Completely Farm-Bred Unagi, a World First 204
JoshuaInNippon writes "Japanese scientists at the National Research Institute of Aquaculture, Fisheries Research Agency have reported that they successfully completed an artificial cultivation cycle for unagi, or eel — a world first. Unagi is a traditional delicacy in Japan, and can commonly be found in baked form at sushi restaurants. The fish has long been caught either matured, or still young and then fattened on farms. Sadly, as a result, natural stocks of unagi have plummeted in recent years. However, the research news indicates a future method to completely farm breed the tasty creature in mass quantity. Good news for sushi lovers, Japanese businesses, and wild eel alike."
Total awareness? (Score:2, Funny)
They can farm-grow total awareness now? /got nuthin'
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Re:Total awareness? (Score:4, Funny)
Shhh.. you're not supposed to make "Friends" references on /. (unless it's to say how lame the show was.) Someone might ask you to turn in your Geek card.
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Shhh.. you're not supposed to make "Friends" references on /. (unless it's to say how lame the show was.) Someone might ask you to turn in your Geek card.
You and I both have SlashID's in the low five digits. We can pretty much get away with anything without losing geek cred.
Re:Total awareness? (Score:5, Funny)
We can pretty much get away with anything without losing geek cred.
Jacob or Edward?
And why?
/me ducks
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If I had to google that, does that mean I get to keep mine?
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Oh yeah? Well, my UID is bigger than both of yours combined. What have you got to say about that?!
Check and mate, sirs.
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Kids these days. Sigh.
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Kids these days. Sigh.
I know, right?
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Yes, you are a kid, too... Kiddo...
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You're right, oh old and wise one! The kids these days.
I guess, we're so unfortunate, that both of our UIDs added together still don't make it into the 5 digits...
Still, it's fun to see the 5-digit younglings get into a UID pissing contest.
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(Ms. Hoover voice) I didn't know we could do that!
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What's worse? Making the Friends reference? Or being the one other guy (apparently) who recognizes that it's a Friends reference?
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Hey, stupid! Yo Mama is an OMNIVORE! Yo Granma would eat anything that didn't eat her first! Yo Great Granny has CANINES!!
Get over it - humans are predators - they were DESIGNED (by God or by nature) to eat flesh.
Here, try some A-1 sauce on that medium rare steak. It's delicious. Man, I just love that slightly pink center. BLOOD!! Mmmm-mmmm GOOD!
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Our bodies weren't designed to eat "medium rare" meat, nor that slop that people put on perfectly good meat to "flavor" it.
Meat is to be eaten at body temperature. For the sake of hygiene, it's a good idea to seer the edges, but only just that. Not cook, not well done, just burn off the crap it may have been contaminated with.
When I go to a restaurant, I can touch the steak with the fork, and based on how squishy it is, that's how done it is. If it feels like y
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If you're going to eat meat, you might as well enjoy it whatever way you like it[1], and so far lots of animals prefer cooked meat to raw meat:
http://www.livescience.com/animals/080922-nhm-raw-deal.html [livescience.com]
Most humans have evolved to have a major part of their digestive systems outside their bodies.
These digestive system compartments include: The Kitchen and The Dining Table. They allow humans to eat a wide variety of foods that otherwise would be unedible or unpalatable (some stuff is poisonous till cooked), w
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So if you're considerate you'd kill them in a way that doesn't prolong their suffering (eating/cooking them while they're still alive would be cruel - given that it is unnecessary for us to do so).
There are plenty of scientific studies that show that humans do better on a diet that includes fish than one that doesn't, albeit non-mercury laden fish.
Humans going vegan is like cats going vegetarian. Yes it's possible, but silly.
The fishing industry has problems that need fixing - overf
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>>Isn't there one of you out there who can actually FEEL the suffering of others?
"Actually"?
I highly doubt it. We can only feel our only pain.
Sorry if this sounds over-literal, but a healthy dose of reality is often useful against people who pretend they know what eels, or trees, or the planet, is "feeling".
Maybe, maybe not (Score:5, Interesting)
Good news for sushi-lovers, Japanese businesses, and wild eel alike.
In the US Pacific Northwest, it has been found that farm raising salmon significantly hurt the wild populations.
Some of those farmed fish can escape affect the gene pool!
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In the US Pacific Northwest, it has been found that farm raising salmon significantly hurt the wild populations.
No, it has been found that destruction of natural habitat, dams, and overfishing significantly hurt the wild salmon populations.
Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:5, Informative)
The AC is probably referring to the infections that the farmed salmon have transmitted to nearby wild populations. I don't know if transmission is via escape or simple proximity, but there has been some noise about the issue.
Just like with the meat industrial complex animals, the farmed salmon require high doses of meds because of the unnatural and crowded living environment, and this has resulted in some aggressive infections for which the wild population is unprepared.
Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:5, Informative)
Or the genetic impacts on wild salmon (naturally selected for overall fitness) of interbreeding with escaped farmed salmon (human selected for fast growth rates). It's actually a fairly nasty problem for wild stocks, and is being extensively [wiley.com] researched [oxfordjournals.org].
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For whatever reason Atlantic salmon is used for farming, even when the farm is in the Pacific. There is no evidence that Atlantic and Pacific salmon species interbreed in the wild (the papers you link described lab experiments of forced interbreeding).
However escaped Atlantic salmon and their offspring do compete for food with the native species. Also, fish farms are breeding grounds for sea lice, and they introduce antibiotics into the environment, as the GP points out.
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The same thing [oxfordjournals.org] happens with Pacific salmon when hatchery fish are used to supplement wild populations, as has been (is still?) done in the Pacific Northwest.
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TFTFY
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Yup, because that's the only thing we've ever bred for our own gains.
Pretty much any domesticated or farm animal you see has been bred for centuries to give us what we have today. It's not limited to animals though. Fruits and vegetables are the same way. Farmers have always taken things with preferred traits, and disposed of the ones with unwanted traits. Something as simple as a tomato started out as a fruit the size of a berry. Now we have our nice large tomatoes that we recognize t
Dirty Jobs (Score:2)
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>>Apparently they excrete slime.
Hell, they're still slimy when you eat them. It doesn't make them any less delicious. =)
Seriously, if you've never had an Unagi-Don, shop around at your local sushi restaurants till you get a good one. They're amazing.
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I'll pass on that one...
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I'm hoping the landlocked midwest US saves me from that terrible fate....
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That was probably the slime eel/hagfish episode.
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That was slime-eel aka hagfish not Unagi.
right (Score:4, Interesting)
Salmon farm fishing is a disaster. Shrimp are not much better. I don't know how the tilapia production is fairing. Tilapia are not predators like salmon, so I imagine it might be better, but I have no idea.
Answer: stop eating fish. Sorry.
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Answer: stop eating fish. Sorry.
Because cows and pigs are any better than farmed fish?
If this is just another vegan scheme to convert us all, I swear I'll, uh, well, enjoy some bacon and make fun of you while doing it...? I got nothing.
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this is what happens when you inject a moral code into what you eat, your unable to see things clearly.
Re:right (Score:5, Funny)
I'm betting your right
My right, damn straight MOTHERFUCKER. Don't you DARE FUCK WITH MY RIGHT!!!!!!
Oh, you meant "you're right"...not possessive... Carry on....
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Except you use far more land growing the feed for the animals than growing the vegetables to replace the meat in a human diet.
Vegetarian diet requires a lot of knowledge of nutrition to make work, but it is far more energy-efficient. Those animals don't subsist on air.
Meat, however, tastes good.
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But not all land is good for growing plants that humans can eat and thrive on.
> Meat, however, tastes good.
And a diet that includes fish is scientifically proven to be good for you.
Humans aren't that great at converting ALA to DHA. You can't easily get those healthy long chained omega acids from a vegetarian diet, without supplements.
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I'm pretty sure that your claim that vegans "ignore" those facts is based entirely on nothing, given that none of them address the core issue for vegetarians/vegans: whether it can ever moral to take a life when it's not necessary to do so.
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Actually meat requires more land. For a start, you need to grow the food to feed to the animals. They're cutting down rainforests just to meet demand for beef.
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using 100% of the animal and feeding it on material that otherwise is wasted makes perfect sense. The question is why can't you understand such a simple concept?
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How is it a problem for the beef? You see a lot of wild beef cattle around?
Cattle and swine became hugely biologically successful because of this arrangement. It may not be biologically advantageous for every single animal, but has made them some of the most widespread and successful species.
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Tilapia are herbivorous, so you can feed them plant waste. You can almost feed them by fertilizing the water they live in, since they'll eat anything that grows in the water. They're great for controlling aquatic weeds, too. There's a reason tilapia are chosen to be raised on organic veggie farms? You can just recycle the veggie waste right into the shredder and into the tanks.
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You can raise them in the runoff from hydroponic gardening, I have done this.
Re:right (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, I know that tilapia are "environmentally friendly". However, they taste like shit. Give me pretty much any other fish, and I'll be happy. Tilapia are the shittiest fish you can get.
