Family History, Life at No.22, Musings, Poetry

Uncle Fred & The Whitebait Season

Suzanne 
How well I remember 
That bountiful season
A swaying bucket
And a noisy gumboot stride. 

Strolling across Haig Street
Accompanied with, a handful of tips
From the local betting shop
And a wide grin.

Uncle with the noisy gumboots
I never forgot your stories
Pounds of bountiful whitebait
Running into your net.

While you were
Frittering away hours
Even before sunrise
During the whitebait season

We were waiting your arrival.
For you clearly
Were a welcome visitor
From across Haig Street.

In unison, we yelled 
Uncle's arrived
He has his bucket 
Full of whitebait, for sure.

My eyes grew larger 
With tummy rumbles
When I saw that bucket 
In fritter antiscipation.

How did you cook your bait,
With egg or onion
Or did you eat them straight?
Mum had a few good ideas.

In her box of recipes
Ending the day we did
With a plate of fritters
Full of your whitebait.



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Published by Suzanne

I'm a lover of creativity and movement, expressed through photography, words, travel and sports. . . . . . .

25 thoughts on “Uncle Fred & The Whitebait Season”

    1. Thanks very much, Tracy, I enjoyed writing it. Not all our family members were looking forward to those fritters. My sister said she required all eyes to be removed before one entered her mouth.

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  5. I love the joyful anticipation in your poem, but I only ever ordered whitebait once (in my pre-vegetarian days). I obviously hadn’t known what they were like and just couldn’t eat them so John had to come to the rescue. Can’t remember what he had, but it must have been more acceptable to me.

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    1. Thanks very much, Anabel, I enjoyed writing it. I was trying to find a different subject from ‘blossoms’ and pleased I found another. Whitebait is like gold now, very expensive and doesn’t live up to the hype. Nowadays, we have more vegetarian meals than not.

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      1. That can’t be very appealing as an outsider. My friend has for about 15 years thrown a whitebait fest for all her friends just before Christmas, the most wonderfully generous event imaginable. So I have very warm feelings there.

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    1. Eilene, they are the larvae of a 11cm fish and these species are born in freshwater, swept out to sea with the tide and return to rivers and streams in spring as whitebait.
      They were so plentiful when we were children. I was never tempted to be a whitebaiter and never enjoyed catching fish. Eating them is a different story.

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    1. Oh, thanks, very much, Jude. Yes, based on memories of when we lived in Haig St, and Uncle Fred and Auntie Sylvia lived across the road. Some good times living in Whakatane. Plus, I wanted to write about something other than blossoms.
      Whitebait is so expensive now that I don’t bother with it. Those fritters were tasty 😊

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