Elizabeth, the voice of reason...lol

Yes, it's not a role I'm used to playing. I'm normally the crazed, tearing-out-my-hair one running around in circles. EL

What happened to the promised Funtasmic Thursday?

Well, some people call themselves vegetarians, but eat fish. That doesn't make it correct. Fish aren't vegetables.

I call myself a humanitarian, but I don't eat humans.

Strawberries aren't vegetables, either. Nor is rice.

I am mindful of the two relevant chapters in Suzanne Grayson Townsend's book "How to Eat Like a Republican, or Hold the Mayo, Muffy -- I'm Feeling Miracle Whipped Tonight!"

They come in sequence, let's call them chapters 3 and 4.

Chapter 3 Fish

To tell the truth, Republicans don't much like fish.

Chapter 4 Seafood

But they do love seafood, especially shrimp, and especially if someone else is paying for it at a reception. (Or to that effect!)

I bought the book prior to the 2004 election as a sort of vaccination (failed). Best chapters in the book are the one on drinks, which has three recipes for Margaritas, and the one on side dishes that includes directions for baked canned peach halves seasoned with Italian dressing mix and Parmesan cheese. You could look it up.

Fish is fish. Seafood is food from the sea that is not fish, that is, goyim food. Seafood, fish, seafood, freshwater, sea water, fish is fish. If it has fins and scales, then it is kosher and it is fish and then it is food. Your shrimp cocktails reaching out of of coktail glass like the fingers of a harlot are not fish ever. Just fish is fish. So you pollute the meaning of fish for our people when you toss them into a false category of seafood. There is only fish and not-fish. That is how G-d gives the law for his people. These are ancient distinctions that can not be explained away with newfangled menu writing. Fish is fish. Seafood is not-fish. Fish being the only food from the sea. Just fish.

I, a Republican, eat a good deal of fish. My wife, a Democrat, eats a good deal of seafood.

In a reverse sterotype thing, I am far more likely to eat Indian, Thai, Middle Eastern, Mexican, etc... The wife is most happy with a steak with a bone, a baked potato and a lobster on the side.

Well, some people call themselves vegetarians, but eat fish. That doesn't make it correct. Fish aren't vegetables.

This reminds me of one of my favorite bumper stickers. "If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?"

Ever hear of the ovolactopescovegetarians? They eat eggs, dairy, seafood, and veggie stuff.
I think they cheat.

EL, for the menus, I think they think this way:

Seafood = it swims
Everything else = it doesn't.

Rabbi (who I suspect might be Owl), I thought seafood was all food from the sea, but Shellfish was the stuff that was goysche?

Sweet scallop on a train ride! There are 9 pages in the Oxford English Dictionary for 'sea'. In small print. Very small print. Thank the gods I have the full version, not the Compact.

I was going to total up the number of definitions, then figure out the percentages of salt and non-salt, but...I'm daunted!

Can I just say that etymologically, it comes from a term meaning lake, sea, pond or marsh?

The first definition does require salt, and all of its sub-definitions. So does the second, although its sub-definitions include the seas of the moon, which aren't salty.

The third definition specifically says a land-locked body of water, salt or fresh.

Then we get into some seriously weird stuff.

And, that is just the first page. I'm not sure if I should write up a thesis proposal or go for a lay down.

PCB, so clams can swim? I wonder where Reverend Ed stands on the fish is fish argument? So seafood is also fish?

Lissa - you have the full OED? Can I come over? Every day?

LJ, it was on sale. I couldn't resist. So, yes, I have all 30 volumes, plus the additions in my living room. I have all the words.

It is great fun to browse, and is the best tool for net flame wars.

Wish I had the CDs, too. Then I could search on all the words that first showed in 1436.

Um....yeah, I'm a library geek. You don't need to come to my (in need of cleaning and organizing) house to caress an OED, LJ. Pratt should have one at Central, if not also at all the branches.

Lissa, Lissa, Lissa -- it is truly interesting and amazing that the OED devotes so many pages to defining the word sea. In all fairness to Hal VoR, though, I would be remiss if I did not gently point out that, as EL's title of this post indicates, the great controversy is not over the word sea, but, rather, over the word seafood. Do oblige us with the OED definition of the latter word.

Lissa -- I have to admit -- I'm jealous.

Ok, hmpstd, I'll flip a few more pages tonight, and check seafood.

I have a feeling, though, that I won't be typing it all in.

Lissa: I have all the words.

