Mary:
>The local Asian market has at least 3 or perhaps more varieties of fish
eggs
>available.
>
>They come wrapped in plastic on top of those styrofoam type containers that
>you see ground beef on. I guess you would say it is wrapped like ground
beef
>at  a Safeway or other market that does not have a butcher on site.
>
>Anyway, do you just eat these raw? Or put them on something, or what?
>Wouldn't these be high in EFAs? I want to try them on my son.

Hmmm... Most fish roe has been at least salted and probably
cooked/pastuerized i the manner of caviar. This is especially true of
any
roe in a jar but can be true for overwrapped roe as well. Some
Japanese-style roes are spiced further and sometimes include nitrates
these
days. Regardless of the processing, if the roe comes from wild fish it
is
nutritious with a capital N.

Fresh raw roe is sometimes available and is almost always sold in the
sack.
(But some processed roes are also sold in the sack :/) Each female
fish has
two roe sacks anywhere from the size of an infant's pinky (sardine) to
a
porn star's old ol feller (large salmon) to a sack the size of your
forearm
(large tuna). The only way you'll know if the ones available at your
Asian
market are fresh or processed is to ask the person in charge of the
seafood
dept there. Or taste it for saltiness, but its hard if you have no
experience with how fresh roe tastes in the first place.

If it is fresh, one thing you could do is to dry it. Simply lay out
the
sack in your dehydrator and it will soon be hard as jerky. (I have
simply
put it in front of a fan at room temperature.) If you cut open the
sack and
spread it open a bit--but keep the sack in tact, just opened on the
top--it
will dry out even faster. If your son likes this you are in luck since
either way it keeps in the fridge for months and months.

Yeah, you can eat them raw--esp if they taste good to you that way ;)
I
have enjoyed roe au natural, slathered on sashimi, slathered on dried
fish,
and dabbed on shellfish, but nothing compares to dried. The closest I
can
describe it is to think of the crunchies left in the bottom of a
basket of
fish and chips at a greasy spoon--that's how the crispy melting raw
dried
roes taste when they are tasting good. And when you've had your fill
it may
taste extremely unpleasant. (BTW, wait until it is completely
dry--before
that it is very very strongly flavored--great if you have a taste for
it,
but grotesque for the average newbie to roe.)

Which is why there is probably no way you will be able to trick your
son
into eating raw roe (fresh or dry). He has to have the taste for it.
It is
a strong and powerful food and most find the flavor too much.

Various traditional native american cultures raved about fish sperm
sacs as
well. I have tried for a decade to enjoy this flavor but it just won't
go
for me. Oh well ;) A last tidbit: I chomped on pounds of dried walleye
roe
in Wisconsin (from probably farmed Canadian fish) in my early days of
raw
paleo and found out later that walleye roe is considered poisonous
raw. Not
for me it wasn't ;)

Cheers,
Kirt

Secola  /\  Nieft
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