EAT IT!

This past Saturday, the daughter of a friend let it be known that she will no longer eat fish (which she now refers to as "sea-kitten"). This in the context of her ideology, which I respect. She absolutely refuses to touch sea kittens.
Smoked varietal sea kitten with cream cheese on a toasted bagel is no longer part of her diet, gently poached sea kitten with cilantro and ginger is not in the program, and fried cumin-dusted sea kitten with lemon and sweet chilies shall never pass her lips. It is sad.
Sea kitten is the PETA-approved circumlocution for fish, to make you think warmly and fuzzily about the creatures - which will apparently make you not want to eat them.

[That leaves more sea kitten for the rest of us. Huzzah.]


Later that same day, a friend who spent several years in a South-American jail (for gun-running) dryly remarked that in the country where he was imprisoned the cats obviously did not get the high-quality canned kitty nibbles so common in the United States - this after I had stated that the problem with cats, from a culinary point of view, was that they ended up tasting like what they themselves had eaten.


Motzei Shabbes, upon reading a food-related post, Jonathan Becker left this comment: "fruitbat? that's disgusting."

I had unwisely admitted that I had eaten zebra, snake, alligator, fruitbat, and wildebeest.
Well, fruitbat wasn't disgusting at the time. It actually tasted darn good. After you've whacked a few out of a tree with a long pole, you must kill them, gut them, and pack them in mud, then set them to roast in a fire. When you crack the baked mud and peel off the shards, the fur comes along with it, leaving a nice steaming juicy serving for one. They're good with baked ubi.
Fruitbats are not disgusting - contextually, they are in fact delicious.

The taste of cat food is disgusting. Far far FAR worse than fruitbat. Trust me on this one.



BON GUSTO

I blame my omnivorocity on my unkosher upbringing.
I doubt that my mother would've known kosher if it came up and bit her on the leg.
No kosher whatever, not in our household.

Instead, we had my mother's meshune ideas about food to cope with.
The result was even more restrictive than kashrus.

To whit:"Herring is full of worms" - she had read about the herring nematode, and distrusted the local fish-merchants. My father, my brother, and I smuggled the delicious raw herring into the house and ate it without her knowing.
"Carrots and celery should only be eaten raw" - can I just say that I am still not fond of carrots?
"There is no nutritional value in cabbage" - this was her explanation of the ignorance of some of the local people; their brains had starved.
"Lobster gives you gout" - and so, of course, it was verboten; gout was something English which no one else deserved.
"Coffee stunts your growth" - this from a woman who was considerably shorter than either of her sons.
"Spinach is poison" - I cannot remember what the basis of her theory was.
"Sausages are no better than dog-food" - I don't think she liked Europeans; what is more European than sausage?
"That old Jew is going to kill you" - this was said every time Mr. Kater came by with a giant bag of fresh wild mushrooms that he had picked in the forest. My father and I would fress ourselves silly on mushrooms - seethed in butter, or sliced in omelets, drenched in broth or added to stew. They were very good. Her gloomy prediction has not yet come true.

[Her distrust of Mr. Kater was probably based on contract bridge. About which I know nothing.]

The variety of foods that she would allow into the house was very limited. Even with the three men of the household conspiring against her dictats, and trips to Brussels and Paris expressly for the food, there was much good eating to which I had not been exposed while she was alive.

I have been catching up ever since.



OTHER "SEA-KITTENS" I'VE EATEN

Alligator, antelope, bee larva, bison, cane rat, cape buffalo, cat, cicada, cricket, dog, dragon fly (fried with chilies), dwarf buffalo, fermented fish paste, fertilized duck eggs, fruitbat, goat, horse meat, lamb brains, pelanduk, sago grub, sea cucumber, shark, snake (several different kinds), springbok, tree possum, water buffalo, wild boar, wildebeest, zebra.


Much of it was quite good. No, not the cane rat, nor the cat. Cat tastes like whatever it has fed upon. The sago grubs were delicious. Sea cucumber absorbs flavour very well, and should be richly sauced for that reason.
Tree possum is impossibly greasy.

The only thing in the list above which truly is disgusting is the fertilized duck egg. It's called 'balut' in the Philippines, where it is much loved.
Though that may be a slight overstatement - it's more available at three o'clock in the morning after you've been drinking all night than at any other time, and I cannot remember seeing the damned things in day light, or while sober. You have to be plotzed to eat them.
That is what makes them good.

[The Philippines is also where I ate dog for the first time - up in the cordillera the locals make cocktail snacks out of them. Little fried doggy bits and chops, great with San Miguel Beer!
Oh, and by the way - do NOT insult your hosts by refusing to eat the food that they so thoughtfully provide.]


"Fruitbat? That's disgusting."


Most of the 'alternative' protein sources mentioned above make good curry. None of them are "sea kitten". But sea kitten also makes good curry. Fermented sea kitten paste in moderation could be added to all of them.
Just remember to avoid land-based sea-kitten equivalents ("farm kitten" or "forest kitten") with scarred lungs or signs of disease, and to cut their throats in one clean stroke with a very sharp unnicked blade, severing the carotid arteries and jugular veins.