Jennifer Jacquet of the Sea Around Us Project just published a solid and timely essay with Science & Spirit magazine. The piece begins by asking:
If Jesus can turn two fish into enough to feed five thousand people, now would be a good time to intervene. According to researchers, each American ate nearly a half-pound more seafood last year than the year before. As we reach the end of the Christian season of Lent -- the period in which seafood consumption is at its highest -- scientists predict that, if the trend continues, wild marine fisheries will disappear in the next forty years.
At issue is whether fish is meat (which, of course, it is). But in the 11th century, the Catholic Church "banned meat but sanctioned fish as a show of penance on Fridays and during the 40 days before Easter. When other observances with similar restrictions were added to the equation, the prohibition meant more than one hundred fish-only days per year" for Catholics.
If the Pope is a Gristmill reader, then here's a call to action on your recent pledge to protect creation!
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Comments
View as Flat
sindark Posted 4:25 am
07 Mar 2008
a sibilant intake of breath
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wiscidea Posted 4:31 am
07 Mar 2008
The Bible indicates whales are fish, right?
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javaearth Posted 4:45 am
07 Mar 2008
Plus if there was just one message, why are their so many different chruchs. - Baptist, Catholics, LDS, etc... I mean surely there would have just be one! Mankind has made their own rules, so really how much is it Gods words, and how much is it just some guy - who had a cool idea at the time!
I believe in God, - vey much so. The rest, I am not sure, so I'll pass on that.
I respect peoples beliefs, but really how can we ever know what is/was true or not?
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PJD Posted 8:57 am
07 Mar 2008
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capibara
"During the Christian celebration of Lent, capybara meat is especially popular as the Catholic church, in a special dispensation, classified the animal as a fish in the 16th century."
They're kinda cute for a big rodent... and they do swim. Ok, a fury fish is a bit of a stretch... but you can't question the Pope.
wiscidea... yeah, I'm pretty sure a whale would have to qualify as a fish. Heck, if you could teach a cow to swim, Outback might be able to get some sort of dispensation for prime rib.
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Sam Wells Posted 9:24 am
07 Mar 2008
I continue to be shocked that Grist has absolutely no clue about sustainable fisheries ... well after a few years I guess I am not so shocked. Why would one buy the notion that in 40 years there wouldn't be a wild fish left on the planet? Got proof, models, or milk?
Ah, because you believe in the Apocalypse and are some kind of religious - environmental nuts. I see now. The Red Whore of Babylon isn't just for avoiding mammalian meat anymore. Hey, this is a free country and we'll protect your right to free religious expression.
Onward through the fog
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Jason D Scorse Posted 9:46 am
07 Mar 2008
I teach environmental economics and blog at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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Angry African Posted 10:53 am
07 Mar 2008
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Erik Hoffner Posted 12:42 pm
07 Mar 2008
It's fine you choose to eat meat. Just include fish in that category.
Your call to be sensitive rings hollow, though, after saying you're disgusted with vegan eating habits.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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shiftingbaselines Posted 2:32 pm
07 Mar 2008
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caniscandida Posted 4:46 pm
07 Mar 2008
And so, of course Catholics in South America naturally treated capybaras exactly they way they used to treat hares and rabbits back in Spain and Portugal.
Lest those old Catholic hierarchs seem too impossibly ridiculous, it is important -- and it is only fair -- to get the wording of the relevant canon laws right. Does the wording actually say that "the flesh of fish is not meat"? That literal wording itself would be plainly absurd in Latin, since "flesh" and "meat" would both translate the Latin noun caro, genitive carnis. (And in the history of English, "flesh" is the good old Germanic word meaning what we mean nowadays by "meat," while "meat" was used for food of many kinds.) My suspicion is that a fair reading of the old canon law would show that what the legalists were interested in was distinguishing between "meat of animals to be abstained from" and "meat of animals from which it is not required to abstain, in the first place fish." They were NOT interested in pontificating about a biological taxonomy.
WiscIdea, Aristotle, of the 4th century BCE, after much admirable observation, distinguished among bony fish (osteichthyans), elasmobranchs and marine mammals, and recognized that they belong to different taxa. Starting in the 11th century, or a bit later, learned people in the Catholic West (churchmen and religious of one kind or another) began reading Aristotle with great interest and appreciation.
