Thank you for your feedback. This post was originally published in 2008, a long time ago when I was a newbie to travel, and Kelly was still in my life. Both are not the case any more. 😉

From youth, we’re instructed not to eat any moray, any blue spotted grouper, pufferfish, local “sardines” (aka herring), wild amberjacks, most sharks, “nightmare” goatfish, large female nenue chubs with an atypically golden hue , large barracuda, any female lobster, large conger eels. Some of these warnings are debated and some are unwarranted but the moray thing is sort of a basic one because it involves quarry that are both dangerous to pursue and eat.

The reasons for not eating certain animals runs the gamut – and the flesh of few fish contain endogenous poisons are likely to seriously harm people when cooked and eaten. You cannot assess the suitability of any game by simply checking if it has been eaten, is eaten in other parts of the world, or is legal to take. This is not common sense – but it is part of the common sense of those who hunt. When you spend some of your leisure time killing, you really don’t have license to take it casually.

Conspicuously absent from this post is the notion that Kelly approached our fishery disrespectfully. If he had spoken to a single person in the know about fishing in Hawaii, he would have been warned off of eating it immediately. You shouldnt have had to experience cig, but a globe trotter should be able to recognize something akin to “ugly americanism”.

What’s confusing is that moray eels are a target for fishermen and divers – the head section of a large eel is a particularly good inshore fishing bait. (And yes, we do use gigantic baits). So Kelly may have seen people taking these eels, and guessed that they were being eaten.

Love the subtle punnery of “gastronomic” adventures causing “gastrologic” issues.