Extreme Seafood Exposure Therapy
A creative experiment in confronting fear and discomfort
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There are not many sources of conflict in my marriage.
My wife, Debbie, does not like it when I call her "Dorby," for example. (I will never understand why - it's obviously an amazing nickname.)
Pretty minor. However, we each have a major food group that we cannot tolerate, and it can occasionally lead to weirdness.
Dorby does not eat eggs. No fried eggs. No scrambled eggs. No omelettes. No quiches. Nothing. I happen to love eggs.
And I don't eat seafood. It's all so slimy and wet and scaly and clammy and... fishy. It makes my skin crawl. Dorby happens to love seafood.
I know fish is good for you. Also, it is always embarrassing to have to tell people that I don't like seafood when menus are being planned or group orders are being done. Everyone else in my family loves sushi, and I always end up with chicken teriyaki.
Once, knowing my seafood phobia, my friend Jenny booked a group dinner at a place where they cover your table in plastic and dump crabs and other seafood all over the place. And then you tear the seafood apart with your hands and eat it. I still have PTSD (post-traumatic seafood dread).
The Invitation
So when a friend of mine sent me a link to a cooking class called Ocean Fling, I recoiled in horror. It is billed as "The Ultimate Seafood Class." Cooking and eating multiple courses of nothing but seafood is pretty much my worst nightmare. However, I also knew Dorby would love to do an evening like that. I sat on it for a few days and made a big decision.
I signed us both up for the class with our friends and gave it to Dorby as a Christmas present. And since the day she opened it, I dreaded the approaching Seafood Overload Evening. I had visions of dry heaving in front of strangers, or running out of the room to empty my mouth into a hidden spit bucket.
As it approached, I decided to confront my long-held fear. What if I could actually learn to enjoy seafood? I am so old, would it even be possible to make a dietary change in my life? The only way to find out was to lean into... Extreme Seafood Exposure Therapy.
The School of Fish
We showed up and there were about twenty people in the class. Everyone was very excited about an entire evening - course after course after course - of nothing but seafood. I staved off a panic attack and tried to act calm and collected.
On the menu...
Course 1: Halibut cheeks and poached prawns.
Course 2: Tuna tartare.
Course 3: Arctic Char with a vegetable nage.
The chef teaching the class was fantastic. He told us very specifically how to do all the steps and did a demo version of each dish before sending us off to our own stations to cook the dish ourselves.
Course 1: Halibut & Poached Prawns.
As we headed into the first course, I was grateful to have specific tasks to focus on. I seasoned the halibut, coated them in flour, and was heating up a pan coated in oil when I hit a roadblock.
I had to peel the shells off the slimy prawns, and then make a little knife incision down the back of the prawn so that I could find and remove... the digestive tract full of prawn poop. It was a stringy, slimy prawny poop booger. So gross. However, I stayed focused, removed the poop boogers, and moved on to the next steps.
Soon the halibut was pan-seared and the prawns were poached and plated beautifully. Off to eat course 1.
Thankfully, I was with fun people and it was a great distraction. Suddenly, I looked down and I had eaten two halibut cheeks! (I might have been "generous" and donated a prawn to Dorby...) Then back to the kitchen.
Course 2: Tuna Tartare.
RAW tuna. A lot of raw tuna. We were each presented with a big Yellow Fin Tuna steak, which we cubed, marinated, and plated on top of a frozen avocado slab. Very quickly, I was back in the dining room, staring directly at this:
I gingerly tried the raw tuna... and with the strong marinade flavours, I honestly kind of enjoyed it. What was happening???
Course 3: Arctic Char.
This was tough for me. The skin was still on the fish. It was really slimy and wet. I hate scales, the metallic colour, and everything else about fish skin. We had to de-slime the fish by patting it down with paper towels - that’s how slimy it was. So gross. I really seasoned the crap out of it - there was a lot of salt and pepper, and there was a lot of butter in the pan. I decided to pull the skin off before eating it.
Back to the dining room. Was it my favourite dish of the night? No. Did I eat it all and deal with it without drama? I did!
Something’s Fishy
How did I not just survive, but actually open myself up to having more seafood in the future? What dark sorcery took place in that fishy kitchen? Here are my post-exposure therapy insights…
I had a job to do. I had to do new things in a very specific way. I had to pay attention to multiple moving pieces at the same time. I was fully present in the moment making these dishes.
I was doing something new and uncomfortable.
All these things kind of put me in a flow state. Seriously. I was in flow cooking the things that I loathed the most.
I was with other great people who knew how uncomfortable the whole night was for me, which made it funny for all of us.
This all meant I was having fun. That made a big difference.
But here's the secret that I only realized the next day. Why was I even open to eating this stuff that fills my nightmares? There is only one reason.
I made it.
I made that food and the process of making it was extremely satisfying.
Just like any creative act that you avoid because it's hard and uncomfortable - whether it's writing or drawing or performing or anything else - I sucked it up and dug in. And once I started, it was really fun. Soon, I had something I had made and put effort and creativity into sitting in front of me on a plate. Was I really not going to eat it?
Leaning into uncomfortable things makes magic.
I'm going to take this lesson of Seafood Exposure Therapy and start trying it in other areas of my life where I'm uncomfortable.
Creative Prompts
What’s something you’ve decided that you hate?
At what age and why did you decide you hated it?
What would it be like to experience it again? What’s the worst thing that would happen?
How would your life be different if you actually found you liked it (or at least discovered that you tolerated it?)
Or better yet, what would happen if you actually found it fun?
Can you identify an areas of your life or creative side where it might be valuable to conduct an Exposure Therapy Experiment?
Big congratulations to our friend and current Department of Differentiation/past Pacific Content colleague, Jenny Ouano, for being named to Vancouver Magazine’s Power 50 list this year. Jenny is brilliant and it is so appropriate that she is being honoured “for giving power to the people.” It’s her special gift in so many ways. (And yes, despite this humanitarian recognition, she is the same Jenny who took me to the group dinner to tear crabs apart…)_
Another friend and past colleague, Gaëtan Harris, is a sound designer by trade, but a gifted photographer outside of his work. His Instagram has always been inspiring to us, and we think you might enjoy it, too.
Wow, good for you Steve. Don’t ever make me do this with Cheese (except mozzarella).