A firm cluster of squid tentacles is a wonderful tool for mopping up a flavorful dipping sauce. But squid body? It’s not really bite-sized, so it needs some processing. The uninspired cook takes this as a cue to cut rings. PROBLEM! A squid ring is at least 90% hole, which is why cutting the creature’s tubular body into rings is a flawed prospect. Sure, you’ll get a little bit of the dipping sauce to stick, but how much do you lose to the hole? It flops back into the sauce bowl and lays there looking like the failure it is. Pointless!
That’s why I propose braiding squid into rope. With squid rope, you achieve coverage and adhesion with that sauce. That’s not to mention that when used as an element of plate presentation, squid rope can really tie a dish together. Oh…
Want more texture, or a wider dipping surface? Plait yourself three ropes of squid, then weave those together into an even larger rope. Why stop there? Do it again. In a week, you’ll have squid rope strong enough to tie your boat to the dock. Braid first, bread if desired, then cook. Cooked squid does not braid well. Would you like me to tell you how I got such long strands of squidflesh for braiding from one small, measly squid? I can’t give away all my goddamn secrets for the price of nothin’.
Long story short: Drop the ring and braid your squid.
It’s old news that US government agencies have their hands full, what with all the backpaddling for colossal eff-ups like allowing financiers to ruin the global economy, and industrial food corporations to poison people with bad eggs and meat. So when one guy tries to make an honest buck selling really good lobster rolls from his apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, what happens? He gets shut down.
This annoys. Granted, Dr. Claw was a little bold with his clandestine operation, calling a lot of attention to himself online and on various food television outlets, even, on one occasion, giving a Facebook tongue lashing to a similar guerrilla operation that uses his delivery method (They’ve since made nice, it appears). But in a time when there really aren’t so many jobs to be had, and what cooking jobs there are have mostly been spoken for by an immigrant population who’ll work for next to nothing, people have to do SOMETHING. Just ask illegal immigrants who walk the streets selling empanadas out of baby strollers.
The concern for public health standards is well understood in this kitchen-office. There’s some specific knowledge required to safely produce and deliver food. Some people do not know what they’re doing, and they should not be doing it. But Dr. Claw is no stranger to the food business. He began his lobster roll operation as an experienced culinary professional, not a hobbyist. And then, there are those who do know what they’re doing, blatantly ignore what’s best for the public’s health, and are allowed to remain in business on a very large scale. Case in point:
Since being served with a notice, Dr. Claw has begun selling t-shirts proclaiming “Lobster Rolls are not a Crime” on the internet to his loyal fans. In any case, here’s a video depicting Claw doing what he does best. There is NOTHING happening in this video that should scare you. Dangerous transgressions are aplenty in fully licensed, Grade A approved industrial kitchens. Now, with the “economy the way it is,” some regulations on small food businesses should perhaps be changed to allow for properly maintained home kitchens to serve as headquarters for knowledgeable, experienced culinary professionals. But even if the laws don’t change, this sort of thing is going to continue to go on. It’s a way of life for culinary artisans all over the world, and has been since time immemorial. Should we now expect a “war” on underground food entrepreneurs? Or even worse, reality food television that follows underground chefs, blurring out their faces and disguising their faces? Perhaps Dr. Claw’s brashness was part of a bigger picture. Whatever the plan is, let’s hope he keeps his fingers out of his mouth in front of the camera.
I watched Man V. Food for the first time the other night. The title itself immediately brings conflict to mind, as if to say, “There is nothing laudable about a harmonious relationship with one’s sustenance. Prudence is for the weak and unambitious. You must seek a mountain of food and conquer it with the mouth as if you were climbing Olympus itself and daring Zeus to strike you down with lightning bolts of myocardial infarction. You must be upon the buffet as the Mongols crossed the steppe, leaving naught but heaps of bones.”
Eating is advisable, and can even be enjoyable. Maybe it’s that I’ve been a culinary professional for my entire working life, but food as fetish spanks my rosy red bottom the wrong way, and a little too hard. I know that Adam Richman is an actor, employed by a television network to entertain, and I’ve read that he offsets the effects of the ridiculous food challenges his whip-crackers put upon him with a regimen of exercise and… water. But when he’s getting all amped up about the excesses of some local American greasy spoon’s “fortuitously famous fodder”, he starts sounding like a coked-up Chris Farley. And then I’m unable to pry from my head the image of said deceased comedian shoveling pound after pound of twelve different kinds of pork from a BBQ buffet into his cavernous maw, braying like an ass that got into the cider barrel about how amazing everything is, and articulating assinine alliterated assessments of the indiscernible glop mounds under assault while the gravy from six different animals sets to the oozing from every orifice on his head. And you might find his gushing praise believable if it didn’t sound like he’d just quaffed a gram of 100% pure Colombian (cocaine, not coffee), which has rendered his tastebuds impotent. He cannot taste a single nuance of what’s clinging for dear life to his poor fork, the sniffer and palate fried from the drug and acid reflux. He screams a hoarse, unintelligible ululation and falls to the floor in a quivering, gelatinous heap. Cut to commercial…
[A naked Paula Deen is smeared with viscous brown goo, bellowing, "I just love my puddin', y'awl!" from within her backyard jacuzzi running over with the chocolate variety. "And I'll be jiggered if I just can't wait fer y'awl to join me on my next episode, where we're gonna have all kinds o' puddin' out here in the hot tub! I'm even gonna show you how to make my grandmawmaw's puddin' pie, God rest her soul up in heav'n..."]
Food is terrific stuff. Sensuality and dining are fantastic. But, friends old and new, food obsession is just gross. Compulsively watching people have food-gasms on television is one molecule away from compulsively reading trashy novels for want of true intimacy. They don’t call it food porn for no reason, and excess in this regard is every bit as sexy as living through the recessions and depressions of an empire crumbling under the weight of its own corpulence and greed. If you don’t see the connection, please return to your television and darken my kitchen no more.
