Fish Heads

 

I never thought I would see the day that I would eat fish eggs. But strange things happen when you have a birthday list to complete.

Over the weekend, a local seafood restaurant was offering a special Icelandic menu during an annual Iceland festival. My friend asked me to go, and when I saw that the first course had fish eggs in it, I was sold.

To be precise, I ate arctic char roe. I can’t say they tasted like much. They were gelatinous little bubbles. I did bite into one that burst and that was a little shocking.

The first course was OK…a lot of raw salmon, which I am not used to. A bunch of onion and other crunchy veggies were smothered in a dill sauce and wrapped in the salmon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second course was very good: Icelandic cod and mussels in some type of awesome sauce. Dessert was Icelandic tiramisu, which tasted kind of like gingerbread cake. It was a fun and adventurous meal.

As I reflected on the fish eggs later, a tune floated into my head. I thought to myself, is there a song about fish eggs? Oh no, it’s fish heads.

Wait, what?

Yes: “Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads. Fish heads, fish heads. Eat them up, yum.” I loved that song when I was a kid. I think there was a corresponding hand gesture involved as well, but I can’t be sure.

I had to learn more. Where did this song come from? Was it from an ’80s cartoon? The Muppet Show? How could it be…it’s such a strange song. And all I could recall was the chorus.

Well, I just searched for the song on Google and up came a link to the music video. I have never seen this video, as I know I would have remembered it. It’s in turn fascinating, cringe-inducing, and just plain bizarre. Which means I love it.

Does anyone else remember this song from 1979?? There’s no music until about 2:10 in…