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Caviar was a free bar snack

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Re: Caviar was a free bar snack

#91

Post by upvotinglurker »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #71
crazygringo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Millionaire's cabbage?" That's funny. Go to Brazil, heart-of-palm is in basically every salad bar anywhere, as common as lettuce and tomatoes. Just a normal and normal-priced vegetable, very mild flavor. A lot of vegetables kill the plant that produces them... and the heart-of-palm that is canned and sold is produced from farmed palms that aren't coconut palms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_palm

I did some extra research because I find this sort of HN style dismissivness extremely annoying. Millionaire's cabbage seems to refer to Millionaire's salad which seems to be specific to the use of Deckenia nobilis, which are a protected species due to illegal over-harvesting. So the assertion that the term "millionaires cabbage" is funny because heart of palm is common in brazil seems disingenuous. https://en.wikipe…

From Harold McGee's fabulously scientific book On Food and Cooking[0]:

"Hearts of palm are the growing stem tips of various palm trees, especially the South American peach palm Bactris gasipaes, which readily resprouts after its tip is cut....[Harvesting] hearts of other palms often results in the wasteful death of the entire tree."

(emphasis mine)

[0]https://books.google.com/books?id=bKVCtH4AjwgC&lpg=PA316&vq=...

Re: Caviar was a free bar snack

#92

Post by Polyisoprene »

willmacdonald wrote: post #34

When Glasgow was a major force in the ship building world, the unions had a clause in their contract so they would not fed smoked salmon more than twice a week.

Saw mill workers in northern Sweden had similar clauses. “No more than 50% of the salary is to be payed out in salmon.”

Re: Caviar was a free bar snack

#93

Post by steve_adams_86 »

buildzr wrote: post #81
mkl wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, fish farming is currently not generally sustainable either, for other reasons, e.g. https://modernfarmer.com/2015/03/dear-modern-farmer-is-fish-... Yes, I eat some meat, but fish is a special case as it's the only major source of meat that's from wild sources, and those sources are being exploited beyond sustainable limits much of the time: https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing Farmed meat…

That fish farming sustainability article seems highly suspect to say the least, they're complaining about GMOs and such being "unsustainable" which is ridiculous. If anything GMOs are more sustainable in many ways, higher yield for less land, better targeted pesticides, etc. I'll have to look into it more, there's a few different agencies certifying "sustainably farmed" fish at the moment which seem to be readily ava…

Fish farming is a spooky rabbit hole to look into. All kinds of species, from saltwater to fresh, crustacean to finish, are fed fish that were caught in the wild, fed piles of antibiotics (this part gets really concerning, the implications for water sources connected to the farms are terrible), and all kinds of manual systems for removing polluting farm waste are employed where the pollution simply moves from farm to surrounding ecosystems.

There are better systems that are more sustainable, but my understanding is that most tilapia (for example) you'll find in a freezer at your grocery store is probably produced this way. It's really gross. Farmed shrimp and prawns are another one to stay far away from - they're labelled sustainable, but the farming practices are absurd. I don't trust any sustainability labels, anywhere.

Another one is Atlantic salmon farmed in the Pacific Ocean. That stuff is so gnarly. There's a reason British Columbia is shutting down a lot of these farms (and reviewing the remaining farms in 2022). It's bad for the environment, the product is not healthy, and it's incredibly inefficient. Yet somehow this product was labelled the smart choice for years.

Re: Caviar was a free bar snack

#94

Post by moate »

crazygringo wrote: post #74
moate wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Also why it's eaten in small amounts, since it's so strong. Fact check- It's eaten in small amounts because it's extremely expensive at this point due to people realizing the difficulty in producing it. If you look back to the heyday of caviar consumption (turn of last century and earlier), there were recipes that would call for as much a cup of caviar per serving. Tastes will always be personal, but the "strong f…

Wow, a cup per serving? That must have been a very different type of caviar? With modern caviar commonly sold today, I feel like the salt content alone would make that impossible, beyond just the taste. Tody it would be like eating a cup of canned and salted anchovies instead of just a couple in your caesar salad... it just doesn't make sense no matter what your personal preferences are. Or like eating an entire jar…

I know what types of sturgeon caviar's you're discussing. The types of dishes I'm thinking of would often be using caviar as an ingredient.

