[Sca-cooks] Fish at feasts

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Nov 20, 2008, at 2:31 PM, <jimandandi at cox.net> wrote:

> Have you ever served fish at a feast? How?

Lobster in blankmanger, mussels in butter and vinegar, oysters in  
gravy, smoked whiting with mustard sauce, fresh whiting fried and  
served with a "sober" [dark] raisin sauce and any of several variants:  
aigre douce, rappee, etc. Salmon many ways, from tarts, to poached, to  
poached dumplings in a sauce, shrimp with aged vinegar, shrimp  
sausages, scallop crepinettes, escabeche of cod and cominee / cuminade  
de poissons, also made with cod. The last is a favorite of mine,  
served in a thick, cumin-flavored almond-milk sauce.

And Lobster Thermidor aux Crevettes with a Mornay sauce served in the  
Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines, garnished with truffle  
paté, brandy, and a fried egg on top and Spam.

> How was it received?

Generally pretty well. I live in a group that has one of the larger  
seafood wholesale markets on the Eastern Seaboard in its backyard, so  
mostly it's a way of life. I'm pretty careful with portion control,  
allowing two to three ounces per portion cooked, buying about three  
times that raw and untrimmed to allow for head, bone, skin and fin  
waste, and shrinkage in cooking. Some will eat more than three ounces,  
some none, most will enjoy it and there may be two or three extremely  
vocal and rude people voicing their objections. If I run out I at  
least know some went out to every table and there's other food, and  
that's better than wasting it.

Adamantius (who don't got much Spam in him)