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Beyond Tiki, Bilge, and Test / Bilge / Official Holiday Lamprey Thread

Post #584856 by MadDogMike on Wed, Apr 13, 2011 8:15 PM

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Andrew Zimmern samples lamprey in Russia on "Bizarre Foods" (12:40 on the video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHReLeErcQY

"Next up, the gnarly looking lamprey. They're mud-dwelling predators that feed off the blood of a host fish. Historically, lampreys were a peasant food popularized when Russians couldn't afford anything else. "Supposedly" it helps to pickle them. It's really just a slender little eel so we're going to take out the center bone. I've had a lot of pickled and cured fish in my life - that's just one of the worst I've ever tasted! The lamprey itself has sort of an ammoniated, sort of spoiled flavor that just won't go away no matter how much salt you put on it. And all of the curing that takes place, the pickling that takes place with it leaches all the fat and all the moisture out of the flesh of the fish itself so what's left behind is a very tough, salty, ammoniated piece of nasty fish. One thing I can say definitively about Russian pickled lamprey is... it's NOT good!"