And just in case there are some of there out there who agree with the statement from Wikipedia: "There is very little reason or evidence to suppose that Jellyfish even require a collective noun." This important article, Invasion of Jellyfish Envelops Japan in Ocean of Slime in yesterday's Wall Street Journal removes all doubt.
The Japanese government last year counted about 50,000 incidents of jellyfish trouble.
So the Japanese are trying to make the best of it. Dr. Daniel Pauly has been talking about a future of jellyfish bugers since the late 1990s, but did not foresee jellyfish-flavored biscuits, jellyfish soaked in rum and a dessert of jellyfish chunks in coconut milk. Or jellyfish ice cream.
One coastal firm, Tango Jersey Dairy, has for the past three years produced 2,000 or 3,000 cartons of vanilla-and-jellyfish ice cream. The jellyfish is soaked overnight in milk to reduce its smell, and is then diced. Fumiko Hirabayashi, a director of the dairy, says the jelly cubes are slightly chewy.
"In the 1960s, they were using whale fat for ice cream," explained Pauly. "There was a scandal in Italy when they discoved that their beloved 'gelato' included whale fat." Now ice cream contains jellyfish instead.
Environment
Comments
The Japanese, and I say this from direct personal experience, will make ice cream out of anything.
In Japan, I have had: wheat ice cream (nice, very delicate flavor) one of 20+ available varieties of kelp/seaweed ice cream (not bad, really, although I wouldn't go out of my way for it) sesame seed ice cream (very strongly sesame, too) wasabe ice cream (sharp, but nicer than you would think) seawater ice cream (disgusting beyond words' ability to tell) abalone ice cream (tastes like sushi with milk, yes) tuna ice cream (I'd say to avoid it like the plague, even if there weren't an issue of tuna overfishing) goat meat ice cream (a lot less exciting than you would think, actually; chewy but nearly tasteless when frozen) raw horsemeat ice cream (gamey and very, very chewy) dark beer ice cream (like frozen Guiness, with milk, which is probably what it was). I never got around to trying the bamboo ice cream, sadly, although I had intended to.
Jellyfish ice cream surprises me not a bit.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | November 28, 2007 12:44 PM
I'm rather fond of jellyfish when prepared properly. Though, I ate a peanut butter and jellyfish sandwich once. The whole thing. I would NOT recommend it. A clash of textures. shudder
Posted by: Jonathan | November 28, 2007 3:27 PM
Luna, This list of ice cream is Wonderful. As for peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches, check out the title of this post.
Posted by: Jennifer L. Jacquet | November 29, 2007 8:20 AM
Unfortunately, the post dumped the formatting of my nicely bulleted list. :( And I forgot to mention the garlic ice cream. It wasn't bad, but definitely a bit weird.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | December 4, 2007 4:58 AM