This kills me, because I'd like to be environmentally friendly, but when given the choice of "tastes like water, and falls apart", and is fucking amazing [wikipedia.org] I'm hard pressed to want to choose tilapia. I want to be good, but tilapia makes me hate fish, more than any other fish. It's so sad that the good-for-the-environment-fish taste like crap.
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Indeed they do, I have raised them, but I never did bother eating them.
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The water I prefer to drink doesn't tend to taste of anything unpleasant.
Some tilapia taste like mud[1] to me. Not all though. I guess it's a matter of what they eat or drink. Perhaps you could try putting them in a "clean flushing tank" first for two weeks before eating them[2] (not sure what you should feed them to make them tastier during those two weeks, but I guess you could experiment ).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosmin [wikipedia.org]
[2] http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a902885434&db=all [informaworld.com]
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My answer is to primarily eat wild, sustainably caught fish. It's generally much healthier than farmed fish anyway, which are fed the same garbage that factory farm cattle and pigs are fed, thus removing much of the health benefits of eating fish in the first place. I don't want my beef fattened on corn, and I don't want my salmon fattened on corn either.
Check out http://www.ecofish.com [ecofish.com] or http://www.wildplanetfoods.com/ [wildplanetfoods.com] for some examples. Also, I eat lots of sardines - small fish that have short lifespa
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"My answer is to primarily eat wild, sustainably caught fish. It's generally much healthier than farmed fish anyway, which are fed the same garbage that factory farm cattle and pigs are fed, thus removing much of the health benefits of eating fish in the first place."
But the OP says they are fed fish, which makes them just as healthy as wild fish. Could you two decide: are they fed fish (great quality feed) or are they fed garbage (one disposal problem down)?
Besides, it's eels we're talking about here. You
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If you want a good example of what captivity does to animals, look at the killer whales that theme parks love to make do tricks. Their flopped over fin and lethargic movements are anything but natural. ... and ya, I've been logged in all day, so I can still post as me. I can't log out without removing the cookies, and I can't click the link to read replies to my previous rants. :) It's been like that for hours. I'm tempted to send my resume over and offer to fix things. :)
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That's a fair enough choice from a personal perspective, but it doesn't scale well. There's endless examples of wild fish stocks crashing to dangerously low levels, and a few examples of fish populations effectively being fished to extinction, due to the activities of just a couple of countries. It's pretty obvious that you just can't support a world population of 6.5 billion+ on wild-caught fish.
Oh, and one classic example of this is the crash of sardine fisheries in the 1960's...
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And my point is that while wild-caught or naturally-occurring *anything* might be better for you, and sticking to foods that aren't intensively farmed is a fair enough personal choice to make, there's no way in hell a world without highly developed agriculture or aquaculture can support even the current 6.5 billion+ people.
On top of that, I'd be wary of any claims that certain fisheries are 'sustainable' - even with the current state of ecological modelling, there's a dire lack of knowledge and understandin
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Doesn't it just come down to like, the food chain?
To save myself having to read up on this for 20 minutes...
Red Fish are a delicacy in a certain country. Red Fish typically eat Blue Fish. Blue Fish typically eat Green Fish. Green Fish typically eat kelp.
The solution would then be: grow kelp to feed the Green Fish. Once a population of Green Fish is going, feed Green Fish to Blue Fish. Once a population of Blue Fish is going, feed Blue Fish to Red Fish. Once Red Fish population starts growing, sell off the e
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They can eat dogfood or any high protein diet. No need to feed them fish.
Answer: Stop being a dummy and realize that we can do better than nature!
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The eels are already long since farmed. This simply enables eel farming without having to take juveniles from the wild.
"Answer: stop eating fish. Sorry."
When you've convinced people to stop eating meat as well. That is to say, never. Better to find ways of farming fish and seafood that minimizes impact. That will get us better results than pining for something that isn't going to happen.
Bottomfeeder (Score:2, Informative)
Answer: stop eating fish. Sorry.
Partly, but not completely. I highly recommend the book "Bottomfeeder" that covers this topic quite well:
http://www.tarasgrescoe.com/excerpt.html
The author recommends the following kinds if you want to eat sustainably:
There are also many ones that
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Should you eat the attached redneck also? Yuck.
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I hear they're kinda gamy. There was another story [dailymail.co.uk] where a couple Russians picked something a bit tastier. I could think of more entertaining things to do with her though. Looks like the guys involved could be tossed into a wood chipper, and no one would be upset in the least. I'd worry about staining the machine though. "Damn, he nicked the blade."
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And what will these eel eat? Oh, that's right - fish. Which have to be caught and then fed to the eels...