For most orthodox Christians, the Bible was not understood as being a scientific authority. What they learned from Aristotle and other natural philosophers was supposed to be compatible with references to natural things in the Bible. But they most certainly did not look to the Bible as the sole inerrant and necessary source of knowledge, in the style of the johnny-come-lately fundamentalist Christians, including many evangelicals. Unfortunately, when you refer critically to the Bible, you seem to think that all Christians are doctrinally committed to using the Bible as a general authoritative book in the style of the fundamentalists; but that is somewhat insulting, since the fundamentalists and evangelicals are really a late-appearing fringe sect.
Is there a biblical word for "whale"? I do not think so. No more than the ancient Greek mythological poets, the authors of biblical texts were not interested in doing a taxonomy of marine creatures. There are references to large marine animals here and there, often translated by such expressions as "big fish," and "sea monsters," and sometimes, misleadingly, "whales."
The prophet Jonah was famously swallowed by a "big fish." That fish has traditionally been referred to and depicted as a whale; and that is reasonable enough, since no bony fish, and very few sharks, grow so large as conceivably to be able to swallow a human being. Certainly the Book of Jonah is a work of fiction; and the author was using an impressive amount of vivid imagination in relating the experiences of his hero.
Note also that the spectacular animals described toward the end of the Book of Job, Leviathan and Behemoth, are understood by biblical scholars as having been inspired by, respectively, the crocodile and the hippopotamus.
Anyway, to return to the beginning: Presumably fish and rabbit and hare were not included among the animals whose flesh must be abstained from, because they were considered poor man's food -- unlike beef and pork and even poultry, which required some wealth to raise.
I do not know the status of fish in the regulations on abstinence among the Eastern Orthodox. They are generally much tougher than us RCs, prohibiting dairy products and eggs, and I think olive oil, and alcoholic beverages. The point is to recover for the period of Lent the primeval diet of Adam and Eve in the Garden before the Fall.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 5:49 pm
07 Mar 2008
We whose native language is English use such curious expressions as "shellfish," "crayfish," "jellyfish" and "starfish," to refer to various marine or aquatic animals. None of those creatures is even a chordate, let along a true fish. But if anyone tried to mock us for our gross ignorance, we would indignantly respond, "OF COURSE we know that they are not true fish! Silly!"
It is perhaps less widely understood that there is no such thing as a "true fish," if that term is used Linnaeanly to include tunas, coelacanths and sharks, and perhaps such extinct lineages as placoderms, but excludes us tetrapods.
Linnaean taxonomy is based on superficial phenotypic similarities, not evolutionary relationships. Often enough the former coincide with the latter, but by no means always. The five vertebrate classes, Fishes, Amphibians, Reptiles, Mammals and Birds, are a muddle. "Birds" sort of works, though it is not easy untangling the true Birds from their close dino-bird cousins in the Cretaceous. "Mammals" sort of works, though it is not easy drawing a line between them and some "mammal-like reptiles" in the Triassic.
"Reptiles" makes no sense, if that has to include not only numerous extinct and living lineages, but also the ancestors of Mammals and Birds -- but not their descendants.
"Amphibians" makes no sense, if that has to include not only numerous extinct and living lineages, but also the ancestors of us the Amniotes.
And "Fishes" is messiest of all. Either there is no such thing as a "true fish," or else we are fish. For example, sharks are not very closely related to tunas. Tunas are more closely related to us, and to whales, than they are to sharks. I.e., the common ancestor of tunas (actinopterygian osteichthyans) and us (tetrapods, descended from sarcopterygian osteichthyans) lived more recently than did the common ancestor of tunas and sharks (elasmobranch chondrichthyans). So, if sharks get to be called "fish," then we and whales and Little White Dog have at least as much right to be called "fish" as they.
Imagine, a man named Zebediah Smith, living with Mrs. Augusta Smith in Buffalo, NY. They have three sons, Peter, James and John. They buy winter coats, woolen sweaters, and snow shovels and sleds.
The sons grow up. Peter and James Smith get married to women in upstate New York, and raise their families there. They continue to be well adapted to wintertime circumstances.
