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In the US there is an Asian grocery chain called Ranch 99 or something like that. I remember the fish section, in Japan a fish section that looked like that would be an abomination, a cultural travesty. And don't even get me started on how nasty is Tilapia; people in the US think that is a fish. My God how disgusting.
Hahaha yeah the Asian stores out here are generally Korean or Chinese, Ranch 99 certainly one of them. I don't doubt the Japanese would be appalled at containers of live fish. Feels a bit like eating something out of a fish tank lol. Without actually going fishing our best bet for fresh seafood is Santa Monica seafood. The employees know what's freshest and best too which is great. I got a bunch of Manila clams the other week there and cooked em up with white wine, garlic, and butter. It was pretty outstanding.
ORIGINAL: Leñador You just gotta be careful dropping em in the boiling water, they WILL splash boiling hot water in your face! Lol
As a teen I had a summer job as a chef. For grilled lobster we had to take live lobsters from the fridge, cut them in half down the middle with a big knife and pop them under the grill. The most lively ones would thrash their tails so hard that it would propel them right out the grill and off into a corner somewhere under a bench. Cutting those first few lobsters was really hard and the experience gave me a whole new insight into the Milgram experiment.
No way hombre, butter, white wine, and garlic is a match made in heaven on clams. Ya'll on the peninsula overlook butter, and manteca for that matter lol I love olive oil but more in fresh tasting things not rich tasting things.
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gave me a whole new insight into the Milgram experiment.
hahaha aww don't feel too bad for them, if they could think they'd probably respect you more than the a-holes who don't want to know where their food was alive. I know if someone was gunna eat me I'd want them to look me in the eye and give a thanks before hand lol.
I know if someone was gunna eat me I'd want them to look me in the eye and give a thanks before hand lol.
Whereas me would sure appreciate if there was enough bothering to figure out other ways than careless cruelty of throwing me into boiling water alive.
Really, it´s just barbarous. ...
And if you ever watched me as clever lobster down there on seabottom, outsmarting octopusses and taking small fishes for a ride, etc. ... how on earth could you keep treating me like a mere wriggling peanut. You wouldn´t.
Butter everywhere.. That's why yo american mommas are fat.
I don't think it's butter, the French and Italians eat tons of it and they don't look like us. It's our fast food and sedentary lifestyles. Obesity is on the verge of being exclusively a poor person problem out here. Rich people can afford quality food, personal trainers, and dietitians.
The focus on butter the last few posts leads me to repeat my observation on giant Southeast Asian Tiger Prawns; they are at their tastiest and richest when dipped in a combination lemon, garlic, and butter sauce. To die for! They are also good when dipped in chili sauce, not as rich but very tasty.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
When it comes to seafood, one thing seems to lead to another. In addition to giant tiger prawns, I long ago discovered two other favorite dishes in Southeast Asia, primarily in Malaysia: Sting Ray ("Ikan pari" in Malay) and curry fish head ("gulai kepala ikan" in Malay).
Sting ray is one of the culinary wonders of the world. I tasted sting ray for the first time in 1983, shortly after arriving on assignment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Previously, I had never thought of sting ray as edible, much less the delicacy it really is. It quickly became (and still is) my favorite sea food. I ate it frequently at sea food specialty restaurants in Malaysia and Singapore. Sting ray in Malaysia is prepared two different ways. The Malays grill it and the Chinese steam it. I much prefer the Malay style of grilled sting ray. The sting ray belongs to the shark family and has shark-like cartilage. The Malays grill the wings and serve them with chili sauce and other condiments. One just takes the beautiful white flesh of the wing off the cartilage and tastes the sweetest of sea foods.
When I was assigned to the American Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, twice I took leave for two weeks at a time to ramble about the Riau Archipelago, which begins just south of Singapore and runs more or less along the South China Sea side of Sumatra. I first went in 1997 and enjoyed it so much I went again in 1998. My Malay language ability was (and remains) very good, and the Malays of the Riau Archipelago are considered to speak the purest form of Malay, as they are the remnants of the Malays of Malacca, which in the 15th century was the main entrepot of the Eastern spice trade. In 1511 the Portuguese defeated them, and they retreated south to Johore, finally centering their court in the Riau Archipelago. I was anxious to hear what linguists consider a reasonably pure form of Malay.
I flew to Singapore and took a ferry to the island of Bintan, which begins the Riau Archipelago. After a few days in bintan, I paid Malay boatmen and fishermen to take me to several islands in their prahus. I spent a few days on Lingga and surrounding islands, finally ending up on Singkep, where I spent several days. In each place I got to know the owner of a kedai, an open air restaurant or stall (Riau lacks the modern restaurants of Singapore and Jakarta--for the most part one eats in what are known as "kedais," particularly in the southern part of the archipelago.)
In each place, I made a deal with the owner of the kedai that I would go to the fish market every morning to pick up the finest sting ray I could find from the catch that was brought in from the night's haul of fish, I would bring it to the kedai owner that morning, and he would prepare it for me when I showed up for dinner each evening at about 7:00 PM. I was in linguistic and culinary heaven, learning the Riau dialect of Malay and having Malay-style, grilled sting ray for dinner each evening. It doesn't get any better than that.
