"Beauteen" wrote in message ...
TO most people, raw fish is mainly associated with Japanese sashimi. Less
widely known is the tradition of using raw fish in Chinese cuisine in the
traditional Spring Festival dish called Feng Sheng Shui Qi, generally
believed to be the forerunner of sashimi.
Legend has it that over 2,000 years ago in a seaside village in Guangdong,
there lived two poor orphan brothers. One Spring Festival, the brothers went
fishing but got only two fish for the whole day. They took the two fish to
the market to sell them, but since everybody was home eating a wonderful
festival meal, they could not manage to sell it.

The brothers were so poor that they had no firewood at home. So they just
sliced the fish and ate it raw. This was their Spring Festival meal.

From then on, they were always able to harvest full nets of great amounts of
fish. They became rich, got married and lived a happy life. But one thing
remained: they would eat raw fish at Spring Festival.

The Chinese for raw fish is sheng yu, which also sounds like another word
which means wealth or prosperity.

Over time, a name for the raw fish dish was coined - Feng Sheng Shui Qi,
meaning "wind grows and waves surge," implying a perfect time to harvest
fish. The dish spread to many parts of the country and became very popular
in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

However, the dish disappeared from most dinner tables in the 1950s and
1960s, due to health concerns related to the consumption of the raw river
fish used to prepare the dish.

Yet in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, the Feng Sheng Shui Qi has made a
comeback to Spring Festival tables, largely due to the current availability
of high-quality Norwegian salmon, which renders the consumption of raw fish
carefree.

Norwegian salmon's excellent red colour, and the ideal environment in which
it is raised - the pristine waters of Norway's cold seas and strict
government hygienic monitoring - combine to make it a top, healthy choice
for the traditional Chinese New Year dish.

One of the highlights of eating Feng Sheng Shui Qi is the tossing ritual.
The action is believed to bring good luck - those who toss the raw fish
highest will have best fortune in the coming year.

The dish has now arrived in Shanghai. I had the honour and pleasure of
tossing the Norwegian raw fish slices with Torill Oftedal Sjaastad, the
Norwegian Consul General in Shanghai.

"To taste the wonderful Chinese Spring Festival dish Feng Sheng Shui Qi
prepared with Norwegian salmon is a happy encounter in which ancient meets
modern, east meets west," said Sjaastad.

I saw on some TV show I think Koreans eating live baby octopus and
Chinese quick fried fish which was still breathing. Also some people
eating live shrimp. Is there a taste difference between live food vs
raw food?

Yes and no. I have never seen shrimp or octopus served raw. For sushi,
both are boiled. After boiling shrimp, i cool them quickly in cold water
with a few cuts of fresh ginger (ie a finger sized peice to a gallon or
so of water. You would never notice the extra flavor in the final
product unless you were looking for it.).

Boiling mostly changes the texture, but will alter the flavor as well.

The idea of eating live food does not fit well for me.
It even seems a bit inhumane to me. Not trying to start an ethical flame
or anything, but if im going to be digested, i would hope i was killed
first. A fight between grinding jaws, a lack of fresh air, and stomach
acid seems like hell. That might fly with the rest of the food chain,
but not with me.

Plus the fact that most animals under extreme stress and/or in the last
pulses of life tend to purge their wastes..
--
respite


James wrote:
"Beauteen" wrote in message ...

TO most people, raw fish is mainly associated with Japanese sashimi. Less
widely known is the tradition of using raw fish in Chinese cuisine in the
traditional Spring Festival dish called Feng Sheng Shui Qi, generally
believed to be the forerunner of sashimi.
Legend has it that over 2,000 years ago in a seaside village in Guangdong,
there lived two poor orphan brothers. One Spring Festival, the brothers went
fishing but got only two fish for the whole day. They took the two fish to
the market to sell them, but since everybody was home eating a wonderful
festival meal, they could not manage to sell it.

The brothers were so poor that they had no firewood at home. So they just
sliced the fish and ate it raw. This was their Spring Festival meal.

From then on, they were always able to harvest full nets of great amounts of
fish. They became rich, got married and lived a happy life. But one thing
remained: they would eat raw fish at Spring Festival.

The Chinese for raw fish is sheng yu, which also sounds like another word
which means wealth or prosperity.

Over time, a name for the raw fish dish was coined - Feng Sheng Shui Qi,
meaning "wind grows and waves surge," implying a perfect time to harvest
fish. The dish spread to many parts of the country and became very popular
in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

However, the dish disappeared from most dinner tables in the 1950s and
1960s, due to health concerns related to the consumption of the raw river
fish used to prepare the dish.

