Regrettable food & bluefin tuna

I spent a gentle morning, not so long ago, reading through the comments to an article Meli sent me about the worst recipe ever written (though I agree with the reader who guessed a typo had turned “peas” into “pears” in the recipe cited — on the other hand, canned peas are a horrifying enough substance).

While some of the comments link to truly awful things, many others I would say cheat by being deliberately horrible constructions never intended to be eaten (e.g. the Twinkie Souffle), while others fall into the “edible” but not entirely serious (the spectacular Meat Ship, arrrr, the perfect meal with which to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day). The Gallery of Regrettable Food is excellent though, since the recipes are honest examples of foods once recommended, even if by the demons of a food company’s marketing department. (How can I ever forget those Kraft Foods commercials that brightened my childhood Disney Show evenings?)

On a more serious note, it is good to see the UK taking action on the plight of bluefin tuna. The attitude taken by Nobu (the swish sushi joint co-owned by Robert De Niro) as reported in the Times article is a prime excellent example of how our market economy treats the world like its personal shopping basket, and damn the consequences.

Pablo Neruda once wrote an Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market. Thanks to overfishing, he’d have quite a bit more trouble finding a large one to address nowadays.