Watching the sausage being made is a sure way to put you off of it...

[jducoeur]

... or watching the imitation crabmeat, in this case. The current episode of Unwrapped, on Food TV, is showing how they make the stuff, and it's enough to confirm my utter lack of desire to ever consume it. They show everything from the large frozen bricks of chopped fish it is made from (which look like nothing so much as uniform white plastic building blocks), the adding of artificial flavor ("the fish in its raw form has almost no flavor!"), the blending, the extruding (yes, it is actually pureed and extruded), and the painting with a nice red stripe down the side.

Okay, it's a process that I casually accept when the subject is candy. But somehow, when applied to fish, it's oddly horrifying...

Comments

[mermaidlady]

Oh good. It's not just me...

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Did they mention the MSG? :-)

[jducoeur]

No, but that's kind of gilding the Lily of Horror here...

[talvinamarich.livejournal.com]

I worked for two years in a Wal-Mart Seafood Dept. I was there six months before they found out I don't eat the stuff.

Every once in a while, some woman would come up to the counter, and the conversation would go something like this:

"Do you have crabs?"

Me: (keeping my Customer Service Face on) "Ma'am, Wal-Mart is proud to sell King Crab Legs, Snow Crab Legs, Whole Dungeness Crab, and Imitation Crab Meat! Would any of that interest you?"

(A slightly annoyed look, and a snicker from her or her companions) "I didn't ask you THAT! I asked if you have crabs!"

I was not paid enough to be nice to these people.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

But somehow, when applied to fish, it's oddly horrifying...

I will, for the sake of argument, assume you're like the majority of folks who enjoy an occasional boiled whole lobster, or soft-shelled crab. Given that, have you examined your reaction deeply enough to explain why you don't find that revolting (as I do), whereas surimi is horrifying to you?

I mean, surimi is made from processed fish, but it's...fish, not fish-guts. To me, it's the moral equivalent of tuna salad, whereas giant sea-cockroaches lobsters...well, and eating a whole soft-shelled crab...gack, that gives me nightmares.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Is it the shape of the creature that is disturbing, or eating it whole?

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

or the fact that they live on the bottom of the sea and eat waste? (I'm grateful that somebody does it).

[jducoeur]

Chacun a son gout (he says in his best Ed Sobansky accent), I suppose. While I won't deny that lobster is a bit strange-looking, it's never particularly squicked me. (Well, the green stuff isn't to my taste. But I do like lobster meat.) And I'm downright fond of soft shell crab.

I don't think the comparison is fair, though. It's the sheer degree of processing -- the artificiality -- that appalls me here. And it's pretty clear why: I associate meat as a type of food that is typically consumed in a not-highly-processed way. For all that lobster may look like a giant cockroach, the cooked form rarely tries to hide that -- indeed, it typically revels in it. I can't think of any other form of meat I often consume that is served so completely inside its "skin".

So these are types of food that I think of as very "natural". It's not surprising that this hyper-artificial treatment, that tries to make one food look like a different one, bothers me...

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Interesting. So, if I understand you, we're horrified precisely by different extremes of the spectrum: you by extreme artificiality, and me by extreme naturalness. As I said, I see surimi as the moral equivalent of tuna salad, or perhaps a more apt description would be mer-Spam %^). It's processed, but basically it's something I'm quite comfortable eating: it's the flesh of fish. On the other hand, I can't get around the fact that whole lobster involves eviscerating a huge arthropod. And -- an order of magnitude more disgusting than that -- eating a soft-shell crab involves not eviscerating a huge bug, just chomping it down whole, guts and all. Spee-EEEW! (As the old joke goes: "What's worse than finding a worm in your apple? Finding half a worm in your apple.")

[jducoeur]

Yep, that seems to be the difference. I largely came to terms with my own carnivorous nature years ago, and while there are still things that cross the line for me, shellfish generally doesn't do it. So long as it doesn't have eyes, I'm usually not too perturbed by it. But I find processed meat a bit -- I don't know, unfortunate -- even in cases I do eat (hot dogs, hamburgers, canned tuna), and there are points at which it just gets a little too weird for me. I think my reaction to Spam is not too unlike yours to soft shell crab: I find the idea a little nasty...

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Okay, I was going to show how unconnected I am and ask "who's Ed Sobansky?" but Google seems to show that he's an SCA member from Atlantia, a member of Clam Chowder, and an attorney for the Washington (DC) Science Fiction Association. Have I got that right?

[jducoeur]

Correct. If you're not familiar with the work of the Clams, I commend it greatly -- they're one of my all-time favorite music groups. Ed was, in some incarnations of the Clams, their bass, but he really specialized in story-songs. He's an exceptional storyteller: his tale of "The King of Meridies and The Treasure Halls of King Valoo" is one of my favorite Pennsic stories, and the reason that, to this day, msmemory and I occasionally spout the line "them's *gooood* onions!". (No, I can't do the story justice; sometime I'll see if I can get you and Ed in the same place at Pennsic so he can tell it.)

Anyway, in this particular case, I actually started out by writing "my best Flanders and Swann accent", but realized that's not true. The song is "Madeira, M'Dear", which I learned from the Clams cover long before I ever heard the original. So it's Ed's voice that I really associate with that line. (There are many songs I learned from the Clams rather than the original, ranging from "Charley and the MTA" -- the reason I always sing that one with "vote for Ed Sobansky" in the last verse -- to "Carrot Juice is Murder"...)

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

I saw Clam Chowder live at BosKlone, which was, what, 20 years ago? I liked them a lot, but I never followed up. So I take it he's Igor Medved, a/k/a Igor Bear? That's a name I vaguely know, but I don't know why. It's just my silly peer trick: if I've ever heard an SCA name, I remember it, but the "skill" is utterly useless since my brain stores no further references.

I know "Madeira, My Dear" from Tony Randall singing it on the old Tonite Show: he was apparently an aficionado of those old musical-hall ditties. (Some of those are hilarious. If anyone knows "Oh, That Gorgonzola Cheese" [which may in fact be modern: I heard it from the CT group How to Change a Flat Tire, who may have written it] I want the lyrics).

[jducoeur]

Correct: Igor == Ed...

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

lyrics:
http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/boneill/SongTexts/GorgonzolaCheeseWentWrong.txt
I think I first heard it from the Incredible String Band. Some very brief web searching produced yet another music hall song featuring gorganzola cheese and resulting confusion about which song was earlier, or really
from the music hall at all.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Way cool! Thank you!