quote:Originally posted by lleechef
Shucks, I have no guilt about peeling shrimp, cooking crabs, lobsters, mussels or clams. I have no guilt about pulling a halibut or salmon or cod or snapper or prawns into the boat and killing them. Like Mr. Hoffman, I also have no guilt about shooting rabbits or pheasants or quail or spruce hens.
BUT........I want to hear the story of the baccala, Mr. Hoffman!!! Come on, give it up!
OK.
Perhaps the most important thing to understand about the baccala is the fact that he is very salty.
Now, being salty isn't really unusual for a fish that lives in sea water, but the baccala is a little different. For starters, unlike other saltwater fish, the baccala has no scales. And, not being a shellfish, the baccala has no, um, shell.
So, when commercial netters go after baccala, usually in an area just to the south and east of Georges Bank in the Atlantic ocean, they are catching some very, very salty creatures.
It's a good thing for lovers of baccala that this fish spends most of its time at sea far enough away from Georges Bank to have been able to avoid the overfishing that has occurred over the bank, itself. In fact, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's Marine and Coastal Geology Program there has been an important increase in baccala populations. That, of course, if wonderful news to Americans of Italian heritage. Marine biologists report that a baccala cousin, the bacalao, which is beloved by the Portuguese, has also seen a fine population boost in the past four years.
In recent years a problem has developed with baccala that could result in fewer people partaking of it's rich flavor. That problem stems from two sources: the need to soak the baccala in water or milk in order to make it more palatable by removing a great deal of the fish's sodium chloride content, and the fact that someone gave Arthur Janov a bunch of SCUBA gear as a Christmas present several years ago.
Janov, who developed something called Primal Therapy, introduced his trauma-based psychotherapy to groups of baccala he encountered while diving in the Atlantic Ocean. One of the fundamental principles of Primal Therapy remains that therapeutic progress can only be made through direct emotional experience, which allows access to the source of psychological pain in the lower brain and nervous system.
Now, most people would never have a problem with Primal Therapy being practiced among the baccala, but that's only because most people do not eat this wonderful fish.
You see, baccala love their saltiness, and they do not react well to the process of removing that salt, as one can easily understand. After all, how would actual people feel if they were submerged in water or milk for 24 hours in efforts to have their skin pucker and slough off used cells.
At any rate, that is the source of the problem. What happens when the baccala is immersed in fresh water or milk is that he can feel the leaching away of his beloved salt and, because of his training in Primal Therapy, the baccala resorts to the infamous Primal Scream.
For those unfamiliar with the Primal Scream of the baccala, let me just say that it is very high-pitched, and it is ear-splitting. The sound resembles a tornado-warning siren, and the result of this scream is that people for miles around rush to their basements and storm cellars in anticiption of the imminent arrival of a funnel cloud that they expect will tear the roofs from their homes and barns, and batter and destroy their cities, towns and villages.
Once the frightened people realize that it was merely the Primal Scream of a baccala, and not really a tornado warning siren, they become quite angry. That anger can take on many forms, all of them being quite unplesant for the person or persons who have been soaking the baccala.
That's as far as I want to go, because this is a family-friendly board and the results of this anger are not of a sort that would be welcome where children and women might be able to read it.
But, considering the result of soaking a baccala in water or milk, I reccommend that people stick to steaming lobsters, clams, mussels and crabs. It's a lot more quiet, and no one thinks those sounds portend stormy weather, which can be a shame because there's really nothing as terrific as Billy Holiday's rendition of that wonderful Koehler and Arlen ballad.