Anyone who grew up in that crazy Twentieth Century decade of the 70s is well aware that eels eat Assorted Letters of the English Alphabet. [youtube.com]
Re:right (Score:4, Insightful)
Fish farming isn't a disaster at all.
Sure, the fish have higher levels of stress and disease. But that doesn't matter since we're going to eat them anyway and we won't catch their diseases.
Sure, the fish live at higher densities than seen in the wild. So what? Doesn't affect their taste.
Sure, the fish have higher levels of lice. That's a problem if they infect wild populations. So that's adequately and properly solved with a greater distance between the two.
Sure, the fish are sometimes fed too many antibiotics. Solution? feed them less! It's just an equation between antibiotics and profitability. It'd be fine to pay a bit more in exchange for a bit less antibiotic use.
Sure, the fish cause pollution from their feces etc. But that's no problem in places of high current.
I love fish, and almost all the dishes I cook with them the taste difference between wild and farmed is minimal. And even though the farmed and quite as healthy for you as the wild, they're still pretty darned healthy.
A Solution? (Score:2)
FTA: "...a means to save the animal from overfishing and possible extinction have been found. "
Actually, it's cheaper and better to simply stop fishing for them altogether for a few years. Just leave them alone and they'll come back reasonably quick, if you haven't, y'know, BUILT OVER their spawning beds or anything.
Good to see (Score:2)
I guess there's a small lamprey of hope for this fishery.
Great (Score:2)
Maybe now I'll be able to get properly prepared fresh eel instead of that frozen, precooked, and precut crap that's reheated in a toaster oven and covered with sesame seeds.
Sushi, sure, but more importantly, cookies! (Score:3, Interesting)
Unagi is a key ingredient in Unagi Pai, which I think is the yummiest cookie made with ground-up eel bones in the whole world. :)
The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture ... (Score:5, Funny)
So is *this* finally an example of something the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture is in charge of? Because I know we ruled out their authority with respect to Gundum.
Re:The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture ... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent refers to the following 2007 news story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7029685.stm [bbc.co.uk]. Quote from the article:
Japan's Agriculture Ministry has reprimanded six civil servants who spent hours at work editing articles on Wikipedia - mainly about robots. [...] "The Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam," ministry official Tsutomu Shimomura told the Associated Press news agency.
great (Score:2)
now if they can only do the same thing for bluefin tuna, while it's still extant.
Hovercraft? (Score:2)
Does slashdot not like Japanese?
"Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment
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Recipe For Collapse (Score:2)
The problem with farmed fish is that their environment is not as varied and robust, as diverse, as the natural one they evolved to thrive in. Which is why salmon farms, for example, breed unhealthier fish, and not infrequently collapse. Even land farms turn into incubators for very serious diseases, like mad cow etc.
Free range farming is the most sustainable. When the eel population collapses, there's more going wrong than just less eels for our sushi. The canary in the coal mine problem isn't fixed by simp
Unagi = Delicious (Score:2)
Hell yeah, unagi is my absolute favorite sushi of all time. If you've never had it, find a good sushi place and try it (emphasis on 'good'). And since it's actually served cooked, you wussies can't complain :P It's also served with an absolutely delicious teriyaki sauce.
Close behind that one: ama ebi ^_^
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Making statements on Japanese culture based on Iron Chef is only slightly less ridiculous than basing it based on Dragonball Z. Your average Japanese person probably hasn't eaten fish ice cream. The point of the show is to show off creativity in cooking, so you get dishes that have never before seen a dinner plate and probably never will again. Iron Chef America makes some crazy dishes, I'd be surprised if there hasn't been some type of meat ice cream or sorbet on it (I wouldn't know, I could never get
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Some people are just unadventurous or don't know where to find interesting foods. I've had everything you've mentioned there locally here in California (except the haggis, which I had in Scotland).
I'm actually not fond of root beer either... i guess its taste does resemble the pink mouthwash that some dentists use.
If you think the fish ice cream is weird, you should try a meat cocktail [time.com] (as in the alcoholic type served at a bar)...
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the fact is the japanese are into anything and everything, as proof i'll refer you to some crap called "swollows nest". i found the following description:
"The swiftlet lives in dark caves, using a method of echolocation similar to the bat to get around. Instead of twigs and straw, the swiftlet makes its nest from strands of its own gummy saliva, which hardens when exposed to air."
I doubt any westerner would see that on the side of a ca
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Swallow's nest is a Chinese dish, not Japanese. And if I've understood it right, it's kind of a "stunt" dish in China as well.
"but they are definately more out there when it comes to what they will eat then we are."
