cooking

Yesterday I face two cooking fears: small fish and frying. I was at the Union Square Farmer's market with a paleo friend yesterday. At the Blue Moon fishery booth I was about to get some sort of inoffensive seafood, maybe scallops. But then I saw my friend order something that was an unappetizing pinkish grey. It was monkfish liver. Not to be outdone in the adventurous eating department, I looked for something slightly more appetizing. My eyes alighted on a barrel of small iridescent blue fish with pearly eggs spilling out of their guts.

"What are those?" I asked. The fisherman answered "sparing." I had no idea what that was, but I ordered half a pound. It was a mere $2, but instantly I felt regret. What would I do with those? I'd never even heard of sparing.

Apparently they are smelt. Which I'd heard of, but never tasted. When I visited Madrid last year I had many fresh delicious sardines and anchovies, which I found much tastier than the canned varieties, but since then I haven't eaten many tiny fish. 

I didn't eat fish until I was 18 or so and didn't cook it until I was 19. My family always ate fish, but I thought it was absolutely disgusting and only fit for cats. I forced myself to eat fish when I went paleo because of the convincing literature on the health benefits. I definitely didn't like it and pretty much did my best to drown it in heavily-spiced sauces. Since then I've tried different types of fish slowly and always with trepidation. I've fallen in love with shellfish, but my relationship with oily fish is a little less stable. I usually try fish for the first time at restaurants, because at least they sort of know what they are doing...right?

Either way, I was stuck with these smelt and wasn't about to waste them. According to my Google searches...eating the whole thing was recommended. Pretty scary...the thought of eyeballs and brains and ugh.

Per some tips on paleohacks, I washed and dried the smelt, then dipped then in egg, and then in a mixture of coconut flour, almond meal, and my favorite spices. I'm pretty cautious about frying, but a good method I've found is just to use lots of heat, but protect yourself with a lid from the popping oil. I fried the fish in a couple of tablespoons of ghee until they were crispy. Then I seasoned then with a dash of salt and a pinch of lime.

And I ate them. I'd never eaten a whole entire fish before, but these were delicious. I totally forgot about eyeballs and other nasty bits. They were crispy and mild. I dipped some in my delicious homemade mayo and they were perfect. It's great to add another healthy, cheap, and fairly easy food to my recipe box!

Bets asks "Where does one even buy an eye or a nose to eat? The thought of peeling a tongue invokes pain to my core. That said, I never say never and am game."

From Offal Good's store

Offal can be scary, but it can also be mind-blowingly delicious. I hate to admit it, but if I had started out on offal with a bag of bloody livers bought from the farmer's market, I might not be writing this blog (the same goes for fish...I'm never would have tried shrimp or lobster if I didn't eat out). Let a good restaurant usher you into the wonderful world of offal, starting with the least-scary things- cheeks and marrow bones, which are so delicious they probably don't qualify as offal. Tongue is also delicious, but hard to cook right. If you are willing to eat non grass-fed meat, most authentic Mexican places serve it, but it's increasingly found in upscale restaurants. Liver you might not need to go to a restaurant for, since pates can be found at a good butcher or grocery store.

Eating food prepared by an expert can give you a taste of how great offal can be when prepared properly, which is a great motivation to cook it yourself. When I started cooking from Nose to Tail, I knew what I liked about offal and was able to modify the recipes accordingly. For me, the route to a great offal recipe is tons of spicy chili and lime.

I also admit to being very inspired by the offal adventures of one Anthony Bourdain.

Another reader pointed out that most of my advice seems cleared towards people in major metro areas, but I started out eating offal in Champaign, IL, which is three hours from a major city. You might have to travel some, but supporting a good chef and eating great food is worth it. Also, sometimes ethnic restaurants in American towns will have offal items not on the menu, so it might be worth asking.

My latest offal adventure was at Traif with Rhys Southan & friends. I admit I was a little scared to try the sweetbreads, but both of us have reputations as adventurous eaters to uphold and we bravely ordered them. Thankfully, they were absolutely delicious...who knew they would have so much delicious fat! I remember when I was a kid and I thought sweetbreads were cinnamon rolls and asked for some. When my grandma told me what they were I was totally appalled and couldn't believe anyone would eat such a horrible thing. Hehe. 