John Smith moves to Phoenix. He marries there, and raises a family. His children do not have winter clothing, or other objects having to do with cold weather and snow. His children have never been snowed upon. On Christmas, they walk around outside in shorts and flip-flops.
Therefore, the Taxonomical Powers That Be decree that John Smith and his family should no longer be allowed to use the surname "Smith." Instead, they impose on them the new name, "Sandhopper."
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Pangolin Posted 6:28 pm
07 Mar 2008
Do you vegans realize what self-righteous twits you sound like to the rest of the world? Even most Hindus eat something that you would call meat. What people hear or see when they read these screeds is something like "throw out anything in your fridge that gives your life meaning after you have suffered another dead-end day working for the man."
Then 95% of your respondents reply: yeah blank you too blankhole. For you must understand that thier lives are painful and deadening already.
So if you want to save fisheries instruct people in the joys of eating trout, tilapia, catfish, crayfish and carp all of which can be raised in freshwater permacultures that recycle nutrients back to gardens increasing the overall availability of food. Clams, mussels, lobster, crab and urchin are all workable in managed beds or well controlled fisheries. Even abalone and sturgeon for caviar are now being farm raised.
There are places in the Mississippi river basin where you can catch oriental catfish simply by driving your boat down certain passages. The fish have a jumping instinct and getting hit in the face by a fifteen pound fish is a real hazard.
As to the saltwater marine fisheries. Ban all gear that isn't biodegradable (only hemp nets and lines, sorry) ban trawling in all cases, ban diesel engines (sail only bub, climate change) ban longlineing, (one hand per hook in the water) and the fish will return. When fisheries workers complain hand them a fat check of degraded US currency and scuttle their boats. Ban steel and fiberglass fishing vessels.(fishermen and forestries were once linked, those links should return).
The oceans swarmed with fish before humans could use diesel engines to chase them down and tear them from the sea. After major storms dead fish would lie in heaps on the beaches and lobsters could be plucked by hand from the tide line. Now the beaches swarm with breeding humans and the oceans are dead.
If you want to reduce the impact on fisheries promote birth control. There's no other way it's going to work.
Put the Carbon Back
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caniscandida Posted 6:40 pm
07 Mar 2008
thanks for your excellent essay. And your ShiftingBaselines site is a fascinating array of biodiversity-related information.
Your colleague Josh Donlon should stop by some time. Since he is an aficionado of paleo-art, as am I, and especially admires the work of Carl Buell, he should visit the 4th-floor paleontology halls at the American Museum of Natural History here in NYC, and see both classic old stuff by Charles Knight, and more recent work, including the paintings of Robert J. Barber, and the remarkably beautiful sculptural mounts of fossils. And the dioramas in the halls of African, Asian and North American wildlife are spectacular too.
On "fish" and "meat": As a Catholic who turned vegetarian/vegan in the 1970s, for moral reasons of a few kinds, I have not paid much attention to the Church's abstinence regulations. But I get the impression that there are not many other Catholics who pay much attention to them either, especially since the lifting of the abstinence requirement for every Friday in the year in the 1960s. Also, I do not know that there are that many Catholics, who continue to keep the abstinence practice, who feel that abstaining meat automatically is a positive command to go forth and eat fish. It might have been that way once upon a time, back when Catholic calendars were printed with a fish on days when abstinence was enjoined. But surely many of us realize at this point that there are many ways to be "meatless," i.e. no chicken, pork, beef, etc., without eating fish.
It strikes me that the recent startling increase in consumption of fish has little to do with anything that Catholics are up to. It has much more to do with the cultivation of fine dining among affluent Westerners, the globalization of sushi-eating, and, not least, the on-going proclamation of the health benefits of eating fish.
Certainly, the deplorable ignorance of very many people, everywhere, from all religious traditions and none, who believe that somehow the killing and eating of fish is not an action morally comparable to the killing and eating of fowls and hoofed mammals, as though the lives and interests of fish are negligible, is something we should protest, as often as we can.
I do not see Catholicism, or any other religion, to be directly responsible for the depletion of fisheries at this point in history. But we Catholics, including Pope Benedict, can indeed have a great deal of influence, in favor of fish and other animals, by explicitly identifying the biodiversity crisis as a "pro-life" issue of major importance.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Pangolin Posted 8:09 pm
07 Mar 2008
Canis, all food is life or it isn't food. While some foods have had the life squeezed out of them they all represent part of the force. Actually George Lucas just ripped off Taoism. Food is part of the Tao, in wild food the Tao expresses more strongly which is so much of Chinese medicine in weird forest plants.
