# Pepper Mill and the Asian Fusion Cuisine **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 14, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pepper-mill-and-the-asian-fusion-cuisine/928024 "2020-12-14T14:26:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pepper-mill-and-the-asian-fusion-cuisine/928024/1 "2020-12-14T14:26:21Z")
Since we’ve been eating leftover and/or recycled Turkey (since Thanksgiving) or leftover or recycled Mexican food for the past couple of weeks, I decided to get us takeout on Friday night. There’s a new place that, despite COVID, has just opened nearby. It serves, among other things, Asian Fusion, which is definitely a change of pace. I opted for the stir-fry ribs\*, and Pepper Mill got the (spicy) Singapore Noodles. There was a LOT of stuff in her container. She ate until she was full, and still had about 3/4 of it left. She sealed it up in the container for later. she’d probably get three or four meals out of it. That night she had a dream that flies were coming out of her mouth, and it woke her up. She couldn’t sleep, and spent a lot of time in the middle of the night looking things up on the computer. I found her asleep on the couch. I let her sleep. Usually when she’s on the couch it’s because I was snoring. She finally got up after 10 AM. “You know the shrimp that was in my Singapore Noodles?” she asked me. “Yeah,” I replied. She loved shrimp, but I’ve been avoiding shellfish for years because of my gout. “I think they’re really maggots.” “What!?!” Then she told me about her dream, and how she’d looked up pictures of fried maggots on the internet the night before. It’s a mark of her _sang-froid_ that she wasn’t massively freaked out about this. She knew that people ate insects, and that they are considered a delicacy in parts of the world, and that even maggots, properly raised and cooked, were not dangerous. We’d discussed insect eating many times. One of my prized possessions is David G. Gordon’s **Eat A Bug Cookbook** , which is filled with exotic recipes on how to cook bugs. Pepper Mill wasn’t having a fit about having possibly eaten the spawn of flies. She was annoyed that she felt she hadn’t gotten the arthropods that she’d ordered. I inspected the container of noodles. There were a few smallish shrimp which were undoubtedly shrimp. There were also several much smaller things which didn’t quite look like shrimp, colored reddish-orange by the spices in the mix. They might have been stir-fried maggots. They didn’t look like shrimp that I was familiar with. She wanted to call the local Board of Health to report them. Failing that (since it was a Saturday) she wanted to call the local councilperson she knew. I suggested she also call the restaurant and tell them. They’d surely want to know. But she wanted to get the Board of Health first. She didn’t get them, but she did get the councilwoman. She put the dish back in the refrigerator. For evidence. With a sticky note on it warning our daughter MilliCal, should she return home, not to eat anything from the container. Later in the day she started having second thoughts, especially after she dug through and found something in the container that was intermediate in size between the undoubted shrimp and the possible maggots. These were undoubtedly teeny shrimp, and they caused her second thoughts. She sent off copies of the pictures to her sister, a graduate of Franklin and Wales college and a culinary supervisor. She swore that the unidentified thingees in the noodles were, indeed, really small shrimp. I told Pepper Mill that she ought to call the councilwoman back and let her know. The rest of the noodles and now-confirmed teeny weenie shrimp is still sitting in the refrigerator, and I assume Pepper mill will be finishing them up. I got her permission to relate this story on the Board. Maybe now I’ll make up one of the recipes from Gordon’s book. > **[The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook, Revised: 40 Ways to Cook Crickets, Grasshoppers, Ants,...](https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Bug-Cookbook-Revised-Grasshoppers/dp/1607744368)** > > Buy The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook, Revised: 40 Ways to Cook Crickets, Grasshoppers, Ants, Water Bugs, Spiders, Centipedes, and Their Kin on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders \*I had to ask them before I placed the order – how do you do “stir fry ribs”? Ribs are things you pick up in your hands and gnaw on. Stir fry is stuff cut up into little bits and quickly fried in a little oil and spices in a wok. Did they cut the meat off the ribs and throw it in the wok? or did they just throw the ribs right in the wok, bones and all? It turns out that they do neither. As they told it, they serve traditionally prepared ribs over a bed of stir fried vegetables. Only that wasn’t really accurate. It’s more like they rolled the ribs in the stir fry coating them with vegetable bits.weird but good. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pepper-mill-and-the-asian-fusion-cuisine/928024/2 "2020-12-14T15:50:55Z")
