eat, probably, and called it fish.

Turns out it was this.
The neighbour had caught six of them in the bay just outside our door that weekend. Six black tip sharks. Happily swimming around our bay. How's that for local cuisine?