To eat you must make an exchange with the living Tao of another being and then return that energy as life to the world. This is/has always been the way of the world until man created cities and imagined himself seperate because he lived in a dead place.
You don't suppose your fierce devotion to living creatures might be because you live in one of the most toxic, dead, human environments (NYC) on the planet? It's bizarre for me to reconcile your advocacy for life while you live in the heart of the Death Star. The damage done just to get your food to you is immense vegan or carnivore.
Pass the salt.
Put the Carbon Back
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javaearth Posted 1:51 am
08 Mar 2008
I suggest you actually do some research as to when the "some" Hindu cultures started to eat meat! to get you started I'll give you 2 hints. 1)around 16th century to be more like the White man that ruled over them, in their country! 2)when many hindus come to western countries they eat meat to try to fit in with their peers at work lunchs and be more "western".
Regardless wheather it is a fish or a cow a real Hindu does not eat meat.
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wiscidea Posted 3:39 am
08 Mar 2008
Thank you, again, caniscandida, for your informative comments. I think, long ago, I indicated it would be interesting to read a compilation of expanded versions of your essays on various subjects. If you've already written something like this, I hope you might let me know about it. You have a remarkably diverse and vast amount of information at your fingertips.
[I just realized this might sound sarcastic, but that's not the intent. I really do learn a lot from your contributions to the Grist website.]
Sorry about the generalization regarding Christians and interpretation of the Bible. I should know better. It was just far too easy to post the comment regarding whales without giving it much thought.
Anyway...
If the Catholic Church would simply explain exactly what is meant by "fish" -- and perhaps purchase some ad time on TV and radio -- we might reduce the annual overconsumption of what is commonly referred to as a "fish"... the cold-blooded (unless it is tuna or one of the other "fish" recently discovered to generate heat), scalely (unless it is one of those "fish" without scales), aquatic organisms.
I wish people, including myself, could learn to use more precise language, especially when advising over one billion people (http://www.adherents.com/adh_rb.html) to follow certain instructions.
Hope someone sorts this out soon. I'm looking forward to taking advantage of the two-for-one Capybara McNugget value meal promo during Lent next year!!! Just kidding... I think.
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wiscidea Posted 3:42 am
08 Mar 2008
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Sam Wells Posted 7:32 am
08 Mar 2008
Last I checked the Pacific cod fishery off Alaska was certified sustainable. That's where McDonald's gets more of it fish for its fish sandwiches.
Red snapper in the NW Gulf of Mexico are sustainable although the NMFS does not want to admit this, because shrimping is bad (I admit the by-catch).
Success stories include the Striped Bass and sea scallop off New England. And incredibly, the lobster fishery off Maine has been growing each year.
Sure, many fish species have been depopulated but as trawlers and factory ships are phased out, some remarkable come-back are occurring. One interesting "new" fishery are three kinds of squid off the California coast (including the most Humbolt Squid).
Dogfish - that's a good one. The Brits use them mainly for "fish and chips" and they are the ugliest kind of shark you ever saw ... and there are millions of them infesting our Atlantic shores eating up all the cod and depleted species with a vengeance.
Where mariculture (shellfish aquaculture) is blooming in some areas, such as oysters from Texas, mussels in Maine and Canada, and quahogs off Martha's Vineyard.
But we only hear about the disasters, since that is what sells print these days. To be sure, fish is meat. It is a very good kind of light meat on small doses, far better than heavy beef (which is nearly indigestible).
You Grist readers don't need to attempt changing my mind but I am trying to get you to open up your minds to the realities of the science and the situation. There are glimmers of hope out there, some success stories, and indeed a few sustainable fisheries. Thanks!
sam
Onward through the fog
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caniscandida Posted 8:30 am
08 Mar 2008
Oddly, that adherents.com page seems to say nothing about Shiite Islam. I would guess they number between 80 and 100 million.
There is no need for the Catholic Church to buy ad time on TV or radio, if Catholic priests do their job and preach correctly from the pulpit.
