[Sca-cooks] scallops

[Deborah Hammons]

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.

Aldyth

On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 2:16 AM, Stefan li Rous
<StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>wrote:

> Adamantius said:
>
> <<< At the risk of overstating the obvious, it might be worth noting that
> in most of the US, what we actually are getting is the sliced or whole
> adductor muscle that has been carefully removed from the shellfish we
> know as the scallop. The entire beastie is edible, except for the
> shell, and the period recipes are presumably speaking of the whole
> animal, as are many recipes from outside the US... >>>
>
> Oh! Duh. It might be obvious to some, but it didn't occur to me until
> seeing Johnnae's message you were replying to and your message that there
> was a connection between the round one inch or 1/2 inch chunks of white
> flesh i was seeing at Sam's and other groceries and the stereotypical shell
> pattern used by the Shell Oil company and even the "scalloped" edging around
> period style pavilions.
>
> I almost asked what animal these round chunks came from. :-(  It also makes
> clear how easily obtained these probably were in period, at least if you
> lived near the seacoast.  I imagine one reason they are so expensive now is
> that easy collection has caused them to be over harvested and harder to find
> now.  I wonder if they can be farmed.
>
> Stefan
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas
> StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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