Not the same

[beetiger]

It's snowing like anything, so no one's left the building for lunch and Donna the cafeteria lady's nearly run out of food. I've gotten the one thing she has left, which she has billed as "Maryland crab and corn chowder". Only it hasn't got crab in it. It's got surimi. That's "imitation crabmeat" or "crabstick" for those of you not up on the technical names of weird foodstuffs -- those sticks of pollack and stabilizers, rolled so that they flake in sort of the way fish does, dyed red on the outside. I'll forgive you if you don't know the word, as the only place I've really seen it in use on a menu was in a Kosher sushi restaurant, where I suppose they wanted to make extra sure their customers knew there was no crab on the menu.

I actually like surimi quite a bit. California rolls are high on my list of favorite snack foods. When I was a young person, I used to eat chunk surimi with cocktail sauce all the time, pulling apart the layers of white with my chubby little fingers. When I'm feeling protein-deprived, I'll still do this. But the stuff should not be used in cooked dishes! It's dreadful in crab soup. It's indescribably horrid in stuffed mushrooms. It loses its texture entirely, and it's like eating flavorless strings of cotton.

Most "substitute" foods only work in some of the realms that their authentic counterpart inhabits. Butter "spreads" don't work well in cooking. Nutrasweet falls apart entirely in baked goods. You won't want to use fruit-based fat substitutes in delicate foods like croissants. Hummus may "substitute" for cheese in sythyry's healthy breakfast diet, but I wouldn't make a quiche with it.

When we were at my mother's house for New Year's, at one point my mother laughed and proclaimed that lediva was "another Vicki". I have no idea what she meant. Was it the fact that she and I were having some sort of a mini-debate using largish words, the details of which I've forgotten? Was it the fact that we were both talking over my mom's boyfriend, not allowing him to get a word in on the topic? Did she see the same sort of spark in each of us that we see in each other, some deep commonality or strangeness? Did she think she could love lediva like a daughter? Or was that just her way of saying that she didn't understand the conversation at all, but was sure that we must?

Comments

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

"Surimi has generally played a positive role in human history, Poko!"

I like surimi. When it was still something novel, my mom used to top tortilla chips with it, Monterey Jack, and a dash of paprika. Do you happen to know how old of a technique it is? The Japanese have always impressed me with their ingenuity with food, of course. It wouldn't surprise me to hear they've been doing this with cheap whitefish for hundreds of years.

You know, this post reminded me that I sort of miss carob. It's tasty in its own right. And though it's really a very poor substitute for chocolate, attempts to use it as such give me a cozy nostalgia for other trappings of crunchy 1970's progressivism: instructional television, government-funded dental hygiene programs, animated public service announcements for self-esteem on Saturday morning TV, the metric system, fuel efficiency...

[m0nkeygrl.livejournal.com]

Only it hasn't got crab in it. It's got surimi. That's "imitation crabmeat"

Is that the same stuff that's in "Krab Salad"?

[freeko.livejournal.com]

Yuck!! Imitation Crab. Of course you forget to mention Olestra which they use in the those no-fat potato chips. I avoid those because I saw in the warning. "May Cause Anal Leakage" Fahgettaboutit!!

As for LeDiva and you maybe that was your mom's way of recognizing the obvious chemistry between the two of you, I saw the moment I met the both of you :-)