Ever seen a monkfish Riley? They are some kind of ugly fish. Their livers are prized across the pond and when draggers hit them in any quantity they cut out the livers and then filet the relatively small pieces of meat behind the gigantic head and send them into commerce. It might have been Jacques Pepin, the old 60 minute gourmet at the NYT that started the "Poorman's Lobster" label, he had a nostalgic thing for monkfish (also known as goosefish). I've tried it every which way and it bears no resemblance to lobster.
Even at the current very low prices for lobster ($5 a pound in Maine last week) that still translates to $28/lb for lobster meat. Monkfish is still lots cheaper, if not quite as tasty. And the fillets can be frozen and shipped inland to provoke Riley. The lobsters, in their seasonal shed cannot be so shipped, though their meat, machine picked and pasteurized for the aforementioned $28 can be. Plus I bet The Editors over at the Poorman Institute don't buy much lobster anyway.
OK I got the joke, such as it is, and was just being my usual tendentious self.
I guess what I was trying to say was that when a fisherman is selling you monkfish, even through a third party, he's already made his money on the livers and is willing to say anything to convert some of the by-product into currency. Poorman's Lobster has probably worked before on suburban climbers that want to economize yet still enjoy their dream of up-scale luxury. It's obviously not going to tempt any actual poor people.
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Ever seen a monkfish Riley? They are some kind of ugly fish. Their livers are prized across the pond and when draggers hit them in any quantity they cut out the livers and then filet the relatively small pieces of meat behind the gigantic head and send them into commerce. It might have been Jacques Pepin, the old 60 minute gourmet at the NYT that started the "Poorman's Lobster" label, he had a nostalgic thing for monkfish (also known as goosefish). I've tried it every which way and it bears no resemblance to lobster.
Sorry, but wasn't part of the joke that the poor, or "poor" man's lobster costs $10.99 a pound?
Fish is incredibly expensive. I cant afford to buy it and I live in the biggest fishing port in North America.
BTW, 200 dead walrus washed up onto the beach up north. (Free for the taking I imagine, but then, not fish.)
Even at the current very low prices for lobster ($5 a pound in Maine last week) that still translates to $28/lb for lobster meat. Monkfish is still lots cheaper, if not quite as tasty. And the fillets can be frozen and shipped inland to provoke Riley. The lobsters, in their seasonal shed cannot be so shipped, though their meat, machine picked and pasteurized for the aforementioned $28 can be.
Plus I bet The Editors over at the Poorman Institute don't buy much lobster anyway.
OK I got the joke, such as it is, and was just being my usual tendentious self.
I guess what I was trying to say was that when a fisherman is selling you monkfish, even through a third party, he's already made his money on the livers and is willing to say anything to convert some of the by-product into currency. Poorman's Lobster has probably worked before on suburban climbers that want to economize yet still enjoy their dream of up-scale luxury. It's obviously not going to tempt any actual poor people.
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