Yet in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, the Feng Sheng Shui Qi has made a
comeback to Spring Festival tables, largely due to the current availability
of high-quality Norwegian salmon, which renders the consumption of raw fish
carefree.

Norwegian salmon's excellent red colour, and the ideal environment in which
it is raised - the pristine waters of Norway's cold seas and strict
government hygienic monitoring - combine to make it a top, healthy choice
for the traditional Chinese New Year dish.

One of the highlights of eating Feng Sheng Shui Qi is the tossing ritual.
The action is believed to bring good luck - those who toss the raw fish
highest will have best fortune in the coming year.

The dish has now arrived in Shanghai. I had the honour and pleasure of
tossing the Norwegian raw fish slices with Torill Oftedal Sjaastad, the
Norwegian Consul General in Shanghai.

"To taste the wonderful Chinese Spring Festival dish Feng Sheng Shui Qi
prepared with Norwegian salmon is a happy encounter in which ancient meets
modern, east meets west," said Sjaastad.


I saw on some TV show I think Koreans eating live baby octopus and
Chinese quick fried fish which was still breathing. Also some people
eating live shrimp. Is there a taste difference between live food vs
raw food?

"respite" wrote in message
...
Yes and no. I have never seen shrimp or octopus served raw. For sushi,
both are boiled. After boiling shrimp, i cool them quickly in cold water
with a few cuts of fresh ginger (ie a finger sized peice to a gallon or
so of water. You would never notice the extra flavor in the final
product unless you were looking for it.).

Boiling mostly changes the texture, but will alter the flavor as well.

The idea of eating live food does not fit well for me.
It even seems a bit inhumane to me. Not trying to start an ethical flame
or anything, but if im going to be digested, i would hope i was killed
first. A fight between grinding jaws, a lack of fresh air, and stomach
acid seems like hell. That might fly with the rest of the food chain,
but not with me.

Plus the fact that most animals under extreme stress and/or in the last
pulses of life tend to purge their wastes..
--
respite



I eat Amaebi and Botan ebi raw all the time. Nearly all of my friends here
in the US do also.
In Japan I've had those enormous kuruma ebi raw and still kicking.
I have also enjoyed raw octopus (Nama dako) sashimi served with Umejio.

My feelings on living food is neutral. Ikezukuri was really popular in Japan
about 15 years ago, and I remember my American friends flipping out when the
served fish would suddenly flare its gill cover. I have to admit that kind
of took
me by surprise as well. Whether we are talking about ikezukuri or swallowing
down
a few blue points at the Oyster Bar, we are always talking about
"freshness", and not
any particular weird pleasure in eating things alive for the sake of it.

Musashi

In ,
respite typed:

Yes and no. I have never seen shrimp or octopus served raw.


You've never seen ama-ebi?

--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup

"Ken Blake" wrote in message ...
In ,
respite typed:

Yes and no. I have never seen shrimp or octopus served raw.


You've never seen ama-ebi?

I was just gonna mention that. The shrimp used for ama-ebi are pink/
brown cold water varieties. In Mass. they generally come from Maine
this time of year. I can get 'em frozen year 'round. I know of a few
fish markets that sell these beauties peeled for about 6-8 bucks a Lb.
The shrimp are not very big on size, but humongous on flavor. And if
you can get them with the shells, there is usually a good amount of
shrimp fat to be had for making stock.
The larger white/ tiger/ blue shrimp that come from elsewhere are warm
water varieties and are generally sold frozen if you are not really
close to the boats.

The only time I ever saw octopus live was in the open air market in
Pusan Korea. I have pics of them escaping out of their shallow pans.
The same guy had all sorts of live seafood... small fish, clams, giant
oysters, shrimp, sea cucumbers, a few varieties of snails, even some
good sized lobsters. Biggest thing he had was a tankfull of snow
crabs, and they were biggies. The smallest ones were about 3 lb each,
and the biggest ones were close to 10 lbs.

One thing that is served in the summer at a local sushi bar I frequent
is lobster. It is of course live. The sushi chefs will make a lobster
sashimi out of the tail meat, with the delegged body propped up as a
garnish. It's a bit strange to see the lobster's antennae and eyes
moving about while you are eating. The claws are cooked slightly and
made into Temaki rolls. The lower body and legs are are cooked. The
broth goes is strained, then is turned into suimono. Often with
asparagus tips and a few shitake. The cooked tomalley gets put into a
gunkan wrap. If there is lobster roe, it is placed on top as a
garnish. If not, they usually put on a bit of masago or other caviar
to brighten up the presentation.

