October 31, 2015

"An era of seaweed eating can start to seem inevitable—penance for the golden days of corn and cars and cows."

"Paul Greenberg, who has written extensively about the collapse of fish stocks, told Business Insider last year, 'If I could buy kelp futures, I would.' Given the exigencies of feeding the planet, it might be preferable to other available alternatives. 'It’s not worms and it’s not bugs, so that’s positive, right?' he said to me. 'I don’t think anyone is going to stick their finger down their throat and say, "Blech, kelp—I don’t want to eat it."' Cheryl Dahle, the founder of Future of Fish, says, 'We eat things now we never would have imagined eating twenty years ago. We eat dogfish. It’s called dogfish, for crying out loud! If we can develop a market for snakehead fish—an exotic, invasive aquarium species—out of the Chesapeake, we can create a market for kelp.'"

I was reading — listening to the podcast of — this New Yorker article — "A New Leaf/Seaweed could be a miracle food—if we can figure out how to make it taste good" — as I was walking into the kitchen this morning, reencountering my exotic, invasive husband Meade.

ME: "What do you know about kelp?"

MEADE: "Does any Bob Dylan song have the word 'kelp'?"

ME: "Does any Jerry Lewis movie have him named 'Kelp'?"

Meade says he doesn't follow Jerry Lewis, but I don't think you need to follow Jerry Lewis to know this one. "Professor Kelp?" I say, stalling for time, because I don't know the answer to the Bob Dylan question. I say that "kelp" is good if you need a rhyme for "help," and then, doing my search at bobdylan.com, I see I'm right. It's "Sara":
Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp
And a piece of an old ship that lies on the shore
You always responded when I needed your help
You gimme a map and a key to your door
Jerry played Professor Julius Kelp in more movies than just "The Nutty Professor." Here's a compilation:

28 comments:

Steve said...

Paul Greenber wants to buy kelp futures. He should ask Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich how these sorts of bets always end.

Freeman Hunt said...

Seaweed is delicious. I used to have that on Subscribe and Save.

David said...

It's a Beatles song.

"Kelp, I need some body . . . "

effinayright said...

Didn't the Beatles do a movie and song titled "Kelp"?

Oh wait....straighten me out.

JHapp said...

Although I miss the McLean burger, kelp sounds like the perfect cow and pig food. More corn for ethanol!

Saint Croix said...

Any reader of the Dortmunder books is familiar with Andy Kelp.

(That link is to my favorite one, with the nuns).

William said...

At this late date, there is no concordance for the writ of Bob Dylan. Even more than pasteurized kelp, the world needs a concordance of Bob Dylan's words.......The kelp/help rhyme shows just how much we need this concordance. Eat your heart out Cole Porter.

Etienne said...

What I've found is that grasshoppers are like a steak dinner protein-wise.

Now, I'm thinking I can have a block of stainless steel machined so that after blending the grasshoppers with 7 secret herbs and spices, they could be pressed into a rib-eye looking piece of meet under 5-tons. Deep fry them, and there would be a huge market for this picnic treat (I g-u-a-r-a-n-tee!) as Justin Wilson said...

What I've found though is to NOT chew the grasshopper raw, it's nasty, but to swallow it whole with a chug of water.

Oh yea, pull the legs off first, otherwise it will crawl back up and make you vomit.

Paco Wové said...

The Althouse theme for the day is – Why Third-Worldization is good for the West.

Freeman Hunt said...

I tried roasted grasshoppers. Won't be eating them again. Too much face.

Freeman Hunt said...

Crickets have smaller faces, so they're better. Ants' faces are smaller still, and they are better than crickets and grasshoppers.

Gahrie said...

We are not going to run out of food. In a couple of decades the world population will begin dropping anyway.

Etienne said...

Freeman Hunt...Yes, black ants are another treat. Lots of protein. I smash a bunch of them and put them on my sandwich. I just wish they tasted more like caviar, rather than nothing.

We need to breed ants so they taste like chocolate!

Hey, maybe I can get a federal contract, now that the radar in a blimp thing has run its course.

cubanbob said...

Time to stop burning food for fuel and burn Greens instead for fuel. Come on Greens, do it for Gaia.

Original Mike said...

I've been reading about the collapse of fish stocks for a long time, yet I can still buy all the fish I want. How's that work?

virgil xenophon said...

cubanbob ALL THE WAY! Hell, the "greens" are already half-way to "soylent green" anyway, aren't they? Just need the prefix. In for a dime, in for a dollar! :)

Freeman Hunt said...

The smaller the bug the better, I think because the plates of exoskeleton are smaller.

And the smaller face.

Roasted grubs taste like pork rinds. I suppose that could be good if you like pork rinds.

Freeman Hunt said...

seaweed > bugs

Terry said...

There is nothing new here at all. People have been eating 'artificially' produced protein since the invention of artificial ammoniate fertilizers -- a direct result of chemical warfare research in the First World War (same German guy worked on both. Won a Nobel for the fertilizer).
Fish stocks have been "collapsing" since I was a lad in the 1960s. If it takes more than half a century, it's not a collapse. Gosh! Another promise of a "miracle food"? Kean-o! Sign me up, Tom Swift!
In the 1910s and 1920s, ER Burroughs sang the praises of canned food. So pure and sterile, never touched by filthy human hands!
The triumph of progressivism has made me deeply skeptical of progress.

Anonymous said...

"A New Leaf/Seaweed could be a miracle food—if we can figure out how to make it taste good"

When have they ever worried about that before?

Steven said...

“You’re not just gaining nutrition, you’re also gaining absolution from guilt,” Mark Bomford, the director of the Yale Sustainable Food Program

Well, apparently, guys, we need to reanimate Martin Luther.

Ficta said...

Well, I asked for something to eat
I'm hungry as a hog
I get brown rice, seaweed
And a dirty hot dog
I've got a hole
Where my stomach disappeared
Then you ask why I don't live here
Honey, I got to think you're really weird

ken in tx said...

When my brother and sister were young enough to believe him, My Dad told them that skillet blackened okra (okry) was actually grasshoppers and crickets.

Gahrie said...

As far as texture goes, I've always imagined that fig newtons were made from ground up red ants.

effinayright said...

Fistbump to David.

Great minds, yada yada...

Gospace said...

If the US were to sell quasi-ownership to patches of ocean within out EEZ to private companies, giving them the right to exclusively fish within those areas as long as they were actively improving the areas for fish growth, availability of cheap fish would be ensured. Of course, they wouldn't be able to fence off the area like you can cattle grazing grounds, but improving the fish habitat in the middle of the area could bring a huge return on investment. Artificial reefs, plankton seeding, whatever. Fish that wander off the reservation would be fair game for recreational fishermen. Banning commercial fishing in the EEZ outside the owned areas would give an added boost to ownership. Because fish that wander off in a school might very well wander back. Ocean fisheries are slowly becoming a tragedy of the commons situation. The probability of getting governments together to create private interest zones outside the EEZ's is so close to being zero that it is zero.

Anonymous said...

White people don't have the enzymes to fully process the nutritional value of seaweed. Gotta start somewhere though. TJs has great nutty tasting seaweed snackables. Beginners should stay away from the wasabi.

Ann Althouse said...

David said..."It's a Beatles song. "Kelp, I need some body . . . ""

That joke is already in the linked article:

"On his computer he showed me a presentation called “Kelp! I Need Somebody.”"