Tread lightly. God doesn't like a smarty-pants. Remember the Tower of Babel? I would hate to see our blogsters scattered to the four corners of the known Earth speaking in strange new tongues.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/genesis/the_tower_of_babel/gn11_01-03.html

I'm not particulaly knowledgeable or interested in religious dietary rituals. Although people often confuse me with holy men, because of my pious demeanor and loving kindness. I have no idea what the fish is fish thing is all about. I'm still trying to figure out why someone ordered a chicken parmigiana without cheese, but had grated cheese on her pasta. Baffling, but not on my agenda. I've got mascots to name.

Rock on Rabbi, welcome to a most unpious world (unpious? Oh no, since LIssa has all the words, I'm losing mine. Kryptonite.)

While I love Legos, I'm not so big on monotheism.

The "I have all the words" comes from a little Scots lady I used to know. She was about 70 lbs., if drenched.

One day, she had to have a plumber in. He tried to overcharge her, so she swore at him. When my mother expressed shock, she said, "Oh, yes, dear. I know all the words." in a most charming, thick Scots accent.

She reported that the price dropped quickly.

Speaking of the Brick Testament, note its take on keeping kosher, and especially this page and this page. I think it supports Joyce W.'s take on the subject over that of the Rabbi.

Legos are great. I'm not aware of any monotheisic religions. Christianity and Judaism are thoroughly polytheistic. They just wear a montheism mask for marleting purposes. Our seminary's unwritten motto: The more you know, the less you believe.

Rabbi Owl Meat? LOL. I think Owl Meat and I are slam dunk non-kosher names. Owls are raptors, which are clearly birds of prey and thus non-kosher I think. Whatever.

I just got back from Madrid and all the menus separate water-world things into Pescados and Mariscos, Fish and Seafood. I think all right-thinking people understand this. I'm not sure what rabbi Verbosowitz is saying. I guess (?) that he is saying that fish is kosher and seafood is all the rest that isn't. So (?) fins and scales are kosher and thus are fish. The rest is for ... oh I give up. Aren't there fish with fins or scales? What about eels? Sharks don't have scales, do they? Pecados y mariscos. Mmmm ... pulpo gallega.

When I was in Hebrew School some half-century ago I was told that of all the laws in the Old Testament, all but one could be broken in a true case of life and death: Thou shalt not eat human flesh. So if you're stranded on a desert island and the only thing to eat are crabs, have at 'em.

Seafood is what your Jewish relatives eat when they think no one is looking. And yes, shrimp cocktail has some ridiculous allure that is almost sexual for Jewish women and oddly sapphic and phallic. Don't ask.

Oy! It's painful watching you boys discuss Jewish dietary laws. Just painful. The whole thing reminds me of idiotic Thanksgiving dinners when I was little. My grandfather thought that turkey was created by the devil and therefore not kosher. All New World foods were devil-created for him because if they weren't on the Ark they weren't created by YHWH. It's pretty damned hard to have anything resembling a normal Thanksgiving without New World food. Although my parents were basically atheists from Cathollic and Jewish families, they always made a giant Easter ham just to enrage my father's side of the family. The told us that it was the Easter Bunny's birthday. Oy, indeed.

RiE, I am quite unschooled on this topic. What's the punishment for eating crabs if you just have an uncontrollable hankering for them?

Funny--I don't remember Dracula in the version of the Bible I learned in Sunday School (pre-Legos).

The OED is really letting us down here. After 9 pages on 'sea', here is what it says about seafood;

Food obtained from the sea; fish, crustacians, etc., used as food.

There are a few paragraphs of examples, but that is really a very poor definition. Seaweed is seafood by that definition, and I'm not sure that is correct.

We may have to move to Webster's Unabridged Second for illumination. Unfortunately, I don't have one of those yet.

I'm crushed.

Just like anything else there are degrees of adherence to Jewish law. Just as there are Catholics who take birth control pills, there are Jews who eat crabs. It' form over function or gestalt or something... And then, of course, there are those who consider themselves culturally Jewish ... another whole matzo ball!

Owl,
Oh yeah, clams can swim. At least ours can. These Florida clams and oysters can haul a$$. Heck, they'd put Michael Phelps to shame, if only they had arms to do the breaststroke.

Dahlink, Dracula in the Bible? Please explain.

OMG -- I believe Dahlink was commenting on this page from the Brick Testament.

My jewish wife eats crab dip and crab cakes, but she won't eat hard shells. I am fairly confident this distinction is not found in the Torah; rather I blame her midwestern upbringing.

