It’s fish that’s been soaked in lye until it’s the consistency of jam or jelly.
Thanks for the explanation… ew, I think I’ll pass on that.
(even though some Chinese food can be mighty strange to people who aren’t used to it… like pigeon brains, shark’s fin, cartilage, etc.)
Pronounced LOOT-eh-fisk. It’s cod that is dried and subsequently soaked in solution of lye. That’s right, lye, the stuff they put in Draino. After this lye treatment, the cod is boiled until whatever flesh-like integrity it had after the lye-soaking is completely lost. The fish is essentially gelatenized. It has a consistency somewhere between jello and snot. But because lutefisk isn’t quite wonderful enough, chefs like to add liberal amounts of butter or horseradish mustard to liven up the already distinctive flavor.
My father-in-law’s side of the family is of Scandanavian stock, by way of the Midwest. Because of this, I have endured the Christmas ritual that is Lutefisk each year for a few years now. It’s repugnant. Don’t let anyone try to fool you into thinking it only sounds nasty, like blood pudding or pickled eels; like it’s something horrifying to the sensibilities yet upon tasting pleasantly surprises the eater with its palatability. No, this stuff is the real disgusting deal. I’ve eaten lots of weird food in my time, but can barely get lutefisk down; it’s that freakin’ bad. I eat it to make my father-in-law happy. Period. I get nothing else out of the experience, except a reminder of how to supress the gag reflex. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.
Thanks for the additional info… why would you want to eat it?!
Same reason you eat Aunt Mildred’s 40-pound fruitcake at Christmas. It’s tradition. Thankfully, my family’s of German extraction – the worst we get is blutwurst.
Yeah, I thought there’d be some other reason than the tradition… I’m guessing not. Thanks anyhow.
This is a gross generalisation, but you might find it useful:
Western Table Manners
If you bring the large western-style bowl or plate to your mouth, you are a pig. You need to sit up straight, and carefully place one piece of food into your mouth, chew 37.6 times etc. There is lots of emphasis on specifics: how to hold your fork, which cutlery to use, how to sit…
**Chinese Table Manners{/b]
If you don’t bring the bowl high and prefer to sit up straight and bring morsels the long distance from table-level to your lips, then you are being disdainful and insulting to your host as you are showing you are not enjoying the food. The use of chopsticks does have some few rules (such as how to rest them when out of use), but this is nothing compared to the complexity of rules Westerners have about how to hold and use cutlery. For example, in my experience with Chinese friends and colleagues and family, it is quite permissible to grab one chopstick in each fist and use them to break large pieces of food apart.
Chinese meals are supposed to be hearty, noisy, messy affairs. Laughter, slurping, talking, clatter of bowls, hollering at waiters… If there is no mess around your tablecloth when you have finished, you’ve done something wrong. but I’m not familiar with the mouth open thing (unless the person doing that was just bad mannered). Indeed, Chinese are even more careful about this than Westerners, being very careful to use one hand to cover your mouth while you use a toothpick with the other.
Victorian and staid but neat versus fun and hearty but messy - I think it balances out.
On a slight re-hijack, hedgehogs are called hedgehogs because, well, they look a little like pigs {if you squint really hard} and live in hedges: a more archaic name is hodgepig. Yet another old name for them, and my all time favourite piece of eytomology, is urchin, from the Latin ursinus, meaning little bear. Presumably the Romans didn’t see too good either.
Apparently you can eat them, too, although I’m not sure of the etiquette involved: the accepted method is to encase them in clay and roast them in the embers of a fire. When they’re done you just crack the hardened clay open and the prickles peel right away.
Just thought you’d like to know.
And from their resemblance to hedgehogs, you get ‘sea urchin’. Which looks nothing like a little bear at all.
As far as eating in the cubicle goes could you just listen to some music on headphones so you don’t have to hear it?
I’m pretty much over this is being a “Chinese Thing”, though I seem to have the singular misfortune of having landed with a bunch of slobs who happen to be from China.
Noisy and messy is all well and good, but I’m at my limit, I’ve found. When I made that post, I was severely skeeved. We’re talking a near-terminal case of the heebie-jeebies, now, a head-to-toe cringe reflex that made me think violent thoughts. I. Can’t. Take it any longer. I. Must. Get. Free…
Hrm. The suggestion above about the headphones ain’t a bad idea at all. Maybe I’ll buy that iPod Mini I keep drooling over…
Loopydude - As a product of an almost completely Chinese extended family, I can say with absolute conviction that the vast majority of Chinese-born people, never, EVER make more than the most token attempts to adapt to a new culture.
Language. Utensils. Customs. Common knowledge (like, why calling someone at home at 11:00 on a weekday usually isn’t a good idea). What the “record” icon on that funny little box below the TV means. Showing respect to a host in ways other than eating a lot and not using up bathwater. What a normal tone of voice is. When to shut the freak up. They don’t know, and they don’t wanna know.
Not much you can do. Better men than I have tried.
Haven’t run into noisy eaters, however.
I think you guys are over-generalizing.
Chinese table manners obviously depend on where the meal is taking place, and how comfortable they are. Meals at home tend to be less formal, therefore, pretty much anything goes (eating with hands, fighting for food, lots of talking).
As for the slurping and open-mouth munching, that’s probably just upbringing.
