TravelOZ has made a fascinating video about the crabs of Christmas Island (especially Coconut Crabs, which can climb trees and crack coconuts in their massive claws) which you can see below (or here).
If you enjoyed that video, you won’t want to miss the one below which shows what a massive influx of tiny baby crabs into the area looks like. The streets literally run red with millions of new baby crabs…quite an extraordinary sight!
If you’ve ever read Anthony Bourdain’s, Kitchen Confidential or Bill Buford’s, Heat, you know that a professional kitchen can be a steamy place ruled by men with knives facing a mountain of orders to cook; people with very little time or space for the conventional niceties commonly found in more egalitarian professions.
As George Orwell described in Down and Out in London in Paris which was published in 1933:
“The kitchen was like nothing I had ever seen or imagined–a stifling, low-ceilinged inferno of a cellar, red-lit from the fires, and deafening with oaths and the clanging of pots and pans. It was so hot that all the metal-work except the stoves had to be covered with cloth. In the middle were furnaces, where twelve cooks skipped to and fro, their faces dripping sweat in spite of their white caps. Round that were counters where a mob of waiters and plongeurs (dishwashers) clamoured with trays. Scullions, naked to the waist, were stoking the fires and scouring huge copper saucepans with sand. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry and a rage…
The time between eight and half past ten was a sort of delirium. Sometimes we were going as though we had only five minutes to live; sometimes there were sudden lulls when the orders stopped and everything seemed quiet for a moment. Then we swept up the litter from the floor, threw down fresh sawdust, and swallowed gallipots of wine or coffee or water–anything, so long as it was wet.”
Apparently, not much has changed.
Here’s three videos featuring famous chefs blowing off steam…
Mario Batali Vs. Marco Pierre White: The Risotto Incident
Gordon Ramsay Vs. Chef Michel Bardavid
Anthony Bourdain Vs. The Food Network
(Photo Credit: Fire! by CmBellman)
To continue this week’s young at heart theme at HuggingtheCoast.Com, here’s four short food related public service cartoons that were created to encourage kids to eat healthier in the 80’s…enjoy!
Time For Timer: Eat Breakfast
Don’t Drown Your Food
Love Won’t Add Weight!
Chew Chew Chew Your Food
Ivanchantt has made an interesting video featuring beautifully balletic jellyfish swimming in a colorful tank display in Hong Kong which you can see below (or here), set to tango music.
What do you get when you add 12 tons of meat, an army of 1,252 volunteer chefs, and a grill nearly a mile long? The world’s largest barbecue of course, with over 20,000 spectators lined up to eat it.When you add in the factor that the event was held in Uruguay, which boasts beef almost as revered in many gourmet circles as that in neighboring Argentina, you can be sure it was a true culinary happening.
“It’s all so beautiful. It’s a record” said Guinness World Records judge form the United States, Danny Girton who was present to register the event.
According to Reuters, Army personnel were used to set up the massive grill and firefighters lit six tons of charcoal to kick off the gargantuan cookout.
The official event was launched after the record breaking grill was inaugurated with a much smaller meal of kosher beef steak.
Here’s a video from the record breaking event to whet your appetite…
According to the CattleNetwork.Com, contrary to tradition and for practical reasons six tons of charcoal was used to barbecue the beef. Traditional Uruguayan barbecue is prepared on embers of hard wood, a slow process that can take up to an hour but which also enables the meat to be smoked. Like Argentinians, Uruguayans take their tradition of asado very seriously, and enjoy some of the highest per capita beef consumption in the world.
The previous record holder of the World’s Largest Barbecue was Mexico, which won in 2006 with a comparatively paltry 8 tons of meat.
Manhattan77 has made an interesting video overview of Savannah, Georgia which you can see below (or here ).
Quick, easy, simple, nutritious, and won’t heat up your kitchen…here’s a recipe for Shrimp Stuffed Avocados from the folks at About.Com: Home Cooking.
Ingredients:
3 avocados
1/2 green onion
2 tsp. mayonnaise
1 lemon
1/4 lb. cooked bay shrimp
salt and pepper
This recipe also has a helpful video to go with its text which you can see below (or here):
How to Make Shrimp Stuffed Avocados
See More of Hugging the Coast’s Fish For Friday Recipes
Have you ever wanted to make authentic homemade pulled pork barbecue and didn’t know where to start?
In this excellent 8 minute YouTube video from the BBQ Pit Boys, you’ll learn how to make tender and succulent pulled pork in a smoker; what kind of meat to buy, how much marbling there should be, how to modulate the temperature just right so it comes out as juicy and delicious as every pulled pork meal deserves to be, and more.
