Odie:
You Godless Englishman: The state of Louisianna Legislature met for three days to decide this issue alone: It's Crawfish. Those who would say crayfish don't deserve to taste them and would pronounce pecan as pee-can.
Chip
Odie:
You Godless Englishman: The state of Louisianna Legislature met for three days to decide this issue alone: It's Crawfish. Those who would say crayfish don't deserve to taste them and would pronounce pecan as pee-can.
Chip
:hammer:Originally Posted by chip anderson
My education continues! I've always said peecan pie! OOOOP'S I did it again! :):)
"Always laugh when you can. It is a cheap medicine"
Lord Byron
Take a photo tour of Cape Cod and the Islands!
www.capecodphotoalbum.com
I thought I would offer this info
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodlobster.html
Archaeologists tell us humans have been eating crustaceans (lobsters, crabs, shrimp) from prehistoric times to present. They know this from excavating "middens," deposits of shells and bones left by early civilizations. These foods weren't "discovered" (like early people "discovered" some corn popped if placed near the fire) but noticed. The earliest hunter-gatherers took advantage of every available food resource. People who lived near water (oceans, seas, lakes, rivers) naturally took advantage of the foods offered by these resources.
About lobster
Culinary evidence confirms lobsters were known to ancient Romans and Greeks. The were highly esteemed by the British, not so esteemed by American colonists. This sea creature enjoyed a resurgence of demand in the 19th century which still holds true today.
"Lobster, well-armed sea creature. Its most noticeable external traits were its long hands and small feet' (Archestratus), its bent fingers (Epicharmus) and its dark color (Pliny). It is very good, albeit somewhat complicated, to eat; simpler for the eventual diner if the cook minces the meat and forms it into cakes, as described in Apicius...The lobster (Homarus Gammarus) is Greek askakos..., Latin astacus and elephantus; the latter name is seldom attested in classical texts but was certainly in use, since it survives in modern Italian dialects."
---Food in the Ancient World From A-Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London] 2003 (p. 198)
"So the Romans who came to Britain [43 AD] and who lived within reach of the sea must have been very happy to enjoy the local seafhish...seafoods such as crab and lobster were taken. Shellfish of many kinds became very popular" (p. 21) "Lobster, crayfish and crab were greatly enjoyed [in mid-fifteenth century Britain], though they seldom reached the inland eater...Crab and lobster were also boiled and eaten cold with vinegar, as were shrimps." (P. 43) "During the eighteenth century...Lobsters, crabs, shrimps and prawns continued to be enjoyed." (p. 48-9) "In Victorian times...Lobster, crabs, shrimps and prawns could be dressed in many ways, but the commonest was to boil them to eat cold. After being simmered in a brine of water and Bay salt in a fish kettle, lobsters could either be eaten immediately, or kept as long as a quarter of a year, wrapped in brine-soaked rags and buried deep in sand." (p. 55)
---Food and Drink in Britain: From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago] 1991
"Lobster, much as today, was considered especially elegant and appropriate food for lovers, being an aphrodesiac. There is a common perception that lobster was considered a poor man's food, and this many have been in the case in colonial New England but not back in Europe. In fact English man-about-town Samuel Pepys's diary records than an elegant dinner he thew in 1663 included a fricassee of rabbit and chickens, carp, lamb, pigeons, various pies and four lobsters..Lobster was cooked either by roasting, boiling or by removing the meat from the shell and cooking it separately."
---Food in Early Modern Europe, Ken Albala [Greenwood Press:Westport CT] 2003 (p. 75)
"The American lobster (Homarus americanus) is today on of the more expensive food items on the market, owing to the difficulty of obtaining sufficeint quantities to meet the demand. But when the first Europeans came to America, the lobster was one of the most commonly found crustaceans. They sometimes washed up on the beaches of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in piles of two feet high. These settlers approached the creatures with less than gustator enthusiasm, but the lobsters' abundance mande them fit for the tables of the poor...In 1622 Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Plantation apologized to a new arrival of settlers that the only dish he "could presente their friends with was a lobster...without bread or anyhting else but a cupp of fair water." Lobsters in those days grew to a tremendous size, sometimes forty or more pounds...The taste for lobster developed rapidly in the nineteenth century, and commercial fisheries specializing in the crustacean were begun in Maine in the 1840s, thereby giving rise to the fame of the "Maine lobster," which was being shipped around the world a decade later. In 1842 the first lobster shipments reached Chicago, and Americans enjoyed them both at home and in the cities' new "lobster palaces," the first of which was built in New York by the Shanley brothers...Diamond Jim Brady thought nothing of downing a half-dozen in addition to several other full courses...By 1885 the American lobster industry was providing 130 million pounds of lobster per year. So afterward the population of the lobster beds decreased rapidly, and by 1918 only 33 million pounds were taken."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Freidman:New York] 1999 (p. 186)
[NOTE: This book has separate entries for selected popular dishes: Lobster rolls, lobster Newburg, lobster a l'americaine, and lobster fra diavolo. If you need these ask your librarain to help you find a copy.]