Anyway, the estimated 1,100,000,000 Catholics are hardly robotic servants of the Pope.
And the penitential Lenten discipline, including abstinence from meat, is not equivalent to the purity commandments of the Book of Leviticus. If an ancient Israelite, or a modern Orthodox Jew, were to eat inadvertently an insect that had been declared "unclean," that would be a big deal. But there is nothing like that in Catholicism.
Among most traditionally Catholic nations, entomophagy has not yet caught on as a standard part of the cuisine. Certain regions of Mexico stand out as exceptions. I would guess that in those places, e.g. Oaxaca, insects are not considered "meat," and so may be consumed during the periods of abstinence from meat. But I do not know for sure.
More importantly, the accidental consumption of an insect, even if it is designated "meat," would not matter. It is the intention that matters in this case, not the specific effect of an action.
And as I said before, I think this issue is something of a "red herring," so to speak. I am skeptical that Catholic fish-eating practices nowadays have a significant effect on fisheries, even if it is true, as Jennifer Jacquet has written, that back in the 1960s, those practices may have moved fast-food restaurants to introduce Filet O'Fish and its analogues. Catholic practice today is not what it was back then.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Erik Hoffner Posted 8:36 am
08 Mar 2008
Believe me, my mind is wide open on the topic, but any student of history has to take what you're saying with a bucket of saltwater. What we see in the modern day oceans is tragic.
Sure, gov'ts certify some fisheries as sustainable, but relative to what? If we know we can get x number of metric tons of fish out of a given area under current fishing pressure for a while, voila, it's sustainable? What if that x number of tons is so pitifully small that it's laughable, as is often the case? Sure, Maine lobster stocks appear all happy, but when's the last time someone caught a 20 lber? They used to be common as far south as LI Sound that big. Maine lobster live until they reach the 1 lb stage at which point they are largely caught and shipped to market.
One can now buy 'marine stewardship council certified' patagonian toothfish (chilean sea bass) in every Whole Foods in the land. If that's not a huge joke, I lack humor entirely. It's sustainable b/c they say it is, not b/c it actually is.
The sandshark eg you give is not a good one. Smooth dogfish were indeed plentiful for a while after the cod collapse, (and they're quite handsome and fun to handle, actually, used to catch a lot as a kid), but they were only expanding into the missing cod's niche. The fishing fleet has decimated the smooth dogfish and now the spiny dogfish is taking over for the smooth one and the fleet is fishing the hell out of them, too, for the blessed fish and chip trade. I don't call that hopeful.
The new squid fishery in the north Pacific eg is also tragic - by my reckoning these are southern water squid species expanding northward in the globally warming Pacific.
Believe me, I look for hopeful signs for the marine food chain all the time. I just put up a big post about the hopefulness of growing lots and lots of shellfish, for the climate, for ecosystems, and for us:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/2/20/192041/132
But I wouldn't be here typing about this today if the Atlantic's fisheries didn't tank in the early 80s. I never would have gone to college and I'd own my own fishing boat. But I saw no hope in it and the signs were all around - I was employed in both the commercial and recreational fishing sectors, and it was all anybody could say, was "get out of this business while you can, kid."
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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Sam Wells Posted 9:34 am
08 Mar 2008
And what is true today won't be true decades from now, as populations eat more seafood and the waters warm because of climate change. The prognosis isn't good even for the species trying to make a come back.
You stirred some memories of when I was a kid in Clinton, CT running some lobster traps - used to be you could fish about a dozen on a recreational license. Anything over a pound was a dollar a lobster and anything legal under a pound was two for a dollar back in 1972. I made a bunch of money on those dozen traps, always a few every day I checked - nearly got iodine poisoning from eating too many!
Today there's hardly a few left in the entire Long Island Sound. Word is some people are using lobster traps to catch black sea bass, which are sold alive to the Chinese in lower NYC. Much of that trade is done on the "gray market" if you know what I mean. Good article, sir.
-sam
Onward through the fog
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SMLowry Posted 9:42 am
08 Mar 2008
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caniscandida Posted 6:14 pm
08 Mar 2008
As for Filet O'Fish: I am doubtful that much of anything is "sustainable," and as happy as I am to get Sam's positive reports, I wonder if "sustainable" is quite the right word to apply to a fishery.
