Emma Sharp

Last Tuesday, I was invited to Chez Maria's Snapper Night. I was delighted to go and engorge myself on this feast, but I had no clue that an interesting story lay behind these fish. I thought that someone had simply struck lucky! However, I would not dream of ignoring how these snappers arrived on my plate.

Nakhlé Hado and his brothers, Marcos and Bassilios, have been free diving and spear fishing since childhood. Free diving is an extreme sport which is risky and needs to be supervised. It requires fitness, breathing, practice and education of the sea and your body. The brothers head out in a canoe at 5:00 a.m. and return some 12 hours later, with 10-15 snappers. They dive to a daunting 100-120 feet for two and a half to three minutes each dive. You can only shoot one fish per dive with a spear gun, and it takes between five and eight dives to get one snapper, which can weigh anything from four to 15 pounds. Remember, this is free diving, so no oxygen tanks or other diving equipment, just them and the sea.

It's a passion

So what possesses Nakhlé to swim the depths of the ocean without the 'safety' of oxygen? Nakhlé says he free dives, "Not for performance, not to catch fish or to prove anything. It's a passion ... a connection with the dive. Once I put my head in the water, it's a completely different world." To be honest, I don't do justice to the way Nakhlé oozes with zeal for this sport. The elation in his voice is enviable.

Nancy and Maria Hado were responsible for bringing fish to pot and plate. Their gusto for cooking matches that of Nakhlé's for being 'down under' water. They presented an eye-catching spread of over seven snapper dishes, complemented with their signatures, Hummus and Fattoush.

What really caught my eye was the vast size of the snappers laid out on the buffet! We are so used to eating small fish in Jamaica, that most of us are unaware they grow to be much bigger, and we should be leaving them in the sea until they reach their potential size.

Two creations which tantalised my taste buds were the roast snapper, whose skin was perfectly charred and crispy, and the tender and creamy coconut rundown snapper with a hint of hot peppers. I could have eaten them incessantly! Don't get me wrong, the rest of the banquet was a treat, but I couldn't tell the difference in the flavours of some of them.

Notable repertoire

Perhaps a Sicilian fish dish of tomatoes, capers and olives, or whole baked snapper stuffed with rosemary and lemon would not have gone amiss. After all, Chez Maria's repertoire of Italian food is notable and if you have not sampled one of their pastas, then I recommend that you take yourself there without delay.

Emma Sharp is a trained chef who has a BA in Philosophy from the London School of Economics and a diploma from the Leith's School of Food & Wine in London, U.K. She is currently completing a diploma in nutrition with the Professional Career Development Institute. (Watch out for more from her).