Time to Go Sushi With Cellular Salmon; When Pet Owners Tire of Their Minions – The SandPaper

Sushi-loving diners in Callie will soon be partaking of test-tube salmon, compliments of San Francisco-based firm Wildtype. The company touts itself as Building a better food system by pioneering cellular agriculture to grow delicious cuts of our favorite seafood no fishing or fish farming required. I know, just when you think life cant get any weirder.

The companys website hypes its cutting-edge efforts as reinventing seafood, with a clever emphasis on inventing, since the entire process has come about through lab experimentation on handpicked cells of salmon, in the vein of stem cell exploration.

The seeds of Wildtypes chunks seed money has already been gotten aplenty comes via the choicest cells of the finest wild salmon, including king salmon, the finest and fattiest known. Once cells have been adroitly procured, the cellular growing process is on, as the meat of the matter is grown upon a type of organic plant-based scaffolding until done or ripe or something.

The plant-based scaffolding we provide for the cells to grow on, along with all the necessary nutrients like sugars, amino acids, and fats we deliver in solution, allows for the formation of the complex textures that were able to create for all types of sushi products spanning sashimi, nigiri and maki rolls, explains the companys cofounder Ary Elfenbein, a cardiologist and molecular biologist.

Wildtypes test-tube salmon is rather frighteningly identical to the real swimming thing, with a fat composition like the donor fish, including levels of healthy omega-3 fatty acids, but none of the heavy metals, microplastics, parasites, or antibiotics found in most salmon, per the companys website.

One of this methods claims to fame is how it might reduce the need for environmentally suspect fish farming.

Net pens used in fish farming pollute sensitive coastal waterways with concentrated excrement. Many farms have had escape events, introducing invasive species into sensitive ecosystems that compete with local fish populations, company cofounder Justin Kolbeck recently told Forbes magazine.

It should be emphasized this grown-in-house fish product is not even remotely related to soy-based imitation seafood and meats. The end products DNA makeup is salmon all the way; theres simply no energy wasted on the little things, like growing skeletons, scales, internal organs or brains.

Anyone remember the sci-fi thriller The Blob? Just asking for no particular reason.

To buttress Kolbecks point about escape, its profoundly unlikely that a chunk of Wildtype salmon will ooze out of the lab, leaving behind a telltale slime trail along the escape route before seeping seaward to freedom. Of course, should that happen, it would be quite a hook-up sight for any angler reeling in a big chunk of raw salmon meat. Anyone know how to clean this thing? Oh, wait, now that I think about it

OK, should we buy into this New Age salmon meat when it hits close to home? It will hit select market by next month or so, after which the company hopes to eventually produce tons and tons of its highly salmonesque stuff. Also, reports indicate other companies are champing at the test tube to get in on cellular seafood.

Personally, I somewhat prefer my seafood has seen the sea. That said, there is no doubt lab-grown seafood could be a healthy alternative to our overfishing of the worlds oceans. I can even foresee both wild-caught salmon and the beaker-based variety being served at a meal and folks clearly preferring the Wildtype offering, calling the natural too gamey.

As to the early taste tests of freshly picked/harvested Wildtype salmon, even educated buds are giving it flying colors speaking of which, the color of Wildtype salmon is identical to the donor fishs flesh color since it is the exact same fish again with the DNA thing.

For you travelers, if youre out San Fran way, the Wildtype company is all but begging folks to stop on in.

Wildtype wants to establish a high standard of education, trust, and transparency with our customers and the public. We want to show people where their food comes from and how its made, offer the owners.

Ill wax snarky by wondering if it might not be best to place test-tube salmon making in the same realm as, say, scrapple making. Philly folks get my dont ask/dont tell drift.

By the by, there have been some unique growing pains to developing a better bodiless salmon. For some unknown cell binding reason, the first chunks did not take at all well to cooking. The meat broke into what might be called individual component parts hundreds of tiny undefinable pieces of salmon essence. I cant imagine what that would have looked like and I would surely have been the only one in the lab laughing my ass off.

The last I heard, the creative minds of the company are tweaking the growing process so we can someday buy San Fran salmon for more than just sashimi, sushi and sausages.

I will absolutely be among the early-on buyers of salmon a la lab. One problem I see is naming the stuff with full disclosure in tow. There must be a distinct, immediately recognizable terminology. Ill be the first to admit that test-tube salmon would be off-putting. Less so would be manmade salmon or sea-free salmon. The company itself might run with cellular salmon, based on its self-hype that Wildtype is pioneering cellular agriculture to grow delicious cuts of our favorite seafood no fishing or fish farming required.

ECO-UGLY ABANDONMENT: I need to combine two tales in one since both have to do with mankind unloosing nonindigenous species into our delicate Pinelands environment.

The more recent of the two comes via a jungle-ish find by Division of Fish and Wildlife conservation officers. While on patrol, the officers came across your everyday boa constrictor crossing a dirt road. Yes, its everyday if you live in frickin Central America!

The 4-footer was found in a state Wildlife Management Area. Id safely venture to say it was not simply taking in the sights of our outback before making the long slither back to some tropical rainforest.

