Tomorrow is Good Friday - and all who can afford to do so will eat fish. It's a major cultural practice that marries local cuisine to Christian tradition.
But, there's also a commercial aspect to it; since fish prices always seem to spike at Easter time. That's the rule of the market place, applied to the fish-market - and Monica Bodden went to the fish market at Newtown Barracks to find out what's in supply and demand:
Monica Bodden Reporting
Whether your taste is for red snapper, black snapper, tuna, kubali, or tarpon, today, fish markets had them stacked up
John Pollard - Looking for Snapper/Mackerel
"Yes you cannot imagine Good Friday without fish."
Joseph Contreras - Fisherman
"It's the Snappers, mostly Snappers; they want Snappers."
Rosendo Nunez - Fisherman
"Right now it's Barrow and Snapper's they want right now, King fish, Jack but mostly Snapper right now though."
John Pollard
"Tradition-wise, on Good Friday everybody sit down around their table trying to eat good Snapper or good Mackerel."
Monica Bodden
"How much per pound you're paying for fish out this side?"
John Pollard
"At this present time, Thursday you're paying 8, that's in this afternoon time, this evening time right here it's $10 dollars a pound."
Joseph Contreras
"You can get the $8 dollars a pound but people - we know they have it hard too, so I try to go along with people reasonably."
Rosendo Nunez
"Right now it's at $10 a pound, Snapper is $10 a pound, $12 dollars a pound for King Fish."
Monica Bodden
"Is the price for your fish, has it increased?"
Jose Contreras
"Well it had to due to the price of the gasoline."
Monica Bodden
"What type of fish are people buying out here today?"
Jose Contreras
"Everybody love the Snappers. They say the old tradition from way back is the hot cross bun with the fry fish for God Friday. So we fishermen - the sea is getting pretty harder and harder, so what we can catch we catch. What really messed us up a lot is the bad weather, the North just do us something bad, that the fish they just don't want to bite again."
But these fishermen hop the shoppers will bite - even at premium prices - before the end of the day.
Monica Bodden
"Are you guys going to be out here until everything finished?"
Rosendo Nunez
"Yeah, for the whole day we will be out here."
Monica Bodden
"Do you expect the crowd to pick up later on?"
Rosendo Nunez
"Yes, the crowd has to come out later on."
Email
Print