Dracula in the Bible. Cool. That would make the Bible a lot more appealing to kids if Frankenstein (he's Jewish, tight?) and Superman (also Jewish according to some) were characters.

In the early 60’s I would frequently stop by my friend’s house on Friday evening to pick him up to go out. Every Friday at his house was a multi-generational formal kosher meal presided over by a very orthodox eastern European grandfather. One evening we got into a discussion about eating crabs and he quickly pronounced crabs as “traif”. There was some more discussion and he finally decided that if you paid more than $7/dz they weren’t traif. This was when crabs generally were in the $3-$5 range.

Before I don my battle gear, may I say that I dislike seafood and fish, with the exception of crab cakes (and some other crab like items, including the steamed ones themselves) and steamed shrimp? I have ventured into eating occasionally, orange roughy as long as it has a liberal topping of Old Bay.
As a native Marylander (read= you have to love seafood) and now living in an area where the seafood (they boil or deep-fry it all) is supposedly great...um....no thanks.

Begin the pelting.

RiPCB FL, you can eat soy with a liberal topping of Old Bay and I'll bet you couldn't tell the difference to orange roughy. Does it have any taste on its own? Any I've ever eaten had no decernable flavour. Why do so many people seem to like it and order it by choice (mine has always been on a seafood platter, broiled.)

Fish phobia is pretty common. I blame the horrible fish products some people had as kids. Most of all I blame Mrs. Paul and her sticks of fishy awfulness.

My hubby absolutely won't eat fish. He grew up Catholic and had lousy fishsticks or overcooked fish each Friday.
The first time I cooked for him (a very hurried and last minute meal) about the only thing I had in the fridge were frozen fishsticks. He pretended to eat some. A few weeks later he told me how much he HATES fish and fish sticks.

RtSO,
I don't really like fish but my doc says I should eat more. Yes, it does have some taste but since its the least "fishy" tasting, I either put some Old Bay on it or some Zatarain Creole Seasoning. Actually, I don't put all that much on, first some fresh lemon juice then perhaps a half-teaspoon at most.

VDP,
Perhaps you are on to something. Mrs. Pauls Fish Sticks were rather nasty, only tartar sauce could save them.

If fish didn't taste like fish I'd like it more. LQTM.

-hunkering down here as the wide arm of Gustav prepares to slap us.

Fish on Friday for Catholics made it seem like punishment. Plus it was supposed to be good for you, that also seems like punishment to a kid.

PCP Rob, this is going to sound stupid but the fish that tastes the least like fish is sushi. Sashimi-fresh fish smells like nothing with a hint of cucumber. There's a psychological roadblock there though. Hirame wa oishi desu ne?! Hai!

Somewhere i read, and granted not everything I read is true, that fish on fridays stems back to a papal decision to help fishermen by mandating fish on fridays. This was one of the earliest examples of a business lobbying.

RoCK -- the abstinence (no meat) rule for Fridays throughout the year actually dated back to early Christianity (as a weekly reminder of Good Friday), although many other days were similarly restricted, such as the entire period of Lent (thus the pre-Lent Carnival season, derived from "carne vale", or "farewell to meat"). I do recall that abolition of the year-round Friday abstinence rule (as part of the Vatican II reforms) was made notwithstanding vehement objections from the commercial fisheries industry -- proof that, at least in the 1960s, lobbying wasn't always effective.

My parents still observe the "no meat on Fridays" edict. Perhaps that is why I only do the orange roughy (or perhaps tilapia) on Friday. Next Friday is a nice filet mignon up in Baltimore!

hmpstd, thanks for the info!

Humuhumunukunukuapua’a … mmmm. No, wait…Bacon-wrapped humuhumunukunukuapua’a … MMMM.

There seems to be a lot of bickering going on in the Sandbox. Can’t we all just get along?

And congrats to Adobo Karilli who apparently earned a doctorate sometime between Saturday and Monday. That he’s (she’s?) a psychiatrist, specializing in Dissociative Identity Disorder is probably too much to ask, eh? Yeah, I thought so.

Last thought from the islands for today:

The Roberts have been outnumbered by the “Girls.” (I am still a Robert, by the way. I can undo “Bucky” but I’m stuck with “Robert” unless I pull a Chad Ocho Cinco.) (Note: That’s a gratuitous sports reference so EL knows I’m not OMG.)

How long until the “Girls” outnumber OMG’s “friends?”

Think about that, jl…it’s not a Shallow Thought. It is an unsolvable equation.

Bucky--I hope you will retain your unique Buckitude.

Link spam at 5:44 PM! (It's the same loan shiller as before.)