these little fishies went to market

Today was the annual Richmond Market with about 150 vendors filling the main street of Richmond, which is basically a suburb of Nelson. I spent the better part of the day trying to work up the courage to try a whitebait fritter, a Kiwi specialty (I’m not sure if I can say ‘delicacy’) made from tiny little fish stuck together with egg, and fried up and usually served open-faced on white bread.

Despite my eyeball hang-up (with lots of whole little fish in it, eating a whitebait fritter means you’re chomping down on lots of teeny eyeballs), I managed to cross this one off my list of things to do here, and I didn’t even gag until the second to last bite! It actually tasted pretty good when I kept my mind off what it was, and the extra dose of rock salt I asked the vendor to add to it camouflaged most of the eyeball-crunching.