Curry fish head in both Malaysia and Singapore was originally brought to the Malay Peninsula by South Indian (Tamil) immigrants. The Malays and Chinese (including the Nyonya Chinese of Malacca and Penang) have created their own variations. Snapper is considered the finest fish in preparing curry fish head, and the sweetest, most tasty parts are the cheeks. And, of course, the curry adds the spice and zip. Really delicious. I consider Malaysia and Singapore to have the widest variety of delicious food of anywhere in the world. The ethnic groups--Malay, Chinese, and Indian--each have their own dishes, and each is influenced by the other groups' additions, styles of preparation, and sauces.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
Two or three times maybe in teen years. When it is as impossible to get a creature on the plate without preceding cruelty, as with lobsters, I prefer skipping the option.
To be honest, it ain´t so much better with fish either who are being left on deck until slowly suffocated while more often than not fishermen trampling over them ...
If we cared about thirds pain as much like about the own, there certainly would had been found ways either to the better or to do without.
Human life is not there to be hell for others (no matter what ancient abrahamic boneheads may have blabbed). Definitly not at modern men´s state of comprehension and skill.
quote: Two or three times maybe in teen years. When it is as impossible to get a creature on the plate without preceding cruelty, as with lobsters, I prefer skipping the option.
I actually don't really like seafood but as a foodie person I feel it my obligation to try everything. I've cooked live shrimp once, cooked lobster once and have only eaten it at a restaurant once in my ENTIRE life so I suppose your just as barbarous as I am then.
@estebana: I wouldn't want you to waste time writing down the recipe now since I won't be getting my hand on fresh fish in the foreseeable future. But I may take you up on that some day! In exchange I have a pretty good recipe for "rougail" if you like spicy food. It goes well with gilt-head bream or mahi-mahi if you're lucky enough to get your hands on one. At this point, it's probably in a box somewhere though...
@Lenador: I wouldn't lose to much sleep over it. I've been gobbling down those little suckers for years now so I'm a far worse person than you!
@Ruphus: never having been a fan of lobster, I've never tried to cook it. Is it thrown straight into boiling water? In the case of sea snails, of which I've eaten a LOT (probably my favorite kind of seafood), they are put into cold salt water, that you gradually heat up to boiling point. As the heat rises gradually, the animal's death is relatively painless (relatively...). Though I suppose that's not nearly as bad as my eating live oysters or at times sardines.. It's an interesting topic this one and I don't really know where to draw the line. We known that plants recoil when harmed. Some argue that this should be considered "pain" and the debate as to whether it is just a "mechanical" reaction or something more is limited by the fact that we just don't know much about what sentience is, how it arises and how it works. It boils down to (I'm boiling "down" the water now ) the issue of the "Turing test" that we discussed in another thread. One assumption is that such animals suffer less than we would, though given the little we actually know, who's to say they don't suffer more..Anyways, a topic for another thread but an interesting one!
Back to Spain: a Catalan escalivada is an easy-to-make yet delicious alternative to a salad. On a side note, as a French person in Spain, I'm having a hard time with the bread here. I've found that even in panaderias, it is stale and on the whole tasteless. For some reason, I thought they would have some bread similar to what the Italians make. God was I dissapointed. If anyone knows of any good kinds of Spanish bread that isn't drenched in oil, I'm all ears.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
If anyone knows of any good kinds of Spanish bread that isn't drenched in oil, I'm all ears.
I got by with "barra" from the local bakery but I often made my own - my local Coviran ordered dried yeast in for me and I bought flour from the bakery. Not difficult and much better.
@Escribano. Yeah that's probably going to be my best option at this point. The last time I went to the local bakery, I pointed to a type of baguette on the wall, asked what is was. The baker replied "es pan". I pointed to another kind of loaf, asked the same question. He replied "es pan". Did it 3 or 4 more times with different breads, same answer...I seriously hope he was just having his fun with the local guiri.
@Estevan. I've always loved those small German breads where they mix different "cereals" (seeds?). There's a French bakery that's not all that far but incredibly pricey. I guess they know their client-base are desperate foreigners who would pay anything for decent bread!
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Oh wait yeah, I eat escargot all the time, damn, I'm getting worse! Lol
And they taste deliciously rich in lemon, garlic, and butter sauce, too.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
Always mildly amuses me travelling over France to regularly come across the "Depot de Pain" - "Bonjour Monsieur, I'd like some pain please".
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ORIGINAL: Piwin On a side note, as a French person in Spain, I'm having a hard time with the bread here.
I knew an Austrian guy who had a similar complaint whilst studying in France. His grandmother used to bake her own rye bread, so the classic French baguette was completely over anaemic for his palet. Whilst there are more wholesome loaves available they are definitely a sorry minority - for example, eating out at a restaurant you have something like an 98% chance that the only bread you will be offered will be the classic white baguette. Since there are good reasons to make the association that "white bread" equals "constipation" the lack of wholesomeness in the bread here is really something of a pain in the butt. Bom Bom!!
