Treyf! Actually it's funny that many American Jews, who don't keep kosher, retain a residual aversion to pork, but they wolf down seafood (which is equally treyf) with great abandon. I joked that the price of seafood on the East Coast jumped on the day of my nephew's wedding, because of the vast quantities of shrimp, crab legs, etc. that were served.
Is seafood not available in Israel? I understand that you can get pork ("white meat") if you know where to ask for it, but is this not true of seafood? Also I gather that seafood is not haram for Arabs?
Israel's coastal waters are a marine desert. The eastern Mediterranean is very poor in fish and molluscs, and laely, it has been invaded by Asian jellyfish that consumes everything. An ecologycal disaster. The coastal cities are all contaminating the sea, Egypt with 70 million "defectors" has not even one treatment plant. Greece and Lebanon also pour their dirt inthe sea. Almost no fishing here.
I dont. Argentine middle class women are neurotic and unbearable. Maybe has the highest concentration of Freudian psychoanalists in the planet. May be in the remotest provinces you can still find some normal non-hysterical women.
I'm not sure I understand the economics of why it is expensive. In American supermarkets, frozen farm raised shrimp imported from Asia costs around $10 to $20 per kilo (depending on size - bigger shrimp cost more than small). This is comparable to fin fish or (all but the cheapest cuts) of beef. Shipping them to Israel should cost less than sending them here because it's closer.
Lobsters are locally caught (in the New England waters) and their price has fallen as the economy has fallen - they are still quite pricey if you consider that they are 80% shell by weight so the price per kilo of meat is really 5x as much as the price you pay for the lobster. If the lobster in the shell is $20/kilo, then the meat is $100/kilo - aside from truffles or caviar probably the most expensive item most people ever eat.
My father said that the ponds and lakes of Poland were abundant with freshwater crayfish (which look like miniature lobsters) but that no one ate them, not the Jews (for obvious reasons) but the Poles did not fancy them either. You would think that in periods of famine and poverty no edible thing would be safe but experience with food aid shows that people will starve to death before they will eat foods that are taboo to them or even unfamiliar.
In the US there are legends (perhaps even true) that lobster in early times was so cheap that it was fed to prisoners in New England and they complained that they were forced to eat it too often. Caviar was also at one time a peasant food. Some products become desirable BECAUSE they are expensive, not in spite of it.
I agree w. you. A lot of "gourmet" food is just stupid. I will give you an example. In certain applications, sea salt tastes better than the mined salt that they sell in the supermarket (for other applications you can't taste the difference at all). You can buy sea salt from France or England for $10 for a couple of hundred grams or even more - it is a "gourmet" product in Western culture with a price tag to match. However, in Korean culture, sea salt (along with hot pepper powder) is considered to be a basic staple that they use for making their ubiquitous pickled cabbage, Kimchi and they go thru it like crazy. Therefore, in any Asian supermarket they will sell you a kilo of sea salt (which tastes just as good as the French) for maybe $1. However it comes in a plastic bag w. Korean writing and not a fancy box w/ French writing so it is perceived to be worth much less, even though the product is virtually identical evaporated sea water.
BTW, this is true of a lot of products. Very often "prestige" products are basically the same thing as "economy" products under the skin, with the only differences being cosmetic or marketing. For example,virtually all Swiss quartz watches at price ranging from $50 to thousands of $, have basically the same $10 movement inside - there are only a couple of manufacturers of Swiss quartz movements. The difference is that the $1000+ watch is heavily advertised in upscale newspapers, magazines, etc. The biggest expense of these manufacturers is not the watch itself, but the marketing expense in promoting their brand image. So if you spend thousands of $ on a quartz watch, you are just an idiot wiling to pay for your own brainwashing. Most people have no idea what is inside a watch and they just assume that a more expensive watch has a better movement inside. They assume wrong in most cases.
I do and apparently so do a lot of other people - the pages of the NY TImes are filled every day with ads for expensive watches. They remain a status symbol which is why people are willing to vastly overpay for them. Knowing the time is cheap and easy - just look at your cell phone, as you say. Status is priceless.
Partly a generational thing - my children do as you say and mostly look at their phones. To me this is full circle - now we are back to pocket "watches". The wristwatch is visible at a glance without having to dig into your pocket.
17 comments:
Treyf! Actually it's funny that many American Jews, who don't keep kosher, retain a residual aversion to pork, but they wolf down seafood (which is equally treyf) with great abandon. I joked that the price of seafood on the East Coast jumped on the day of my nephew's wedding, because of the vast quantities of shrimp, crab legs, etc. that were served.
Is seafood not available in Israel? I understand that you can get pork ("white meat") if you know where to ask for it, but is this not true of seafood? Also I gather that seafood is not haram for Arabs?
K
Sea food is almost unknown in Israel. Imported frozen seafood is very expensive. I miss it - in Argentina it was abundant, fresh and cheap.