Even with the high salt content, if you're using caviar as part of a larger dish you can adjust things out. Nobody would eat an entire cup of salted anchovies by themselves, but if used as part of a soup that could neutralize the flavor, they might.

Re: Caviar was a free bar snack

#95

Post by hammock »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #89
opportune wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm just falling victim to corporate propaganda, but I'm pretty sure wild (Alaskan) salmon is truly sustainably fished, as are sardines and anchovies

The Alaskan fishery is much like the fishery south of it in BC, where 'sustainable' is a bit of a joke - I think that term is based on taking a 'sustainable' number of the estimated population returning to spawn in rivers. Alaskan rivers are doing better than BC's, but returns are dwindling and both governments are consistently shifting baselines on a yearly basis. Every year quotas are smaller, but so are the popula…

I thought there was a glut of sockeye a year or two ago? I remember seeing it everywhere.

Re: Caviar was a free bar snack

#96

Post by ljcn »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #89
opportune wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm just falling victim to corporate propaganda, but I'm pretty sure wild (Alaskan) salmon is truly sustainably fished, as are sardines and anchovies

The Alaskan fishery is much like the fishery south of it in BC, where 'sustainable' is a bit of a joke - I think that term is based on taking a 'sustainable' number of the estimated population returning to spawn in rivers. Alaskan rivers are doing better than BC's, but returns are dwindling and both governments are consistently shifting baselines on a yearly basis. Every year quotas are smaller, but so are the popula…

I don't know much about fish or live near the Pacific, but neither of the links in my comment (sibling to yours) suggest sockeye is a bad choice. In fact NE Pacific 'early summer' sockeye is a recommended choice, and many BC sockeye fisheries have MSC certification.

Re: Caviar was a free bar snack

#97

Post by icebraining »

diablerouge wrote: post #88
buildzr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That fish farming sustainability article seems highly suspect to say the least, they're complaining about GMOs and such being "unsustainable" which is ridiculous. If anything GMOs are more sustainable in many ways, higher yield for less land, better targeted pesticides, etc. I'll have to look into it more, there's a few different agencies certifying "sustainably farmed" fish at the moment which seem to be readily ava…

I think you may be incorrect about GMOs actually being more sustainable, as they have a pretty major effect on biodiversity by encouraging higher use of pesticides and insecticides[0]. A great example is the effect they have had on the population of monarch butterflies, mentioned in the linked source. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_co...

From that link: "A 2014 meta-analysis covering 147 original studies of farm surveys and field trials, and 15 studies from the researchers conducting the study, concluded that adoption of GM technology had reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%". Scrolling further down shows more citations showing lower use of pesticides, insecticides and herbicides.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_co...

Re: Caviar was a free bar snack

#98

Post by dllthomas »

pvaldes wrote: post #90
huhtenberg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying that Trabant is a much cheaper alternative to Bentley. Technically it is... but not quite. Edit: I don't know how to be any more clearer here, but "Olive tapenade as a beluga caviar alternative" is straight from the /shit-the-hn-says department, it's beyond ridiculous. "Ketchup as a San Marzano tomato alternative."

Is an interesting comparison. Salty taste and color could relate in some ways, but tapenade don't has the "exploding in your mouth" part, neither the strong fish oil taste. Is perfectly good in its own terms even if is not caviar.

While by no means required, it's not unusual for a tapenade to incorporate anchovies or anchovy paste which gives some measure of fishiness.

Re: Caviar was a free bar snack

#100

Post by cataflam »

m-p-3 wrote: post #28

And lobster wasn't a fancy meal until early 20th century https://www.history.com/news/a-taste-of-lobster-history "lobsters were routinely fed to prisoners, apprentices, slaves and children during the colonial era and beyond"

That was only true in coastal North America (and even there, the tales of disgust have probably also been exaggerated), not Europe. There are traces of it being appreciated going back to the Romans and Greeks. http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodlobster.html
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