Could I ask what restaurant this was? I’m getting pretty tired of turkey, Asian Fusion sounds good, and I never order shrimp. You can send me a PM if you’d rather not name them publicly. (Does the new board software have private messages?) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pepper-mill-and-the-asian-fusion-cuisine/928024/3 "2020-12-14T17:07:18Z")
So, she didn’t recognize them as shrimp because they were too shrimpy? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pepper-mill-and-the-asian-fusion-cuisine/928024/4 "2020-12-14T17:23:47Z")
Clearly not Jumbo Shrimp ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pepper-mill-and-the-asian-fusion-cuisine/928024/5 "2020-12-15T00:05:41Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > You can send me a PM if you’d rather not name them publicly. (Does the new board software have private messages?) Yes indeedy! Just press on the icon of the person you want to send a message to and wait for their profile to pop up. There’s an envelope icon. Press that, and it opens a pm for you. The best thing is that there doesn’t appear to be any personal limit, unlike the 500 pm limit on the old software. If you get a pm, there will be a little number in green on your own icon on the top right of your own display. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pepper-mill-and-the-asian-fusion-cuisine/928024/6 "2020-12-15T08:50:41Z")
I love Singapore noodles, and the spicier (i.e. with curry), the better. Chili oil helps, if they are not spicy enough. Still, I’ve eaten enough of them, in places from high-end Chinese restaurants to fast-food food-court establishments, to know them well. Shrimp is an integral part of the dish. In many sit-down restaurant places, finger-sized shrimp are normal; but in my experience, fast food/takeout uses popcorn-sized shrimp. I suppose they could be mistaken for maggots, but they are definitely not maggots. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pepper-mill-and-the-asian-fusion-cuisine/928024/7 "2020-12-15T14:03:29Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Shrimp is an integral part of the dish. In many sit-down restaurant places, finger-sized shrimp are normal; but in my experience, fast food/takeout uses popcorn-sized shrimp. I suppose they could be mistaken for maggots, but they are definitely not maggots. The mini-shrimp in question were _really_ small, and very maggot-like in size and appearance. Kinda like these: > **[Easy Shrimp Pasta Salad Recipe - foodiecrush .com](https://www.foodiecrush.com/classic-shrimp-macaroni-salad-recipe/)** > > A simple mayo dressing lightly coats the classic ingredients of homemade shrimp pasta salad for an easy side dish for every barbecue, picnic, or potluck. > **[dried tiny shrimp in plastic bag](https://www.123rf.com/photo_41948352_dried-tiny-shrimp-in-plastic-bag.html)** > > 123RF - Millions of Creative Stock Photos, Vectors, Videos and Music Files For Your Inspiration and Projects. One of my favorite cases of insectivory in that _Eat a Bug Cookbook_ was “Sky Prawns”, which he used for cooked dragonflies. Gordon says he was following the usage in Indonesia. [https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/crispy-critters/print/](https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/crispy-critters/print/) I see that Australia has begin using the term “Sky Prawns” for locusts [BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Locusts rebranded as 'sky prawns'](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4032143.stm#:~:text=Printable%20version-,Locusts%20rebranded%20as%20'sky%20prawns',the%20ultimate%20revenge%20%2D%20eating%20them). I can’t think of any way to rebrand “maggots” so that they sound at al exotic or edible. “coconut worms” just doesn’t cut it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2020, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pepper-mill-and-the-asian-fusion-cuisine/928024/8 "2020-12-15T20:49:59Z")
When I was a tween ~50 years ago the family took a vacation to Japan. Back in the day, _gaijin_ were very rare in Japan. Although we were all veteran DIY travelers Dad set us up with a two week lead-you-around-by-the-nose tour. A wise decision; Japan was orders of magnitude less manageable than most of Europe had been. One night we stayed in a _ryokan_, a traditional Japanese style inn. Which served what they called a traditional Japanese breakfast. Not that we would know. Anyhow it included a soup of grayish noodles in thin broth. About halfway through our soup I looked closely and discovered each “noodle” was flared at one end and that end had two dark spots that looked an awful lot like eyes. Veeerrrrry Interesting.