Forgoing the other minuscule possibility that the boas owner had simply been out walking it only to have his minion slip its leash, this was an all too familiar case of someone ignobly abandoning a faithful critter even after it had dedicated its entire life to being a family-member pet.

OK, that might sound a bit overemotional, but such dump-offs are a lousy trick by incompetent-as-s*** pet owners.

As to what would have become of the tropical snake had it not come back to the road looking for its human buddy, I believe it was Jack London who morbidly suggested that freezing to death isnt the worst way to go. Winter would have ended the snakes unwanted flirtation with untamed freedom.

There was no chance the lone boa could have led to the Pinelands becoming a covey of constrictors even if the captured boa wore a boa, meaning it was a female.

That tale roundaboutly leads to a twinish tale of the time piranhas swam about in Stafford Forge Lake.

It was July 2007 when I got word of weird fish being caught in the historic lake, former home to a forge and cranberry bogs. As I wrote back then, A number of piranhas were recently taken by an angler using Bass Stoppers, a favorite freshwater rig. And these werent minor models of this highly nonindigenous species. One piranha was way hefty.

I recall my well-founded disbelief upon seeing the first photo of the landing. At mere first glance, I knew this hookup was a member of a world-renowned fish family that includes piranha, pacu and oscars. To me, it was clearly a piranha.

So, what in bloody hell was such a species doing in the tannin-laced, temperate zone waters of the Forge?

The answer was all too obvious: Some numbnut had released it after it had outgrown its aquarium and its welcome. Such dumpings, while displaying a touch of compassion when compared to a toilet flush-down, are quite common. In fact, many state waters are now plagued by introduced carp, the leave-behinds from anglers using cheap so-called feeder goldfish to live-line for largemouth bass and pickerel.

The sacrificial goldfish, small carp in essence, either get off the hook or are poured into lakes at the end of a fishing session. They grow rapidly into immense vegetation bottom feeders. Once established, they create such a bottom stir that it can muck up the water, impacting gamefish, which feed by sight. They also inadvertently mosey over bass and sunfish nests hollows in the sand inadvertently sucking up eggs and newborns.

As to the Forge piranhas, the hookups led to an utterly surprising finding that they had surely been there more than just one season. The hardy little devils were showing signs of prospering, likely going into a torpor state when the lake froze in winter. Fears arose as to what they were thriving upon, assuredly indigenous species.

The realization that piranhas were making themselves at home in a New Jersey lake led to fear regarding the many people and pets commonly wading right where the fish were caught. Such frets were a bit unfounded. While packs of piranhas can go gruesomely gonzo over the smell of blood and raw flesh, Ive seen naked native children in Brazil freely swim among them, with nary a single natural bris being reported. Nonetheless, N.J. Fish and Wildlife folks went on one weird-ass search-and-destroy mission by electrocuting the lake. The method shocked the hell out of the lakes inhabitants, causing them to rise woozily to the surface, where any species non grata could be removed and apologies offered to acceptable lake occupants, which quickly recovered from the buzz, all wondering What the hell was that all about?!

RUNDOWN: Weirdly, the blowfish are back in town, mainly the far west side of Barnegat Bay where they had been, then left, only to be replaced by a ton of all new puffers moving in from waters to our north. It is once again possible to best a hundred or more per chumming session.

There are also small weaks and kingfish entering the chum slick.

Weirdest chum-related hookup was a massive black drum estimated by Paul P. at 50 pounds. It was almost landed, net hovering above, before the tiny hook gave way. That is pretty far north for Barnegat Bay black drum.

Speaking of drum, its about time for red drum to make beachline passes. The state record remains at 55 pounds, a fish taken in Great Bay by Daniel Yanino in 1985.

This is an amazing time of year to chum with grass shrimp in places like Myers Hole and surely some deeper waters toward Little Egg Inlet. Such panfishing often offers as great a variety of fish species as youll ever hook during one Jersey sitting.

Considering most of the fish drawn to a shrimp chum will be juveniles, you must use circle hooks and unhook undersized fish as quickly and gently as possible. Best bet is to not even bring them aboard. A nice series of photos can be taken without fish having to pass over the gunnel.

Surfside fluking is fair. Its best when waters are at least a bit roiled. Calm, crystal-clear water periods seem to knock down the flattie action. Every now and again there is a sudsy doormat taken.

Stingrays have glided a bit north, though a few are still quite obvious along the clear-water shoreline. Ive gotten two emails regarding ways to cook ray wings. Ill give them a try. If my taste buds salute, Ill pass them on.

Triggerfish are making their typical late-summer presence known. Some nice-sized ones mixed in, way larger than they usually show down south, re-begging the question of whether these fish go back to the Deep South or move off shore for the winter. The average sheepshead size up here dwarfs the typical sheepsheads in places like the Indian and Banana rivers in Florida.

Please do not try to fillet triggers. Too much meat is utterly wasted. After gutting, simply cook them whole. Once done and they bake very quickly with skin still on pull off the now easily removed skin and dine on the delicate white meat within. Of note, there are some filefish being labeled triggerfish. They are different to a degree, but are surprisingly similar in taste.

jaymann@thesandpaper.net

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Time to Go Sushi With Cellular Salmon; When Pet Owners Tire of Their Minions - The SandPaper