[Sca-cooks] scallops

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Oct 4, 2008, at 12:10 PM, Deborah Hammons wrote:

> In the early 70"s Rhys and I were stationed on the island of  
> Menorca.  Rhys
> went snorkeling and brought back a sting ray that had a 6 foot  
> wingspan.
> Since we were swimming out of one of our local swim up tapa bars  
> there, the
> proprietor asked if he could "have" it.  He brought out a huge cutting
> board, and after taking the wings off and skinning them. he used  
> different
> sized metal round "cookie cutters" to prepare the white meat of the  
> wings.
> Then he put them on the grill and served them to the bar patrons.  As
> scallops.  When I asked him about it, he just shurgged and said,  
> tourists,
> what do they know?  It has made me pretty skeptical of the frozen  
> ones.  But
> now adays I think there is a little more positive control on what  
> gets put
> into those bags in the freezer.  One can hope.


There's actually a pretty substantial difference between the flavor  
and texture of scallops and shark/skate/ray (which all taste pretty  
similarly to each other, although skate is noticeably more tender than  
the others), But as the proprietor says, "Tourists. What do they know?"

I wouldn't even mind skate-wing "scallops". It's the surimi ones that  
are really pretty horrid, but then to me the only acceptable form of  
surimi is Chinese and called "fish cakes" or "fish balls".

Adamantius




"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter