Cooking with agnatha

I can taste my lunch in the back of my throat.

How strange - I just saw the hagfish slime on the Animal Planet last night. It didn't look like anything I'd want to touch or cook with, blech.

gack, just gack.

I suppose I should be glad I didn't click the link. I've seen that stuff.

Umm. AHHHHH!!!! Ok.

It's great for your skin, too. "Hagfish slime?!!!"
"You're soaking in it."

And for a literary angle to agnatha, hagfish figure significantly in Martin Cruz Smith's second Arkady Renko mystery novel Polar Star, the sequel to Gorky Park:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345367650/qid=1146176019…

I think I've also seen surviving roman recipes for lampreys.

Only in Canada eh!

There might be some people who are allergic to the proteins in hagfish slime but otherwise it could be a good substitute for those who are allergic to eggs. It's probably not a vegan foodstuff though, since the hagfish had to be scared first (which makes it even more unfriendly to produce than milk).

Does anyone have any recipes for lamprey?

Stanton, that was just gross enough to google "lamprey recipe", which ended up taking me to What's Cooking America.

I quit reading after "Eels in a Torta", though.

This is hardly fair. Lampreys have long been considered a great delicacy (or cheap eats) in Europe, and have been wiped out in the fisheries there. Parts of our Great Lakes are swarming with the evil little buggers, and it might actually help reduce the numbers of this invasive species if Americans had an appetite for them.

"...since the hagfish had to be scared first ..."

This raises the obvious question: how do you scare a hagfish?

Bob

Interesting. Of course, eggs are ickier since they start off with bird excrement on them - I don't think any cage construction prohibits that. Maybe I should try hagnog this winter?

how do you scare a hagfish

Show it an episode of Buffy? A mirror? Or just a gung-ho marine biology student - they look scary enough (I think it's the woolly hat which does it).

So, what's the RDA of hagfish slime? How many calories, etc.? Are there nutritional benefits vs. eggs? I see a grant in someone's future.

Hagnog. Awesome.

I've always been curious about what lamprey tastes like, ever since I read that King Henry I of England died after overindulging in them at a banquet...
I never considered hagfish to be edible, if only because their immense slime-producing abilities.
But, now that their slime has been proven edible, I'm thinking of reconsidering my previous preconception. Hmmm...
Hagfish stuffed in a fried pepper?

Then, I'm not sure if we should advertize recipes for lampreys, as, while the sea lamprey is a destructive vermin in the Great Lakes, the native brook lampreys, particularly those of California, happen to be endangered species.