SC - kitchen kits (long

[Marisa Herzog]

> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 14:14:13 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Daria Anne Rakowski <dar3 at st-andrews.ac.uk>
> Subject: SC - Squid-Charter info
> 
> Greetings all, I realise that this is a little late but I only found it
> today.
> 
> A colleague of mine here has found a reference to serving cuttle-fish in a
> charter dated around 1216. (I could be a bit off) It was in a monastery in
> Portugal where the hostelier served what appears to be the little beasties
> cooked in their own ink. The problem was that these were highly
> undesirable as a food stuff  (apparently) as the visiting abbott tried to
> bribe his way out of eating it! There was a mention of it being smelly
> too. Does anyone know if this methode of prep. would result in a fishy
> smell or could they have been off? (I've never tried it)
> 
> 
> Thanks, Coll

Hmmm...where do I begin...?

Just a few disjointed thorts here. No, squid don't stink when fresh; as
Lord Ras pointed out, they are high in sugars, and smell a bit like
scallops. Yes, they can smell a bit of ammonia and/or iodine when a bit
off, but if they really stink I can't imagine anyone trying to cook and
eat them.

Now, just to add to the fun, I should point out that there are numerous
instances recorded of aversion to one or the other type of fish. Inland
folks seem to have a tendency to prefer lake and river fish over sea
fish, while coastal types generally seemed to prefer sea fish to
freshwater beasts. Probably this is a logical extension of the problem
with transport and lack of refrigertation. I still know many people
today who have a marked preference divided along these lines. It's not
that they hate fish, it's that they can handle fried catfish, say,
regardless of questionable freshness or preparation, over any type of
sea fish, which, regardless of its freshness, sweetness, and expert
preparation (or lack thereof), they claim stinks. In short, it's
probably largely about what you're used to.

Further, I should mention that squid en su tinta (or any of several
Iberian dishes of squid cooked in its ink) usually have plenty of garlic
and are cooked for longer than most other squid dishes, which does tend
to concentrate any, uh, latent aromas. They don't stink, of course, when
properly prepared, but they do smell like fish, which is what they are,
of course.

Someone had mentioned the need to skin and debrine North Atlantic squid:
I agree about the skinning, which is actually much easier than it
sounds, but I'm not sure what is meant by debrining.

As for the ammonia issue, I read several years ago about a Japanese
whaler (I think it was, anyway) that hauled aboard one of those
deepwater giant squids, and the crew cheerfully set about preparing the
World's Largest Order of Sashimi. They found out, the hard way,
something that marine biologist seem not to have discovered hitherto,
which is that deepsea squid process their ammonia excretions
differently, under high water pressure, from their smaller
surface-dwelling relatives. Apparently after a deep sniff, the cooks
decided it would be a good idea to salt and scour the flesh, and then
rinse it, to remove the slight trace of ammonia from the surface. (It
had been alive when hauled up, or close to it, presumably dying of the
bends or some such.) Anyway, they removed all the surface ammonia to
discover that when they took the first bites, there was plenty more
ammonmia where that came from, right in the flesh of the squid.

I guess this comes under the heading of "Is this thing edible?" "I don't
know, let's eat it and see!"

Adamantius
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