This, apparently, is one of the hottest new restaurants in Brooklyn: Traif.
There is a theory doing the rounds in the paleobiology community that seafood was essential for the expansion of the human brain.
I hope it is not too expensive in Israel.
Anon.
Apparently the Jewish brain did OK without benefit of lobster.
K
The limiting nutrient is thought to be omega 3 and I think this is more fish than molluscs or crustaceans.
But then, how many Nobel laureates come from the Seychelles?
Apparently the downside in modern times is the trade off with mercury.
Anon.
Are there no harvestable local shellfish in the coastal waters?
K
Israel's coastal waters are a marine desert. The eastern Mediterranean is very poor in fish and molluscs, and laely, it has been invaded by Asian jellyfish that consumes everything. An ecologycal disaster. The coastal cities are all contaminating the sea, Egypt with 70 million "defectors" has not even one treatment plant. Greece and Lebanon also pour their dirt inthe sea. Almost no fishing here.
Things I miss.
Do you recommend Argentine women as highly as Argentine cuisine?
I dont. Argentine middle class women are neurotic and unbearable. Maybe has the highest concentration of
Freudian psychoanalists in the planet. May be in the remotest provinces you can still find some normal non-hysterical women.
I'm not sure I understand the economics of why it is expensive. In American supermarkets, frozen farm raised shrimp imported from Asia costs around $10 to $20 per kilo (depending on size - bigger shrimp cost more than small). This is comparable to fin fish or (all but the cheapest cuts) of beef. Shipping them to Israel should cost less than sending them here because it's closer.
Lobsters are locally caught (in the New England waters) and their price has fallen as the economy has fallen - they are still quite pricey if you consider that they are 80% shell by weight so the price per kilo of meat is really 5x as much as the price you pay for the lobster. If the lobster in the shell is $20/kilo, then the meat is $100/kilo - aside from truffles or caviar probably the most expensive item most people ever eat.
My father said that the ponds and lakes of Poland were abundant with freshwater crayfish (which look like miniature lobsters) but that no one ate them, not the Jews (for obvious reasons) but the Poles did not fancy them either. You would think that in periods of famine and poverty no edible thing would be safe but experience with food aid shows that people will starve to death before they will eat foods that are taboo to them or even unfamiliar.
K
In depression-era South Africa, lobster was dirt-cheap and considered a poor man's food.
Now of course we have the same prices as in the USA, and it is an expensive delicacy in top restaurants.
A new label on an old wine?
Anon.
In the US there are legends (perhaps even true) that lobster in early times was so cheap that it was fed to prisoners in New England and they complained that they were forced to eat it too often. Caviar was also at one time a peasant food. Some products become desirable BECAUSE they are expensive, not in spite of it.
K
I am not like that. I can enjoy only cheap food.
I agree w. you. A lot of "gourmet" food is just stupid. I will give you an example. In certain applications, sea salt tastes better than the mined salt that they sell in the supermarket (for other applications you can't taste the difference at all). You can buy sea salt from France or England for $10 for a couple of hundred grams or even more - it is a "gourmet" product in Western culture with a price tag to match. However, in Korean culture, sea salt (along with hot pepper powder) is considered to be a basic staple that they use for making their ubiquitous pickled cabbage, Kimchi and they go thru it like crazy. Therefore, in any Asian supermarket they will sell you a kilo of sea salt (which tastes just as good as the French) for maybe $1. However it comes in a plastic bag w. Korean writing and not a fancy box w/ French writing so it is perceived to be worth much less, even though the product is virtually identical evaporated sea water.
BTW, this is true of a lot of products. Very often "prestige" products are basically the same thing as "economy" products under the skin, with the only differences being cosmetic or marketing. For example,virtually all Swiss quartz watches at price ranging from $50 to thousands of $, have basically the same $10 movement inside - there are only a couple of manufacturers of Swiss quartz movements. The difference is that the $1000+ watch is heavily advertised in upscale newspapers, magazines, etc. The biggest expense of these manufacturers is not the watch itself, but the marketing expense in promoting their brand image. So if you spend thousands of $ on a quartz watch, you are just an idiot wiling to pay for your own brainwashing. Most people have no idea what is inside a watch and they just assume that a more expensive watch has a better movement inside. They assume wrong in most cases.
K
Who wears a watch nowadays? Everyone I meet has a cellphone and uses that to keep track of the time.
I do and apparently so do a lot of other people - the pages of the NY TImes are filled every day with ads for expensive watches. They remain a status symbol which is why people are willing to vastly overpay for them. Knowing the time is cheap and easy - just look at your cell phone, as you say. Status is priceless.
Partly a generational thing - my children do as you say and mostly look at their phones. To me this is full circle - now we are back to pocket "watches". The wristwatch is visible at a glance without having to dig into your pocket.
K
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