You can watch the video below (or you can click here instead):
Leftover pulled pork is also the starting point for Charleston Chili, which features pulled pork, country ham, and boiled peanuts instead of the usual beef and beans. Pulled pork is also excellent in sandwiches.
Here’s a recipe for After the Barbecue Pulled Pork Po Boys.
The BBQ Pit Boys have over 40 videos about all aspects of barbecuing, smoking, and outdoor cooking which you can see here.
Have fun and happy grilling!
Native only to a small part of North and South Carolina, the Venus Flytrap is a carnivorous plant that sustains itself in nutrient-poor, boggy soil by trapping and eating insects and small animals that find their way into its trap.
For an video overview of venus flytraps, their habitat, and how they trap their prey, Persuasion2 has made an informative video which you can see below (or here ).
You might also want to see these two wonderful videos as well:
Tomorrow, we’ll be sharing Father’s Day Recipes.
It won’t be long before the official start of summer; the season of buttered corn, barbecue, lemonade, and chilled, sweet tea. If you grew up not too far from the coast or from an amusement park, there’s also a good chance that you have happy memories of eating salt water taffy on vacation.
Also known as pull candy, basic saltwater taffy usually is made of a combination of sugar, corn syrup, water, and some kind of flavoring. Oddly enough, there’s no saltwater in the taffy itself, although some recent recipes do include a little salt.
According to Wikipedia’s Page about the origins of saltwater taffy which they trace to the boardwalk of Atlantic City, New Jersey:
“The most popular story, although probably apocryphal, concerns a candy-store owner, Mr. David Bradley, whose shop was flooded during a major storm in 1883. His entire stock of taffy was soaked with salty Atlantic Ocean water. When a young girl asked if he had any taffy for sale, he is said to have sarcastically offered her some ’salt water taffy.’ The girl was delighted, she bought the candy and proudly walked down to the beach to show her friends. Mr. Bradley’s mother was in the back and heard the exchange. She loved the name and so Salt Water Taffy was born.”
A year later, former glassblower and fish monger James Fralinger started selling salt water taffy in his Atlantic City store. Eventually he came up with the idea to sell salt water taffy as a souvenir by packing it in the same one pound oyster boxes he had used during his fish merchant days. This idea was so successful that the company still sells one pound boxes of the taffy, nearly 125 years later.
Commercial salt water taffy is now most often made by machine, but originally was entirely handmade.
According to the folks at Shriver’s in Ocean City, NJ:
“To pull the taffy one would use a large hook. The hooks would hold the taffy while the “puller” would stretch, twist and pull the taffy to the right consistency. Then, each piece would be cut to fit the paper and wrapped… all by hand. Today, the machines used can pull in excess of 100 pounds and wrap approx 300-400 pieces per minute.”
To get an appreciation of how much work used to be involved making this simple treat, About.Com: Candy has a great page which gives step-by-step instructions for pulling your own taffy.
Here’s a video that shows some of the process used today in making saltwater taffy commercially:
If you’re a fan of salt water taffy, you may also have grown up eating Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy when you weren’t able to get the salt water kind.
More of a nougat than a taffy, Bonomo’s hasn’t been available since 1989, but over at Slashfood, they compare Old Time Candy’s French Chew favorably with the vanished Bonomo “taffy”.
Here’s to simple summertime pleasures!
We’ve gotten a great suggestion in response to yesterday’s blog post, Exotic Ice Creams for the Sun Ravaged Soul that we had to share. The reader suggests making the nifty ice serving bowls described on Polybore to showcase some of the delicious exotic ice creams you make.
Robertmalonesc has made a nice video slideshow featuring dramatic photos of coastal Charleston and the Isle of Palms which you can see below (or here ).
Frank Sodolak of Sodolak’s Original Country Inn in Snook, TX is apparently some kind of evil genius.
Not satisfied with serving his customers heaping plates of steaks, french fries, and onion rings large enough to intimidate Fred Flintstone, one day Frank decided to chicken-fry a batch of bacon and the rest is culinary (and coronary) history.
The chicken-fried bacon is served with a generous side dish of cream gravy for dipping or topping.
If you’re curious (or just a glutton like me), you can see more photos of the food at Snooks in Yi’s Flickr photo stream here.
Below is a Youtube video from the Texas County Reporter showing how Sodolak makes his chicken fried bacon:
Recipezaar has a Snook’s inspired recipe for Chicken Fried Bacon W/Cream Gravy if you’re not too guilt-wracked after watching the video. If you make it you can always top it with some Bacon Salt.
