Postcards from New Zealand: Day Thirteen

Today we went to the fish market, where you can pick out whatever whole, fresh fish you want and bring it to the chopping station, where they'll prepare it for your kitchen according to your orders. The man working the station wears white rubber galoshes, rubber gloves, and a white rubber apron. He scaled our snapper as tentatively as you might sand six coats of cracked paint off a banister, and after he'd gutted the thing, he used the side of his knife to swipe the pile of entrails to the floor. Then he pulled out a hose and flushed the inside of the creature clean, making a power-wash pass over the counter. All this was done in under ninety seconds, but I was transfixed.