WEBVTT - A Six Course Feast of Dangerous Foods 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:15.400 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.239 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormack. And 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.800 today we are going to be introducing a classic stuff 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:23.639 to the Blow your Mind episode. It's a new classic. 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.360 How old is it now? Maybe nine or ten months? 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:28.600 Like it's maybe it's about a year give a take, 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.840 you know. Uh, sometime last winter we recorded this episode 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.640 about dangerous foods, uh, including some of my favorite stories 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.599 about for example, polar bear liver and dangerous within. Yeah, 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:43.280 it was a fun episode, and uh, it's it's perfect 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.159 for the holidays because the holidays are a time when 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.360 so many of us eat things that we feel we 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:50.800 should not or no, we should not. I shouldn't be 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:52.440 eating this. I shouldn't eating this is delicious, but I 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:54.760 shouldn't be eating this. The cranberry sauce from a can. 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.040 You know that's wrong. It comes out in the cylinder. 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.520 You can still see the ridges where the and is 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:04.679 sort of bent a little bit. You know. It's eat 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:06.440 eat stuff like that stuff you have kind of in 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.280 a stout before, but also just like a bunch of 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.880 rich foods that you know, you shouldn't be eating at 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.160 least in these quantities, but hey, it's the holidays and 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.559 it's about fattening up to survive the horrors of winter. 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:20.040 But here's my advice. If you are eating turkey and 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.839 the turkey is overcooked, because it always is, don't waste 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.560 your time on it, you know, just skip the turkey 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:28.319 and move on to something else well with it. With 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.319 a turkey based meal, especially the Thanksgiving Day meal, there 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:33.840 are so many side dishes you can really just pick 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.760 your poison as it were. Right, Well, Robert, if you 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:38.680 don't have anything else to add, I think we should 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.560 make way for our episode on a six course feast 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.760 of dangerous foods. Yes, let's roll the repeat. And hey, 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.560 the next episode after this one I believe will be 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.560 a a second course dangerous foods too. So if you 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:53.880 like this episode, stay tuned, come back for another course 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:58.160 of all new dangerous foods. For the revenge, for the regurgitation, 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.440 we have quite a feast prepared for ourselves here today, 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:16.320 A dangerous feast. Yeah. We wanted to think about an 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.680 interesting aspect of human life, which is how often we 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.960 put trust trust at a very level of life and 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:30.079 death into people who do a very mundane task for us, 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.440 which is preparing food. Yeah, I mean I did basic 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.720 level mundane right. Yeah. Obviously with the appropriate skill it 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.280 becomes our an art form. But we tend to think 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.480 of just like the very basic idea of someone, say, 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.480 opening a can of noodles there cooking it up for us. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.119 It didn't require any high science. Yeah. And even if 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:54.200 you even if you're talking about preparing food yourself and 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.160 it not being something that someone else has cooked for you, 0:02:57.440 --> 0:02:59.680 a lot of times you're going to be using ingredients 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:04.520 that you just assume, you know are properly vetted, these 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.359 are safe to eat, That the nuts I'm getting out 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.240 of a jar of nuts are not contaminated with the 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.840 cole I, that the peanut butter I'm using doesn't have 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.240 salmonella in it. But that may not be a safe 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.800 assumption depending on I don't know where you live, what 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.639 kind of industry regulations are in place, and how well 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.160 they're enforced. Yeah, I mean a lot of it comes 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.320 down to just the human history of cooking and just 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:33.079 culinary preparation, right, because early on humans learned the value 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:37.040 of cooking. I means to basically externalized digestion, and eight 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:38.760 is in the consumption of things that we would not 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.800 otherwise be able to eat. Yeah, that's the thing that's 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:43.800 easy to forget about. I mean, if you're if you're 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.320 sitting down to a piece of chicken or steak, I 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.440 mean you you probably wouldn't want to eat it just 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.200 straight up raw, But it could be done if you 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.000 were in a pinch, you know, you could chew it. 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:55.960 There are a lot of foods that you just simply 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.800 can't eat without some cooking, right, things, Yeah that would 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.840 just kill us we ate it without proper prop or 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.600 they'd be just inedible, you know, too tough for to 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.400 you know what I mean. Yeah, Cooking improves the taste, 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.040 It can tenderize the food in question. It can kill 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.520 off pathogens that would otherwise be of dire consequence. Of course, 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.159 another interesting thing about cooking is that it in some cases, 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.560 I think d nature's our food in a way that 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.800 allows us to sort of separate ourselves from the means 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.200 of production of the food when we're eating it, so 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.720 we you know, like cooking a steak makes you think 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.880 about it as a fundamentally different thing from the flesh 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.159 of a dead animal. That had to be murdered in 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:42.520 order for you to eat this, Oh indeed, yeah, and 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:44.280 so it kind of it kind of allows you to 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.840 put some distance. Yeah, yeah, I mean we and then 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.359 we layered language on top of that. You don't go 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:51.159 to the restaurant in order pig. You don't go to 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:55.040 the restaurant in order cow. You order pork and beef. Um. Yeah, 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.440 Poyo and guyin know very different words. Yeah and so. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.960 And on top of that, you know, the butchering. Butchering 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.000 of animals, Culinary preparation in general allows us to more 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.679 precisely choose what parts we're going to eat, what parts 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:13.080 are delicious, what parts are nutritious, what parts are inedible? Uh? 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.279 And or deadly? So you you keep that tasty crab 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.000 cloth meat, but you throw out the dead man's fingers. 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.480 You know, I've always wondered this, and I've never been 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.720 able to find a good answer so far. Maybe there 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.240 is one out there. Supposedly, apple seeds have a little 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.840 tiny bit of cyanide in them, and I wondered if 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.200 has anybody ever eaten so many, so many apples seeds 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:37.880 and all that they've gotten cyanide poisoning? There have been 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:39.800 days where I feel like I've eaten that many apples. 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:43.600 But I'll have to I have to start counting this 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.120 Robert or u s secret competitive apple eater someday, because 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.760 that's like the I find myself eating more and more apples. 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.000 I think maybe it's Michael Paulin who pointed out that 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:54.440 if you're if you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.000 then you're not really hungry. Then you shouldn't snack. If 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.120 you are going to snack, hey, and apples great. Oh. 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.240 I just tend to go to the apple for my 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.160 snack needs if I'm you know, in any level of 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.359 self conscious about my my diet. But you know, sometimes 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.359 you're just hungry enough to eat poutine and not anything else. 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.120 It's true sometimes that the apple is not going to 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.359 scratch that itch. Well, speaking of fruits, it looks like 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.600 our first course is arriving. What is this here? Ah, 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.120 we have some acky fruit to enjoy here. Now I've 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.080 never had aki fruit before. What's the deal with acky fruit? 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.160 Acky fruit is really interesting and I had I had 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.719 not actually experienced docky fruit until just a couple of 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.240 weeks ago when I went on a family vacation to Jamaica. 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.480 U Aki is like that the national dish, the national 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.080 fruit of Jamaica. It's a it's a fruit, but it's 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.200 not your typical like Western idea of a fruit. For example, 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.640 what's you have this yellowish or orange is fruit on 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.719 a tree and then when it ripens, it pops open 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.360 and it looks like a like a three eyed feature 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.880 of some kind of with the big black glassy eyes 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.560 inside of it. Glassy eyes are seeds. Um, So it's 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.800 kind of a Jim Henson dark crystal kind of creature. Yeah, 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.280 it really, it really looks kind of alien and weird. 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.800 But then uh, even properly prepared at what they do 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.480 is they they take the seeds out, they cut out 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.520 some of the membrane, and you're left with these, uh, 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.800 these little yellowish looking lumps. And the main dish that 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.480 is prepared there is that they take it and they 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.440 fry it in a skillet with some bits of codfish 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.440 so achi and saltfish is the dish, some onions in 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.320 there as well, and it ends up tasting about like 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.520 scrambled eggs. It has that kind of consistency. It's not 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.080 a sweet fruit at all, but it's very good that's nice. 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.120 So it's not sweet. What does it taste like? Is 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.680 it kind of spicy or is it kind of it's 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:49.560 kind of I think it kind of. It doesn't have 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:51.520 I was I never had a real sense that it 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.400 had much of a taste. But it's in there with 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.400 a little bit of fish, some onions. It's fried up 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.240 more of a texture, kind of more of a texture. 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.440 And the texture is I think closest to scrambled eggs. 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.960 That would be my main comparison there. But it sounds 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.120 like something worth trying. Yeah, I highly recommended for anybody 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.280 goes Jamaica for no other reason because it's you know, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:12.880 it's the national dish there. And you said they tossed 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.680 the seeds out right, Yes, because as I'll lay out here, 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.800 the seeds are are poisonous um. This plant was originally 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.920 native to West Africa, migrated to Jamaican seventy eight, apparently 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:29.400 due to Jamaica's first botanist, Thomas Clark, who introduced it there. 