Nevertheless, I believe that for a couple of years now, McDonald's has been making their Filet O'Fish exclusively from some "sustainably" caught Pacific fish. And they made that commitment following pressure from environmentalists. Whether other fast-food restaurants that serve a fried fish sandwich have followed the example of McDonald's, I do not know.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Sam Wells Posted 12:17 am
09 Mar 2008
Now lets talk pogies! Those are menhaden, another factory fish, a large, very greasy, fat minnow. A company called Omega used to fish them mostly in the Chesapeake and decimated all the fishing there, and have concentrated their efforts off Louisiana. Huge nets worth millions of dollars are used to coral giant schools of pogies that are located from aircraft. The net is so heavy with fish that special pumps are used to vacuum the fish into the ship's hold.
These pogies are then turned into oil (refined) and the scraps pressed and sold as fertilizer and mulch. Thus you get medicinal grade fish oil high in omega-3, fish emulsion for plant fertilizer, and even a food additive for the hog industry (yucko).
I thought you might find that interesting ... I became interested when some of us down in Texas were looking at a request by Omega to expand into Texas waters ... something like 31 million pounds of pogies a year and that is a "small" catch! The issues were by-catch (mainly black-tip shark), which even at 2-4% is high numbers. Second, by removing natural bait from the waters, predator and sport fish would decline because they'd have to feed somewhere else. Ah, those little gel caps don't seem so benign anymore, do they? -sam
Onward through the fog
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:39 am
09 Mar 2008
Are you pretending that the growing, harvesting, transporting, and cooking of beans, corn, eggs or dairy is eco-friendly? Cause it ain't. Those activities are less damaging to the biosphere than doing the same for farm raised catfish, shellfish, and certainly for wild-caught Patagonian toothfish, but everybody knows that already. How a food is produced and how much of it you consume are just two variables determining how damaging it is to the biosphere. By eliminating from your diet, in ascending order of eco-friendliness, the least friendly foods you would get a continuum something like this:
beans corn eggs dairy fish pork beef
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."-- Michael Pollan
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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shiftingbaselines Posted 12:41 am
09 Mar 2008
I also have no doubt that the fishing industry, which often teams up for brief periods with the health industry, has done much more to promote consumption than religion. But the story there is obvious and much less interesting. As for religion, playing a legitimate role, it's worth mentioning that KFC asked the Pope to bless their new fish sandwich just last year (which is also sold only during Lent). So some diligent parishioners must still be paying attention to the rules...
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Sam Wells Posted 4:23 am
09 Mar 2008
Onward through the fog
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Erik Hoffner Posted 4:44 am
09 Mar 2008
Pogies are indeed a big deal, and glad to hear you are keeping an eye on it in TX. There's a grassroots movement in the Northeast to keep the factory ships at bay for the sake of the food chain, and last year such boats were banned from RI's Narragansett Bay by an act of the RI legislature. Hopeful. There's also a grassroots coalition of "Commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, ecotourism businesses, researchers and concerned citizens throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic...united with one voice to protect Atlantic Herring stocks." Maybe they're a group for you to keep tabs on - help each other out:
http://www.choircoalition.org/
By the way, people still recreationally set pots for lobster in CT. My wife's clan in New London did so until just recently. And there's still a small fleet of lobstermen there.
biodiversivist: you're wrong about shellfish aquaculture being more damaging than growing corn or beans, etc...only real ecosystem costs are in the energy used in propagating the young ones and then driving a boat out to check on the adults. Everything else is in the plus column for ecosystem services.
Jennifer: blessing fish sandwiches? Oy.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:59 am
09 Mar 2008
They used to be common as far south as LI Sound that big. Maine lobster live until they reach the 1 lb stage at which point they are largely caught and shipped to market.
Did it ever occur to you that the 1 lb lobsters are simply the tastiest?
So, what appears to the Green as being harmful, is actually Man taking Dominion over and optimizing his relationship with Nature.
Seen from afar, we are in the process of reaping abundant and stable harvests of tasty delights from nature.
This of course drives a stake into the hearts of those who make their livings selling Doom scenarios to the media.
Bailo's Law:
The stability and health of Man and the environment is inversely proportional to the number of Doom scenario works of media being presented.