However, Rhys and I were sorely dissapointed by X'ian famous foods. When we ordered the lamb face salad we expected it to be absolutely ghastly, full of macabre parts of eyeballs and gums, but instead it was a mixture of nice spicy fatty cheeks and vegetables. Sometimes you want your offal good, other times you want to just eat it because it exists.

I had a great time at Jackson Lander's deer hunting workshop, but I will write a post on it later since I'm still...ruminating...haha! But John Durant already beat me to it and has some great picture, so you should check them out.

I've been getting some questions about the paleo foods section...actually a lot of questions. I created that section with the idea of showing my own diet and showing the costs and benefits of each food.

But it's really not as simple as non-paleo and paleo. Really, most foods aren't "paleolithic." If a museum curator put a domestic chicken in the prehistoric human diorama in the Museum of Natural History they would be fired. But paleolithic eating isn't about reenactment, it's about emulating the nutritional intake of our ancestors- no African baboon meat required.

That's why I include butter/ghee in my diet. Paleolithic hunters ate the brain, which is very rich in fat. I don't eat that because it's hard to buy and when hunting there are concerns about prion diseases (which I think are largely exaggerated and I plan to do some of Fergus Henderson's brain recipes whenever I finally get ahold of brain). But hunter-gatherer cultures like the Hazda seem to love the brain.

Onwas then reaches into the fire and pulls out the skull. He hacks it open, like a coconut, exposing the brains, which have been boiling for a good hour inside the skull. They look like ramen noodles, yellowish white, lightly steaming. He holds the skull out, and the men, including myself, surge forward and stick our fingers inside the skull and scoop up a handful of brains and slurp them down. With this, the night, at last, comes to an end.

But why are sesame seeds not-paleo on my list and cumin is? Well, it's actually not as simple as that. As an astute reader pointed out, there is evidence that prehistoric hominids ate small amounts of seeds, grains, and even legumes. Note the small amounts- it's pretty hard to gather enough wild grains to make a rice pilaf or tahini. Personally I DO eat sesame seeds. They are a tasty garnish on raw tuna sashimi. I put maybe 10 on. In small quantities they are like cumin, which is also a flavoring/garnish. Both of these used as garnish are tasty, but probably inconsequential either way for someone with a healthy digestive system.

Contrast that with hummus, which contains large amounts of chickpeas and ground sesame seeds in the form of tahini. It's used as a food, but as a food it provides inappropriate nutrition, particularly in the form of excess omega-6 fatty acids. Something people don't think about is that seeds and grains used as foods displace better foods. If I eat a cup of white rice at a Korean place I'm not going to get sick, but it's going to fill me up and I'll eat less blood stew or squid, which are much more nutritious.

When I'm at a nice restaurant sometimes pork will come with a teeny tiny side of beans. I'll eat those. Since my digestive flora has been rebalanced by eating paleo, they honestly don't bother me and beans cooked in pork fat are mighty tasty. I'm ultimately a foodie and taste means a lot to me.

I stick with my guns that your staples should be grass fed meat from ruminants, fish, coconut, and other sources of saturated fat. Go ahead, season with cumin or sesame seeds, but if you eat them by the bag-full, it's just not evolutionarily appropriate.

Sticking with my guns

What about taste? Is our sense of taste a useless piece of baggage that leads us to fruit rollup and fried chicken perdition? No way! Our tastebuds are shaped by evolution to help us survive. It's our environment that messes them up and allows them to be used for choosing crap instead of choosing tasty nutritious fat. Do them a favor and strip your eating environment of junk. The best use for them in a paleo diet is that they tell you when to eat more fat, which particularly if you are doing a meat-only fast, is very very useful.

One thing optimal foraging theory misses out on is that humans have a sense of taste that often trumps "efficiency," which is why you will find cultures all over the world going after things like berries and nuts that provide little in the way of calories but much in the way of flavor. Perhaps they provide something else? Honestly, cutting nuts out of my diet has been easy because I no longer crave them. Perhaps there is something in my offal, seafood, and fat-rich paleo diet that I wasn't getting when I was a nut-crazed (hehe) faileo.

As an aside, I'm more likely to respond to your comments nicely if you use the contact form rather than posting comments unrelated to the post you are commenting on.