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RE: Dispatches from Akune
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3322
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

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RE: Dispatches from Akune (in reply to Pgh_flamenco)
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At Roi-Namur in the Central Pacific there was a guy called "Mose" from Kosrae. He was a deck hand on the ferry that ran from Roi-Namur to Ennubir, where most of the Marshallese workers at Roi lived. I got to know Mose a little because I ran Scuba Club dive trips using the boat he worked on. Mose subsisted entirely upon stuff he harvested from the island environment. He regarded the American Dining Hall and Snack Bar as temporary anomalies introduced by the white people. Besides, he didn't like the food they prepared. He was kind enough to teach me the various phases of coconut ripening and the uses they could be put to at various stages. On boat trips the deck hands trolled hand lines. Mose always caught the first fish, the biggest fish and the most fish. One day I happened upon him on the lagoon beach cleaning a barracuda he had caught. Ciguatera poisoning is a serious issue in the Marshalls. As you ascend the predator food chain, the concentration of the dinoflagellate poison can increase to dangerous levels. Ciguatera is a neurotoxin that can produce serious, permanent effects on sensation, muscle control and thinking. However, people recover from mild cases. Barracuda are at the top of the food chain. Almost nobody would consider eating one. "Mose, are you going to eat that barracuda?" "Maybe so." "How do you know it's not poisonous." "Take liver, rub on lips. Lips feel funny, don't eat." He offered me the liver to try. No unusual sensations. "Does this always work?" "Oh, liver okay, you give little piece of fish to cat, just a little bit. Watch how he goes." There were always several cats hanging around when Mose was cleaning fish, so I guess his experiments had no significant effect on cat demographics. RNJ
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Date Jun. 8 2013 18:50:35
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estebanana
Posts: 9016
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

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RE: Dispatches from Akune (in reply to Pgh_flamenco)
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Now that Richard has scared the pee-whottle out of us with ciguatera, a food illness that sounds like a flamenco palo, how about some yakiniku? To make the dipping sauce: Hot miso paste, sesame oil, sugar, ginger, soy sauce. Cut up any veggies you like, get some thin slices of beef and some gyoza. Gyoza are potstickers, before we came to Japan we used to buy them at Trader Joe's in the frozen section and they are not bad at all. These hot plate pans with no stick surfaces are available just about everywhere. This is just Sunday night dinner, no big deal. I love eating this way, but I have to be honest, I'm going to make hamburgers soon. I was going make hamburgers for dinner earlier this week, but Yuko stopped me because her dad, who is pretty experimental for a 79 year old Japanese guy, would have had difficulty with hamburgers for dinner. She said hamburgers are a lunch item. Yeah right, not for me babe! Reminds me of a Chinese cooking show I once saw where the chef said westerners are repugnant because they bring big slabs of meat to the table and butcher the animal at the table. Chinese, he said, are more genteel because they do the butchering in the kitchen and prepare the food in delicate bites you can pick up with chop sticks. Remember that next time you're at family dinner and Uncle Albert is carving up the brown crusted roast with a two pronged fork and a freshly honed silver blade. Remember you are a barbarian as the juicy pink slices fall off of uncles blade and onto your plate and the hot buttered mashed potatoes are passed to you. When I was in China the chef for the student dorm liked to come to the table to see how we were eating. He explained the whole thing much better, he said Chinese people, and Japanese to an certain extent, like to have a little bite of everything, variety at the table pleases them. They want beef, pork, and a fish at the table, plus three or more vegetables. We might be happy with a burger and fries or the roast beef with mash and two more vegetables and bread. In general the west favors bigger portions of fewer choices, while the Chinese favor more choices in smaller portions, plus the fact that we are uncivil for bringing long knives to the table. In Argentina I walked into an asado and as handed choripan and a glass of tinto. Over the next two hours several different cuts of slow roasted beef and beef organs came off the grill, there was a salad too, but mainly it was bread, meat and tinto. I wish the Chinese TV chef had been there to witness the sublime act of Argentines cooking beef. He would have dismounted his high horse of moral cheffitude and begged for tri tip sliced right off the grill. And for the vegetarians, just print this post out and cross out every mention of beef and it will be ok. Yakiniku means grilled meat, but it works with all veggies, add a few pickles. How does Ciguatera go? Ayeeeeee, yaya ya eeeeeeeeeee.. Anyone know any letras por Ciguatera?
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Date Jun. 10 2013 2:18:16
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3322
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

