[Sca-cooks] crunchy jello and squid ink

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Sep 9, 2005, at 2:11 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Does the squid ink have a taste to it? How black does this dish  
> actually get?

As I mentioned, squid ink does have a taste. It's sort of ocean- 
mineral-y, like many seafoods, can be slightly bitter, but rich in a  
way that is hard to describe. How black anything can get when you add  
it depends on what you add it to, and how much you add. Without  
intending to sound Phlippant... so, for example, calamare en su tinta  
(squid in a sauce of its own ink), which is a frequent Spanish tapas  
item, and also commonly available in certain markets among the canned  
fish, is dark, almost chocolate brown, in a nearly or fully black  
sauce. Seafood rice dishes to which a little ink has been added are  
darker than they'd otherwise be, but since rice of whitish on its  
own, and there may be tomatoes or saffron involved as well, you'd  
have to add a _lot_ of ink to make it black.

I'd say calling inky foods black is kind of similar to the medieval  
references to oranges being golden, calling something (say, white  
cotignac) white when it's simply a shade or two lighter in color than  
it'd otherwise be, that sort of thing. Foods with squid ink can get  
pretty dark, depending on the proportions used, but are rarely what  
we'd call pitch black.

> Can anyone think of any other all black food, either period or  
> modern? Is the rarity because of it's appearance or the difficulty  
> of coloring a food black?

Well, black puddings, especially when grilled or fried, can get  
pretty black, although normally their interior is sort of deep, dark,  
purplish-red, and blood turns up fairly frequently as a "black"  
coloring agent. I'd say the relative rarity of black foods in the  
standard medieval food references might be due to the more-or-less  
festive nature of things like recipe sources and feast menus (with  
some exceptions, which, being exceptions, are fairly rare). I'd say a  
black dish, or a table full of them, might be said to be depressing,  
and perhaps that is the intention anyway, or at least ostensibly so.

Adamantius



"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04