<A href="http://octopus.gma.org/lobsters/allaboutlobsters/lobsterhistory.html">Lobstering in the New World
About Maine lobsters
Lobsters:Everything You Wanted to Know/Maine Dept. of Marine Resources
---history, statisitcs, biology, environmental impact, laws
<A href="http://www.mainelobsterpromo.com/lobster_industry.html">Maine Lobster Promotion Council (history, statistics, trends)
The Lobster Institute, University of Maine
Rock lobster (aka crayfish)
Rock lobster is another name for spiny lobster, a popular warm-water crustacaen. In some parts of the world it is also known as crayfish or crawfish, which accounts for the confusion between rock lobster and <A href="http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodlobster.html#crawfish">American crawfish. Notes here:
"Rock lobster. Apparently Americans find the name crawfish a gastronomic turn-off, for when theis crustacean appears on restaurant menus or is canned or frozen for sale, it often goes under the disguise of rock lobster (originally an alternative name for the spiny lobster)."
---An A to Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 284)
"Spiny lobster, the correct name for crustaceans of the family Paniluridae, is prefereable to the name crawfish which is sometimes used by invited confusion with crayfish. Needless to say, using the name crayfish or cray, as sometimes in Australia, is even more likely to cause confustion. The spiny lobsters are indubitably lobsters, bu they differ from the archetypal lobsters of the N. Atlantic in having no claws and in belonging to warmer waters. Indeed they are most abundant in the tropics...Their size and the excellence of their meat ensures that they are in strong demand, although the question whether they are better than or inferior to the common lobster is and will no doubt for ever be debated. Such debate is complicated by the fact that the established recipes for the Atlantic lobster, generally speaking, have been those of classical French cuisine plus the more robust tradtitions evolved in N. America; whereas the spiny lobster, with its worldwide range in warmer waters, has attracted to itself a large number of recipes involving tropical or subtropical ingredients."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 747)
"...millions of other lobsters come from South Africa, South America, Mexico, Australia, and elsewhere, usually in the form of "spiny lobsters," sometimes called "crawfish" but distinct from the true native freshwater crayfish...Spiny lobster. (Panlirus argus). A favorite Floridian species, the spiny lobster ranges from the Carolinas to the Caribbean and is related to a Californian species., P. Interruptus. At market, spiny lobsters are often called "rock lobsters."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 186-7)
"Rock lobster. A market name for the spiny lobster. Large quantities of South African and Australian "rock lobsters" are imported to the U.S. annually, as our demand exceeds the local supply. They are also imported from Chile and New Zealand. Although these imports represent a different genus (Jasus), they are of the same family and form a culinary standpoint are no different from a spiny lobster taken in North American waters...Spiny lobster: In the western Atlantic the spiny lobster...ranges from North Carolina and Bermuda to Brazil, through the southern Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. It is most abundant in Florida, Bahamas, Cuba and British Honduras...Closely related species occur in California. Sometimes called crawfish, and misleadingly crayfish, the spiny lobster like other members of this family (Palinuridae) has 5 pairs of legs but no claws. Thus, its tail portion provides the bulk of the meat. Compared to the American lobster its texture is coarser but of good flavor and tender when freshly prepared. Although 6 species of spiny lobster occur in the western Atlantic, the differences are taxonomical rather than culinary, and they are all generally similer in appearance; numerous spines cover the body, with 2 large, hooked horns over the eyes...It is a beautifully marked crustacean with browns, yellows, orange, green and blue mottled over the upper parts and underside of the tail...Spiny lobster tails can be boiled, steamed, deep-fried or broiled, or the raw meat can be removed for the shell and used in any of the prepared dishes such a scurries, thermidors, newburgs or salads. Never bake it, as the musculature will tighten like a drumhead."
---The Encyclopedia of Fish Cookery, A.J. McClane [Holt, Rinehart and Winston:New York] 1977 (p. 177-9)
Rock lobster vs spiny lobster/U.S. FDA Rock lobster, biology & habitat/Dept. of Fisheries, Western Australia
ABOUT AMERICAN CRAYFISH & CRAWFISH
"Crayfish. Also, "crawfish," "crawdad," crawdaddy," and "Florida lobster." Any of these various freshwater crustaceans of the genera Canbarus and Astacus. Although considerably smaller, the crayfish remembles the lobster, and there are 250 species and subspecies found in North America alone. The name is from Middle English crevise, and, ultimately, from Frankish krabtija. Crayfish formed a significant part of the diet of the Native Americans of the South and still hold their highest status among the Cajuns of Louisiana. Louisanans have an enourmous passion and appetitie for what they call "crawfish" (a name used by Captain John Smith as early as 1615)...The crayfish figures in Louisiana folklore, and the natives hold "crayfish boils" whenever the crustacean is in season. Breax Ridge, Louisiana, calls itself the "Crawfish Capitol of the World" and to prove it, cooking up crayfish in pies, gumbos, stews, and every other way imaginable. Yet one would not easily find a crawfish on restaurant menus in Louisiana much before 1960 because they were considered a common food to be eaten at home. Crayfish are commercially harvested in waters of the Mississippi basin, most of them of the Red Swamp and white River varieties, with the season running approximately form Thanksgiving Day to the Fourth of July..."Cajun popcorn" is a dish of battered, deep-fried crayfish popularized by Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme in the 1980s."