I'm Swedish, and whenever conversation with some Japanese colleague or new acquaintance is about food, the subject invariably drifts to surströmming (sour herring), which they find inexplicable that anyone would eat. Food being "out there" is most definitely in the eye of the beholder.
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"each country has dishs that are odd for sure, but for pure volume of strange, it's hard to beat asians."
What, Asia is one country? You are collecting the weird foods of forty-odd different nations with completely different cultures spread over half the world and comparing to the foods of your own home.
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If anyone can beat the japanese, it's the Icelanders. Hakarl? Svid? I'll eat the "weird" things in the back of my local chinese deli, but I draw the line at icelandic rotted shark meat.
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Once you are done with relieving your stomach, google for a description of Nenets dish called kopalhem. Bon appetit!
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It's supposedly a health food. A popular ingredient in various traditional chinese concoctions (food/drink) for post-partum mothers.
Dried saliva does have a high protein content and other stuff. I don't know whether it really is good for health
As for stunt dishes, I sometimes think that a lot of foods/dishes were probably invented/discovered by young men under the influence of alcohol...
"Oh crap, looks like it's gone bad or somet
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Making statements on Japanese culture based on Iron Chef is only slightly less ridiculous than basing it based on Dragonball Z.
You mean to tell me the Japanese don't secretly have monkey tails coiled up underneath their clothes, and that Sony is not a front for their quest for magical orbs?
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True, they eat some seafood that we don't.
The Japanese will eat absolutely anything that comes out of the sea so long as they have at least a good chance of not being poisoned to death by it if prepared properly. It's a kind of charming part of their culture, really.
Why anyone decided squid was a good thing to fry up on a stick and eat is beyond me
I dunno, this [meridianmagazine.com] looks kinda tasty, doesn't it? I'd give it a try.
Actually, I gave squid sushi a try not that long ago. It was ika-geso (squid legs) that looked not entirely unlike this [photobucket.com] except it was nigiri (some rice beneath it). It was kind of tasty and there was nothing gross about it.
Re:japanese will eat anything i swear. (Score:4, Insightful)
For what its worth, Eel consumption is also rather common in any area of Europe where Eel happens to be found, its not at all some "crazy" unique Japanese thing.
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That's entirely a matter of taste, and not all of us enjoy fish (of any kind).
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There's nothing strange about unagi. Really, even the summary's characterization of it as a "delicacy" is inaccurate. In fact, any American sushi fan has eaten it many [videojug.com], many [sushisama.com] times [sushi85.com].
Re:japanese will eat anything i swear. (Score:5, Funny)
What's this we shit? You got a mouse in your pocket?
I've been to Scotland - I took one look at haggis and I suddenly didn't feel so international anymore.
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Honestly, haggis is pretty good. Just don't think about what it's made of and you'll be fine.
The closest .us analog would be a spicy meatloaf - the textures are nearly identical.
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I dunno, just looking at the haggis recipe makes me want to try it - looks tasty to me...
I suspect that in my country (Malaysia), they often have to import MSM and similar stuff to make nuggets, sausages etc - because over here stuff like liver, gizzards, lungs, stomach etc can just be packed just the way beef cuts and chicken wings are, and sold at supermarkets. People actually buy that stuff "as is". No need for disguise...
A fair number of p
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There is nothing in Haggis that can't be found in a Big Mac.
A better argument for not eating McDonald's fast food I've never heard. :-)
Re:Unagi or Anago? (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny you mention that.
Unagi is horribly expensive ($18/US per package) if you want the Japanese-sourced unagi. The Chinese unagi is much cheaper ($4-5/US per package), but there have been problems with the chemicals, antibiotics, and other crap they feed them.
Anago is readily available here in Los Angeles at a moderate price, but unagi kabayaki is definitely where its at.
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But do you love them on the inside? [eelsoup.net]
Re:There are *VAST* wild Unagi stocks! (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually I should clarify, because I wasn't being quite honest or accurate in my previous post. The invasive species in the South East U.S. is a different species than the eels in question in the article. The pest fish that escaped the farms is the Asian Swamp Eel. While it is often sold as "unagi" and is somewhat analogous in flavor, the specific eel in question is the Japanese Eel, which does not live in the Western Hemisphere. The Asian Swamp Eel is actually from a different taxonomic order.
The closest analog in the Western Hemisphere is the American Eel, which is also endangered, partly due to the invasion of the Asian Swamp Eel.
That said, the Asian Swamp Eel works perfectly fine in similar roles, and is quite tasty. Unfortunately you can't really call it "unagi" in a respectable Japanese fish market, even if it's called that when sold in many fish markets outside of Japan.