Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/393

 Papular Science Monthly

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��In Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, whale meat has been selling in the market places for ten cents a pound. It was first put on the market in May and it has been selling steadily ever since. Whale meat has been used in Denmark to feed the soldiers.

Eating the Vegetables of the Sea

With your whale steak you might have a dish of dulse or kelp if you only knew how pal- atable these marine vegetables are. And you might top off your dinner with a pudding made from seaweed isinglass. In Ireland, dulse is a much favored vegetable, as is laver, which is called "sloke." Both these vegetables grow plentifully under the water along all our Atlantic coast.

Our seaweed resources are equal, if not superior, to the Japanese or those of any other country Yet, while Japan prepares seaweeds each year which exceed $2 ,000,000 in value, the total value of the marine vegetables pre- pared in this country is $35,ooo-

���A Pirate of the Deep Like the bluefish, cod and haddock, the grayfish subsists on a purely animal diet. It feeds on fish, crabs, shrimp and lobsters. The grayfish, like the goosefish, enjoys a healthy ap- petite. Indeed, it is so raven- ous that it does not hesitate to rob fishermen's nets and trawl lines. It has splendid teeth of a knife-like sharpness and i. lakes a general nuisance of

itself by cutting to pieces fishermen's gear in its piratical efforts to get the square meal it always craves. Neither the trawl fishermen nor their brothers of the nets are spared by these unscrupulous sea thieves. Most fishes produce innumerable eggs, but the grayfish is an exception, Six or eight grayfish are born of the mother fish, not helpless as young creatures usually are, but full of fight and spoiling for a scrap. They are thoroughly well equipped to care for themselves from the moment of birth, and they enter into the battle which is the everyday program of marine life with the odds in their favor. Because of this early start and because it is not generally used for food the propor- tion of grayfish to attain maturity is much in excess of that of other fishes

���Japanese women sorting kelp. When prepared, this article is used extensively, throughout Japan and China, for food

��The industry in the United States is practically confined to Massachusetts, and but a single species is used — Irish moss. It is true that in Mon- terey and Santa Barbara Counties in California, Chi- nese fishermen dry certain marine algae for food, but the value of this amounts only to about eight hun- dred dollars a year.

Kelp is an enormous seaplant which abounds along the Pa- cific coast. A full grown plant will have a stem three hundred feet in length which bears at the top an air bulb. From this bulb grow fifty or more giant leaves, each one of which will attain a length of thirty or forty feet. This plentiful vege- table is entirely ignored by us, but the Japanese prize it highly. They make what is known as "kombu" from kelp. Because t fades in the curing process,

���The horned pout, or catfish, another valuable article of food much despised because of its looks and its whiskers

��much of it is dyed green, just as French peas are dyed to give them their pleasing color. This shredded, dyed "kombu" is used as a vegetable and is cooked with soups and meats. It is even made into a sort of con- fection by sugaring small strips of it. "Kombu" appeals to the Occidental taste when crisp sticks of it are broken in small pieces and served as a cereal.

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