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RE: Dispatches from Akune (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Diving at Roi-Namur, at the place we called Speedball because it was offshore from a rocket launch site, we came upon a big green moray eel that was acting very strangely. As usual in the daytime, most of it was stashed in a deep hole in the reef, with its head protruding. But instead of the usual rhythmic breathing through the mouth, which exposes a formidable set of teeth, and people often mistake for a threat, and instead of alertly surveying its surroundings, the big eel was just swaying back and forth in the surge, and not really reacting to approaching divers with cameras. We hung around and watched for a while. By and by the back and forth surge from the nearby surf brought the inflated dead body of a puffer fish into view, inside the moray's hole. He had bitten off more than he could chew. At Kwajalein, ciguatera was believed to be found only in fish in the lagoon. Outside, in the ocean, people thought it was not a danger. I once happened to encounter one of the experts on the subject, a professor at the University of Hawaii. He said that damaged coral reefs tend to promote blooms of the micro-organisms that produce the poison. Ocean side the constant surf tends to disperse the clouds of dinoflagellates. Inside a lagoon the blooms can persist and the poison can work its way up the food chain, and reach dangerous concentrations in the top predators. Fishermen, at least among white people at Kwajalein, believed that yellowfin tuna and rainbow runners stayed oceanside, while both the big and the smaller species of barracuda, and dogtooth tuna inhabited the lagoon. At a gathering, I was relating the behavior of schools of rainbow runner. They will zip past you, disappear beyond visibility, but suddenly reappear for a second look at something as strange as a scuba diver. The fishermen in the group were shocked when I told them that rainbow runner were frequently encountered inside the lagoon. "Well," they said, "at least the yellowfin are safe." I had to disappoint them by letting them know that we often encountered yellowfin inside the lagoon, though usually near the passes into the ocean. Anywhere on the coast of Japan, fishermen and fish merchants would be aware of any potential danger from ciguatera, and avoid it. Does the ciguatera dinoflagellate even grow in the cooler waters of Japan? I've only run into ciguatera stories in warm water places. Not long after I arrived at Kwajalein I was at the marina when a white fisherman was proudly displaying a huge grouper he had caught. Behind him, out of his sight, Marshallese boys were giggling and imitating the staggering gait of a ciguatera victim. Someone warned the guy with the grouper, but he said he didn't plan to try to eat it. RNJ
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Date Jun. 10 2013 18:16:12
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gj Michelob
Posts: 1531
Joined: Nov. 7 2008
From: New York City/San Francisco

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RE: Dispatches from Akune (in reply to estebanana)
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As you probably remember, my dear German Vazquez Rubio does not indicate the country of origin in his guitars' labels. I wish he did, as I am proud of him, his work and that he is a Mexican born California based Luthier. However, when exporting goods, technically, one is required to show the country of origin in the product label. You may want to run it by the shipping company you choose, as "hang-tags"[not permanently glued] may suffice. I do not disagree that those who know you will not necessarily lose interest in your guitars because they are now made in Japan. However, if listing them on a guitar store [say GSI or LaSonanta] it may take some explanation. However yet, I would not be surprised if you found a fancy spin to turn this to your advantage, handing you an edge, a distinguishing trait of some sort. Good luck with it all, Stephen, I hope Japan will continue to stir your imagination and creative flights, as your "Dispatches" show it already does.
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gj Michelob
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Date Jun. 12 2013 15:31:30
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