If you’re a true bacon fiend who likes to walk on the wild side, you might want to give this Chocolate Covered Bacon Recipe a try (with or without the multi-colored sprinkles), courtesy of Kevin’s Tech Ramblings.
As the late chef and food historian James Beard said:
“I’ve long said that if I were about to be executed and were given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs. There are few sights that appeal to me more than the streaks of lean and fat in a good side of bacon, or the lovely round of pinkish meat framed in delicate white fat that is Canadian bacon. Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning, save perhaps the smell of coffee brewing.”
Sounds pretty good to me!
Would you try Chicken-Fried Bacon or Chocolate Covered Bacon?
Riverventure has made a fascinating video that shows an encounter between adventurer Richard Bernabe and an alligator which you can see below (or here ).
ETVRoadShow has made an interesting video that talks about the chefs that make Charleston, SC’s famous Lowcountry cuisine which you can see below (or here ).
Amydeanne has made a short but sweet video that shows what it’s like to drive on the beautiful Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge in Charleston, SC which you can see below (or here ).
The Arthur Ravenel is the longest cable stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere, with a main span more than 1500 feet long and is definitely one of the most visually interesting bridges on the East Coast.
You can find out more about how it was built here.
Below are two Youtube videos from Videocamper in which he shows how to get started with cooking with foil outdoors. In the video, he makes Cornish game hen, asparagus, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots while demonstrating the technique.
Cooking in foil is a convenient adaptation of a French technique of cooking in parchment paper called en papillote that is perfect for outdoor cooking. Foil cooking seals in all the delicious juices of the foods you are cooking, cuts down greatly on cleanup, and is a fun way to cook in the great outdoors.
In most cases, you’ll want to use heavy-duty foil for best results and improved durability. Cooks.Com has some good recipes on the topic to get you started here.
Another method that some people use to cook with foil is cooking on a car engine. Instructables.com has a nice series of tips if you’d like to give it a try. Wisebread also has a good article about it here.
Solar oven cooking is a method of cooking which is completely powered by the sun that sometimes uses foil for its heat reflecting and/or insulating properties. Here are some free plans you can use to experiment with solar cooking.
Maxeaudela has made a wonderful video in which dancers strike up an impromptu Charleston in Washington Square Park in New York City which you can see below (or here).
Don’t let a bout of seasickness ruin your fishing trip or cruise! According to Seaworthy Magazine (published by the Boat Owners Association of the United States)…
“Whenever he encountered a seasick sailor, Admiral Nelson, the 19th century British hero at Trafalgar, suggested his own fool-proof remedy: ‘You’ll feel better if you sit under a tree.’ Nelson, who made a few trips to the rail himself, was obviously a funny guy but not everybody shares his sense of humor about seasickness. The same motion–up, down, up, down–that reminds some people of Joseph Conrad reminds others of what they had for lunch. In the almost 200 years since Nelson met his Waterloo, modern medicine hasn’t been able to improve on his tree remedy, but they’re working on it.
For anyone contemplating a bumpy voyage, there are various pills and patches that have been concocted–Dramamine, Marezine, Bonine, Scopolamine (ear patches), etc. These anti-motion drugs all affect the inner ear, which is where seasickness originates before it drops–thud–into the stomach. While some people swear by one or the other of these remedies, there is no one drug that has proven to be ideal for everybody. None of the pills work immediately and all must be taken well before symptoms occur. There is also something called Phenergan, a suppository that is said to be effective when someone is already seasick.
If you are going to try one, you might want to start with Marezine, since it is the least likely to cause drowsiness. Scapolamine is probably the most effective and its effects also last the longest, about 72 hours. It can have some strange side effects, however, and requires a doctor’s prescription. Marezine, Dramamine, and Bonine are antihistamines, which means they can be bought over the counter. Phenergan can also be purchased over the counter.
Many people think of pills or patches as a last resort to fighting motion sickness. One alternative is ginger root powder, which is a seasick remedy that was first brought to our attention by an enthusiastic BoatU.S. member in Washington State. Ginger root powder settles the stomach and has gotten some good press, including a recommendation in Lancet, a well-regarded English medical journal. Ginger root powder capsules are available in health food stores.”
You can read more of this highly informative article here.
In his book The Human Body, Isaac Asimov related the anecdote about a seasick passenger whom a steward cheerfully assured that nobody ever died from seasickness. The passenger muttered, “Please–it’s only the hope of dying that’s keeping me alive.”
Here’s a YouTube video performance by bluesman Seasick Steve who says he earned his name every time he went out on a boat.
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