(Conversely, you don't want to live in a time of Utopian visions, because that would probably be a really sucky decade.)
The Manhattan Declaration
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Sam Wells Posted 7:14 am
09 Mar 2008
Glad to hear about another swamp Yankee and I hope our paths cross again one day.
And Mr. Bailo, you do know that lobsters taste better of worse depending on condition, water quality, and their molting cycle, right? Some say the reef and phase of the moon as well. Size has little to do with it. My biggest, about 4.5 pounds, was very good except the claw meat was reserved for lobster salad because they can get rubbery. I do detect a novice who doesn't know his tamale. The 1-pounders are known as "chix," "twins," or "culls" (one claw missing) but do sell OK, not that they sell any better - just a cheaper buyer I suppose. Tamale, try it bro. -sam
Onward through the fog
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:43 pm
09 Mar 2008
http://www.tastelobster.ca/english/fishery.html
Canada currently provides more than half of the world's supply for live and processed hard-shell Atlantic Lobster. With the landings exceeding 45 thousand metric tonnes in 2002, sustainable management practices are crucial to the future of the fishery.
http://www.lobsteranywhere.com/cgi-bin/category/lobster10 ...
The maximum size limit is regulated to protect the breeding stock. A minimum size lobster will weigh around 1 pound, while a maximum size lobster will weigh between 3-4 pounds. The most plentiful and most popular size of Maine Lobster is between 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 pounds each.
http://forum.cooks.com/fourweb/guest.dll/~cooks/read?30,4 ...
I come from the Maritimes in Canada and this is what I know from several 'pros'.
If lobster is already precooked enjoy it chilled and use hot butter, do not put any spices in the butter as it will take away from the taste.
If you are cooking lobster fresh or insist on reheating the precooked, just cover in water (add seasalt to the boil) and have the lobsters covered in the water. Boil the water first then insert the lobsters. Boiling time will vary but how you can tell they are done is when you can pluck a tentacle off by lifting it up by the weight of the lobster.
Do not get lobster and scampi's mixed up...scampi's are baby lobsters that were too small for market pricing. Some places pass those off as good lobster prices. But in reality they are scampi's. The tastiest lobster should weigh in about 1 1/2-2lbs. Anything larger you are losing taste.
The Manhattan Declaration
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:23 pm
09 Mar 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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caniscandida Posted 4:57 am
10 Mar 2008
But in fact, blessings, e.g. of food, are brief sacramental rituals which surely count as among the most beautiful parts of the Christian Church's legacy received from Judaism.
"Blessing" is not an easy term to pin down, however.
The formulaic opening of a Jewish blessing goes: "Baruch attah Adonai Eloheinu Melech-haOlam asher ... "; or, in old Church-of-England style, "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the World, for that thou didst ... [give us this food, or whatever]." So the worshipers are blessing God.
The formulaic Catholic blessing over a meal goes: "Benedic Domine nos et haec tua dona quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi"; traditionally translated, "Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty." So the worshipers are asking God to bless them and their food.
So far as I can figure it out, the basic idea of "blessing" is the affirmation that someone or something is truly good. When a worshiper blesses God, the worshiper is seeking to put himself/herself into harmony with God the Creator and Source of all goodness. And when a worshiper asks for a blessing from God, he/she is asking to be confirmed as one who lives in accord with God's unfailing benevolence. It is perhaps analogous to seeking to live in accord with the Dharma, in South Asian traditions, or with the Tao, in Chinese traditions.
The blessing of food therefore is a perfect sacramental expression of two fundamental doctrines of biblical theology: first, that God is the Creator, leading all things out of non-existence into existence; and secondly, that God is philanthropos, as the Greek Orthodox say, "one who loves humanity," and whose activity consistently serves to benefit human beings.
Needless to say, with such a noble set of beliefs underlying even the mundane activity of eating, it is deplorably inconsistent of us in the biblical tradition that we so often show little regard to the origins of our food, and the circumstances in which it is produced and served to us.
And that is most disgracefully true in the case of meat. Even Kashrut, the system of Jewish dietary laws, which ought to ensure as perfectly painless a method of slaughtering animals as possible, has lately been slipping, as the kosher slaughterhouses are documented as being no better than regular ones.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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gzuckier Posted 5:52 am
10 Mar 2008
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