Sunday, August 01, 2010

Whales, Tuna and Kona Kampachi!


Marvelous article!

"Whale carpaccio – 130 kroners." Thus read the lead starter on the menu in an upscale Norwegian restaurant where I was dining on a winter evening not long ago.
Eight slices of whale arranged raw on a plate for the reasonable price of about £13. I have to admit that the prospect of ordering it was intriguing. A near global commercial whaling moratorium has been in effect since 1986, with only Norway, Iceland and Japan refusing to stop. I had never been to a country that still practised whaling, and I had certainly never seen whale on a menu. What would whale taste like, I wondered. Would it be fatty and chewy like beef, or would it have the loose, flaky texture of fish that don't need dense muscles to resist the pull of gravity? Would it be served like prosciutto, with a thin slice of Parmesan cheese? Or, since carpaccio is an Italian dish, would it be more appropriate merely to drizzle olive oil over the whale's buttery sheen?


Please read it!
Extremely well written, extremely well researched, it explores the issue of how our insatiable appetite for Tuna is leading to the extinction of a species, and possible solutions.
I cannot recommend this highly enough!

And here's a great interview and piece about the author, Paul Greenberg!

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