[Sca-cooks] Beware of the fish

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius.magister at verizon.net
Mon Aug 7 11:09:19 PDT 2006


On Aug 7, 2006, at 1:18 PM, Fergus Stout wrote:

> Back when I was cooking commercially, it was skate and not shark  
> that was most often used as a fraudulent scallop.

Did you ever actually see this done? I've been familiar with that  
story since childhood, when my Dad used to take me fishing on the  
various "party" boats (party in the group sense, not like the booze  
and mildly inappropriate behavior sense) -- we'd occasionally catch  
skates and someone was bound to make a joke about getting out the  
cookie cutter and making fake scallops.

Later, in my own time cooking commercially, I actually cooked high- 
quality skate and shark regularly, and found it hard to believe  
anyone would be fooled by either into thinking it was scallops. Maybe  
shark, but definitely not skate... if it was me I'd try using  
monkfish with a dusting of fine sugar before cooking.

>   Now that was 13+ years ago now so they may have switched to  
> shark.  Interestingly enough Aislinn, my cafeteria downstairs was  
> serving Kung Po grouper today in the international section.

Well, whatever else that may be, it is surely international ;-).

Adamantius, seemingly not able to shake off his Inner Stuffy Purist  
today



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