Jim

Ama ebi is marketed here as "sweet shrimp", so i never bothered getting it.
--



Jim S. wrote:
"Ken Blake" wrote in message ...

In ,
respite typed:


Yes and no. I have never seen shrimp or octopus served raw.


You've never seen ama-ebi?


I was just gonna mention that. The shrimp used for ama-ebi are pink/
brown cold water varieties. In Mass. they generally come from Maine
this time of year. I can get 'em frozen year 'round. I know of a few
fish markets that sell these beauties peeled for about 6-8 bucks a Lb.
The shrimp are not very big on size, but humongous on flavor. And if
you can get them with the shells, there is usually a good amount of
shrimp fat to be had for making stock.
The larger white/ tiger/ blue shrimp that come from elsewhere are warm
water varieties and are generally sold frozen if you are not really
close to the boats.

The only time I ever saw octopus live was in the open air market in
Pusan Korea. I have pics of them escaping out of their shallow pans.
The same guy had all sorts of live seafood... small fish, clams, giant
oysters, shrimp, sea cucumbers, a few varieties of snails, even some
good sized lobsters. Biggest thing he had was a tankfull of snow
crabs, and they were biggies. The smallest ones were about 3 lb each,
and the biggest ones were close to 10 lbs.

One thing that is served in the summer at a local sushi bar I frequent
is lobster. It is of course live. The sushi chefs will make a lobster
sashimi out of the tail meat, with the delegged body propped up as a
garnish. It's a bit strange to see the lobster's antennae and eyes
moving about while you are eating. The claws are cooked slightly and
made into Temaki rolls. The lower body and legs are are cooked. The
broth goes is strained, then is turned into suimono. Often with
asparagus tips and a few shitake. The cooked tomalley gets put into a
gunkan wrap. If there is lobster roe, it is placed on top as a
garnish. If not, they usually put on a bit of masago or other caviar
to brighten up the presentation.

Jim

"Keith" wrote in message
...
They're called "sweet" or "fermented" shrimp here... I was always
under the
impression that they were prepared somehow, not just raw. ???

--


Keith

My "bible" for eating things Japanese is Robb Satterwhite's "What's
What in Japanese Restaurants". He indicates that "ebi" would be boiled
shrimp, "ama-abi" raw shrimp. My local sushi place uses cooked shrimp
for "shrimp nigiri" but it also has "sweet shrimp" which, AFAIK, are
just fresh and uncooked! Incidentally, I don't like the texture or
taste of raw shrimp!


--
James V. Silverton
Potomac, Maryland, USA

"James Silverton" wrote in message

Incidentally, I don't like the texture or
taste of raw shrimp!


I guess I am not with the general preferences on sushi as indicated
in:

http://www.japan-guide.com/topic/0106.html

It is said there that sweet shrimp, amaebi, is high up in the list of
preferences! Also, I am very fond of chewy tako (octopus) and that is
said to be high in the list of dislikes (g).


--
James V. Silverton
Potomac, Maryland, USA

No kidding! Saba is probably my favorite, next to Hamachi. I like the Ikura
and Tobika, not too fond of Uni. Love Ama-Ebi. Do they usually serve the
fried shrimp head where you folks eat? They do here... gets a lot of looks,
even at the sushi bar!

--


Keith
__
We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way
through Congress.
"James Silverton" wrote in message
...

"James Silverton" wrote in message

Incidentally, I don't like the texture or
taste of raw shrimp!


I guess I am not with the general preferences on sushi as indicated
in:

http://www.japan-guide.com/topic/0106.html

It is said there that sweet shrimp, amaebi, is high up in the list of
preferences! Also, I am very fond of chewy tako (octopus) and that is
said to be high in the list of dislikes (g).


--
James V. Silverton
Potomac, Maryland, USA

It is said there that sweet shrimp, amaebi, is high up in the list of
preferences! Also, I am very fond of chewy tako (octopus) and that is
said to be high in the list of dislikes (g).


--
James V. Silverton
Potomac, Maryland, USA


Probably the reason for Tako being high up on the list is because it's
very tough if overcooked. It spoils quickly, even under refrigeration.
Just a little spoilage makes the stuff taste rude. When I make mine, I
ziploc it in salt water and change that every other day. If I have
more than I am going to eat within 4 days or so, I freeze a few whole
tentacles in sal****er. I found out the imported stuff is quick frozen
in a blast freezer, and sometimes in liquid nitrogen.

Jim S.