"This fish has so many bones that eating it is like sitting an exam"

The store cupboard ran dry of milk, coffee and toilet paper at the beginning of this week. Coupled with the fridge containing a jar of tomato purée, two tomatoes, some tap water and an old aubergine, this led to a trip to the shop.

Living on a very constrained budget and with a cash economy is odd. I found myself weighing up between essential luxuries i.e. coffee and milk powder. I didn't have enough cash for both in my purse if I wanted to buy any other food, but I do use them every day as a cup of coffee is my default treat. So I picked one jar of coffee and one toilet roll, then remembered the 7 Delasi milk powder sachets. That'll solve my problem for two cups.

I then headed up to the local market. Serekunda is much bigger and has more choice but is also more hassle and feels like "doing a big shop". Closer to home the Kanifing market has only about 15 sellers and the produce is pretty limited. On this day all the children decided they are scared of white people and started crying as I walked by. Produce is sold in either little heaps or individually. So I bought a heap (four) of tomatoes (D10 = 20p), a heap of onions (D10), a heap of lettuce (D5), a carrot (D5), a cucumber (D5), two bunches of spring onions (D3) and a heap (three) of Bunga fish (D10 - bargain even if the seller kept wiping her daughter's snotty nose with her hand, those fish are ones to clean myself!).

Getting everything home I set about cleaning the fish. Many hours as a child buying fish in Bury Market and preparing it for tea came into force. I cleared the sink and set about washing, de-scaling and gutting the fish. I love how fish scales shine in heaps after de-scaling, glinting dully in the water like tired sequins in a heap on a dressing room floor. I don't feel the same about fish guts but hey, double bagging and hoping for the best seemed to work in getting rid of them. Then, clean fish in the fridge, I made coffee.

Agnes came out a few minutes later. We decided to cook together, as quite often happens. However, given that almost the entire list of easily available fresh ingredients has already been written in this blog, a lot of our food tastes quite predictable. Today however we were in the mood for experimenting. Over coffee we'd been sharing stories of baked, steamed fish wrapped in paper or leaves. With sliced onions, spring onions and carrots frying, Agnes stuffed the fish with tomato and spring onion, ingeniously tying it with a spring onion leaf. Poaching in the pan, we also set spaghetti to cook and waited for lunch.

When I was a child we'd often eat whole fish, the effort of unpicking flesh from bones part of making our meals enjoyable. I've carried this love into adulthood, though admittedly because I always think removing the fillets appears to waste a lot of fish if I can't think of a recipe that requires stock. Bunga fish is very tasty. Unfortunately it is also riddled with pin bones, thus providing a masterclass in eating whole fish. If concentration wavers your mouth is skewered, and the meal is not ever going to be completed in a hurry. Or, as Agnes observed, "eating this fish is like sitting an exam". Mind you, I always did like exams.