---ibid (p. 105)
<A name=lobsterecipes>A SURVEY OF LOBSTER RECIPES THROUGH HISTORY
[1AD, Ancient Rome]
Apicius (1st-4th century AD) includes recipes for broiled lobster [398], boiled lobster with cumin sauce [399], Another lobster dish--mince of the tail meat [400], boiled lobster (with pepper, cumin, rue, honey vinegar, broth and oil) [401] and lobster with wine [402].
---Apicius Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, edited and translated by Joseph Dommers Vehling [General Publishing:Ontario] 1977 (p. 210-211)
[1475, Italy]
Platina offers instructions for cooking sea lobsters.
---On right Pleasure and Good Health, Platina, critical edition and translation by Mary Ella Milham [Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies:Tempe AZ] 1998 (p. 449)
[1685, London]
Robert May's Accomplist Cook includes these lobster recipes: To Stew Lobsters, To Hash Lobsters, To Boil Lobsters to eat cold in the common way, To keep Lobsters a quarter of a year very good, To Farce Lobster, To marinate Lobsters, To broil Lobsters, To broil Lobsters on paper, To roast Lobsters, To fry Lobsters, To bake Lobsters to be eaten hot, To pickle Lobsters, To jelly Lobsters, Craw-fish, or Prawns.
---The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May, facsimile 1685 edition [Prospect Books:Devon] 2000 (p. 401-409)
[1747, London]
Hannah Glasse was one of the most popular cookbook authors on the 18th century. Her lobster recipes included: buttered, fine dish of, in fish sauce, pie, potted and roast.
---The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse [Prospect Books:Devon] 1995 (p. 61, 94-5, 115, 117)
[1845, London]
Eliza Acton wrote cookbooks for the new Victorian middle class. Her lobster recipes include: to boil, boudinettes of, buttered, cutlets, cutlets, Indian, fricasseed, hot, patties, potted, salad, sausages.
---Modern Cookery of Private Families, Eliza Acton [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1994 (p. 91-4, 133,136)
[1884, Boston]
Mrs. D. A. Lincon authored the first Boston Cooking School Cook Book. Her index lists: Lobster bisque, chowder, creamed, croquettes, curried, cutlets, devilled, plain, salad, sauce, scalloped, soup, and stewed. She also include instructions for choosing and opening lobsters. Her book is online, full-text. [NOTE: all of the above sources are recently published and readily obtainable through your local public library.]
Indian - matter or sag paneer; rogan gosht; a nice biryani
South American - Chilean empanadas; pollo saltado
American - lobster you've caught yourself then cooked within an hour of pulling it out of the water (Maine of course but if you've moved to Cali then Spiny but cooked on the grill is a close second)
Wine - a vintage port; a nice semillon; a big cab or shiraz; prosecco
Crud, now I'm hungry.
Yes! Matter does matter!! Keema Matter is the best Indian dish if its done right. Serve with rice and roti. Yum.
Pollo (chicken) Saltado? Never tried it but Lomo Saltado is definitely my favourite s-american dish. Must serve with Ahee (ajee) sauce.
Also agree with the port, Coda looks like you have good taste in cuisine!
Yeah but I'm still a godless baby killer. ;)
well nobody's perfect
I sooo agree. Being the crawfish connisseur that I am, I must recommend crawfish pizza from the Acadiana Restaraunt in Bossier City, LA. You've gotta try it.
Fink
Im a real fan of freshly cooked street food - Thai and indian street food is just awsome. If im feeling more sedate then I adore fish, I love that italian dish with the safron and cream with salmon. I do love the whole Med food scene, where freshly landed fish is served with fresh salad or veg. Some french food is devine, and I love working with dried porchini - you can soak them in almost anything, and the flavour is awsome.
I was at a hindu wedding a few months ago, and that eating experience was extraordainary - with sweet and hot and sour and cold all on the same plate
one cant go wrong with an Aus. Red or white, although spanish reserve Rioja is very nice or a decent bottle of italian Barollo. I love a "big" wine, and can leave watery flavoured ones. Not much wrong with an Expresso either
I live in the kitchen, and cook just about anything. We now have a "mixed" organic box of food delivered, which is fairly random in contents... thats cool, as so far I have found at least 10 vegtables that are new to me, and the flavours are fantastic
If I moved to Italy I would have to just resign to being fat
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