Did it 3 or 4 more times with different breads, same answer...I seriously hope he was just having his fun with the local guiri.
He probably was, in his grumpy way. There are several types (mostly different shapes), including whole-grain but just ask for a barra. Should be edible, though not great. Their baguettes are very dry and the crust cuts the mouth. Goes completely stake by 1pm.
Here we have (in some places) Pão da Avó (or Pão de Água). Tastes great and the inside is a little moist which is good if you like to eat it by itself (that's how I eat bread but people here prefer to make sandwiches).
the lack of wholesomeness in the bread here is really something of a pain in the butt
The yeast I can do is tell you that I've never been one to loaf around and tell crumby jokes. I know I know, I'm a real sourdough. Humour you say? Nah. I got naan. Bun pain (bon pain...ahem) is too much of a serious issue for me.
And there went the last of my dignity.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Glad to see that we gormandize on a similar note. :0)
Hi Piwin,
It really is a very interessting and difficult topic. Don´t want to spoil this thread more than I´ve already done, but should we ever discuss pros & cons of consumption / treshhold here I´ll be in. (Certainly not, because everything was being clear to me, but rather to the contrary.)
Recently there was a scientific feature on plants sensibility. There was differing electrical conductivity to be measured after having touched plants, as well as evading movement to be seen. And I only thought like: "Oh no; not this one too!"
For animal protein I definitly hope for an industrial solution that allows us to come up to our anthropological state. -
Regarding lobster, I thought the same thing like you. No big deal of a flavour.
Bread
Mentioned it before, how it sucks to have no choice here. There is a bakery in the capitol once grounded by a German where they produce varieties that ressemble original samples. (In fact their seasonal Christmas stollen for one is amazingly close to the real thing.) However, prices are beyond believe, and yours truly is living too far away from there anyway.
I heard a German baker once say like: "With the level of bread making the state of civilisation can be made out".
And it seems to me that there could be something too it. Cultures who never came beyond mere flat cakes (often sans yeast or leaven even) apparently tend to not have been of too much ingenuity in general.
They keep on eating (and living) same stuff and recipe for centuries without anyone being curious enough to explore new shores.
Unfortunately, for bread sorts so delicious that you find yourself almost unable to stop yourself eating, you need to search the ambience in Germany today.
Vast of bakeries having ressorted to either warming up premade stuff or using industrial backing mixtures. On top there have come up nasty routines like adding keratin (which until the nineties used to be human hair from Chinese haridresser´s shops -believe it or not) or dusting bread with gipsum for a "crisp" crust without needing to invest into sufficient heat (which may explain in above post mentioned mouth-cutting experience). Further needless darkening through caramel coleur which turns cancerogene from baking.
But if you find a classical bakery in Germany chances are high for a truly delicious experience. And better take twice or triple the quantity, before coming back for more. ;O/ - And bring me a loaf too, please, when at it!
I could kill for an original French baguette too. Or for Danish chispbread ... And hail to those who have access to a ciabatta role. >sigh and drool!<
When I was a student in Paris, the door right next to the entrance to my appartment building was a bakery that had been awarded best baguette in Paris 3 years in a row. Those were the days!
@Estevan I feel like I should be learning a secret handshake or something now.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Oddly enough the best baguette I've ever had in LA is from a Vietnamese bakery. If you leave it too long it'll cut your gums up but still worth it! Lol
When I was a student in Paris, the door right next to the entrance to my appartment building was a bakery that had been awarded best baguette in Paris 3 years in a row. Those were the days!
I just realize how there can be jelousy even to things long passed. Lucky b.... !
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ORIGINAL: Leñador
Oddly enough the best baguette I've ever had in LA is from a Vietnamese bakery. If you leave it too long it'll cut your gums up but still worth it! Lol
Winners of the award mentioned by Piwin above are honoured with being entitled to deliver to the Palais de l'Elysee.
Maybe four years or so ago the winner was an Arab (from Tunisia I think). Don´t know whether the prime minister was really enthusiastic to have this breakfast job taken from his country men, though. Must have been yummy anyway. -
Used to frequent a Vietnamese too, in New York. He provided breaded deep-fried seafood to go. >drool!<
... Oh man ...! Anyone know the movie "La Grande Bouffe"? (Apologies, `know to have mentioned that one before. ... In fact thinking of it every other time.) Darn, after years of most meager ressource (no simplest of grocery supply, and you´ll pay your head off for even just a god damn single broccoli!!) I could be seriously tempted to join such an appointment in Italy or France (OK, I´m sure, Spain could do as well if must be). -If my budget allowed, naturally.
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) the issue of the "Turing test" that we discussed in another thread. One assumption is that such animals suffer less than we would, though given the little we actually know, who's to say they don't suffer more..Anyways, a topic for another thread but an interesting one! 
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