Lost post. argh. In brief, i wrote up this post the other night and it was accidentally deleted, then blogger autosaved it and i couldn't get it back, so i threw my hands in the air and gave up that evening. First World problems?
Jack, Holly and i were getting coffee at the Library (not the one with books) actually a while ago, and my coffee arrived in a mug that featured "Lutefisk happens." Jack looked at my mug and inquired "Exactly what is lutefisk?" Holly and i answered, basically, that it is fish soaked in lye. "But isn't lye toxic?" Well, yes, but you rinse the majority of it out before you eat it. "Why? Like, who would ever think this is a good idea?" and Holly and i handwaved something about preservation and possibly a soap-making/fish prep accident. So, i looked into it. Lutefisk is indeed fish that has been soaked in lye, but there's a little more to it. It tends to be a white-fleshed fish of some type; haddock and pollock are less smelly, with cod being the more traditional, more smelly type. The fish is first completely dried, and as such, can no longer be fully reconstituted using water; it has to be soaked in lye. Before eating, the lye has to be removed; this is done by soaking it in water for several days, changing the water daily. The fish is then pretty delicate, and it's either baked or steamed then served. Apparently, the northern American Midwest has the brunt of the world's lutefisk eating; it's the main feature of various Midwestern community events in the winter. A super interesting Smithsonian Magazine article details quite a bit of this phenomenon (opening even at a church event in Madison). Other curious things-of-note include the fact that Swedish Americans prefer their lutefisk with a heavily spiced sauce whereas Norwegian Americans, as purists, use only melted butter. The origins are lost in the mists of time, but seem to agree with my handwaving speculation featuring a soap-making incident. Other notables include the humor-related portion of the wikipedia article.
A lot of food preservation techniques from Nordic countries involve burying/fermenting food. There's a apparently popular winter buffet in Iceland, Þorramatur, that features meats prepared in a traditional manner. These include stuff like a a boiled sheeps' head, and fermented shark. The latter, Hákarl, has the reputation of being possibly the most offensive food in the world. A brief quote from the wikipedia article, "Hákarl is traditionally prepared by gutting and beheading a Greenland or basking shark
and placing it in a shallow hole dug in gravelly sand, with the
now-cleaned cavity resting on a slight hill. The shark is then covered
with sand and gravel, and stones are then placed on top of the sand in
order to press the shark. The fluids from the shark are in this way
pressed out of the body. The shark ferments in this fashion for 6–12
weeks depending on the season ". And why might people eat this? Another quote, same article, "Eating hákarl is often associated with hardiness and strength". Okay.
Other foods-prouduced-by-alkaline substances include hominy. Hominy is corn that has been treated with either calcium hydroxide (also called lime, not the fruit) or lye. This process of treating corn with calcium hydroxide is called nixtamalization, and has been in use since early Mesoamerica to help draw niacin out of the corn and make it more bio-available. (Deficiencies in niacin were later established to cause diseases like pellagra, as seen in studies done at UW by Conrad Elvenjem.) This process is also responsible for allowing ground corn to be formed into dough, thus formed into tortillas and tamales, etc. Grits are basically ground-up hominy, while polenta is ground corn that hasn't been treated with lime, etc.
Speaking of lime (the actual fruit this time), my lovely cousin Lauren was in Cozumel last year with her family, accidentally spilled lime juice on her knees, and ended up with burns. This is apparently not uncommon; the pyhtophotodermatitis is apparently caused by compounds called psoralens. The combination of UV and psoralens cause burns on skin. Yikes. It looks like figs contain particularly large amounts of psoralen, along with aging celery. (More reasons for me to not eat celery, though i really, really love figs.)
And here's a curious website called Super Hero Supplies, with proceeds benefiting a writing program in New York. Even more curious is a website where you can sign up for monthly shipments of menstrual supplies (including just shipments of chocolate). i came across it via the blog She Lets Her Hair Down, which i occasional peruse, subsequently attempting and failing at hair styles.
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