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:35.480 The aki tree is actually known as bliah sepeda and 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:40.080 it's named after Captain William blythe the notorious pirate. So 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.800 interesting history there. But where the poison comes in is 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:48.720 that unripe aki fruit contains a poison called hypoglycin. And 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.760 actually there are two different varieties in the fruit. There's 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.480 hypoglyin A and hypoglycin B, which one is worse. Well, 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.240 A is the main problem here, and so you have 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.840 extremely high levels of hypoglycin BE in the unripe fruit. 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:06.520 But then the fruit ripens, It pops open like some 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:08.840 sort of alien creature and stares at you with its 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.120 three black eyes. Uh. And at that point you know 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.880 you you open it up, you remove the seeds. The 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.960 only edible proportion is the yellow a really, which is 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.800 surrounded by on again the toxic seeds. And there's a 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.960 membrane at the base of the seed mantle that's also poisonous. 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.080 You have to take that out to Okay, So it 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:29.760 sounds like if you don't know what you're doing, you 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.480 shouldn't try to eat a knocky fruit, right. Talk to 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.600 somebody who's familiar with this fruit and knows what knows 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:37.760 how to carve it up. Right. Yeah, But luckily if 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.240 it's on the menu at a place in Jamaica, like 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.640 they know how to cook it, Like everyone has familiarity 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.240 with this particular dish there. But you are saying, in 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:49.360 a survival situation, stick to the scrambled eggs. Not probably 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.679 not the black hole eggs. Yeah. Yeah, because someone who 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:54.400 knows how to deal with this, they're gonna clean it. 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:56.240 They're gonna wash the fruit after it's gonna be boiled 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:58.480 in water. Then they're gonna throw out that water because 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:00.720 that could contain a trace of the poison. And it's 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.240 gonna be perfectly good to eat. It's gonna be rich 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.120 and you know, fatty acids, vitamin A, zinc, and protein. 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:11.320 But if you were to eat it, uh, the unripened version, 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:15.280 you could get what's called called Jamaican vomiting sickness. That 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.400 sounds like a not very fun sickness. Yeah, it causes 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:20.959 a lot of vomiting and can lead to coma and death. 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.640 And uh, in the biochemistry of it is pretty interesting. 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:28.400 It kills you via a form of hypoglycemia or low 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:32.440 blood sugar. Oh. So, normally, as the body uses up 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.640 the glucose in the blood, your liver releases glucose that 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:38.960 it formed that it stores in the form of glycogen. 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.040 The toxin, however, halts the process, so a few hours 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.040 after ingesting all of this, your body glucose crashes and 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.640 and just leaves you hypoglocemic. Oh this sounds similar to 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.720 some not poisons, but venoms I've heard of before the 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:59.440 attack by causing an insulin spike in the body and 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.680 drop in the victim's blood sugar to dangerously low levels. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:05.960 it sounds like those are probably similar. I think there's 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.320 like a there's a snail in the ocean that does 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.080 that or something. Alright, well, what do we have next 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:13.920 on the mediu here? Ah? Well, it looks like the 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.000 next thing arriving is something I'm a little bit familiar 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.120 with but haven't had the courage to eat myself. It's 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.200 it's something that's straight out of Iceland, and from what 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.640 I've heard, it's well, it's bad news if you're not game, 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.360 but if you are game, I guess some people really 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:32.680 like it. So, so what do we have sitting here 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.360 before us? It looks like some little cubes of cheese, 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.400 like the kind of the tasters hand out at the 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.360 grocery store in the Delhi. So it's a little white 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.160 cube with a toothpick stuck in it, and I guess 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.200 there there's nothing else on the plate, So it looks 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.480 like you just eat it by itself. Oh, except there's 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:51.800 a shot of clear liquor sitting next to it, so 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.120 I guess maybe you're supposed to take that with it. Now, 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.240 what's this smell I'm getting from the dish here, Joe? 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.760 You know, as as one person, I watched a video 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.680 online of somebody eating this stuff and the first comment 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.880 was smells like windex. That is a that is a 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:11.360 common description of what this is, which is rotten greenland 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:15.280 shark meat, a a national delicacy of Iceland, also known 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:19.880 as hakl and uh. And I apologize if I'm not 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.040 pronouncing that the right way. I don't know the best 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.920 way to say, ha, Carl, But there it is. It's uh. 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:30.200 It's compared to industrial cleaning products. Often in the aroma, 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:35.240 it's very high in ammonia, so it's gonna smell like windex, 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:40.120 or like bleach, or like urine. That is the most 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.200 common point of comparison other than cleaning products. So it's 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.480 it's urine, it's bleach, and then also kind of like 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:51.080 ambient rotting fishiness of ancient days. Okay, now it's of 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.000 course we're throwing in at this point and reminding everyone 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:59.640 at far northern cultures typically have a lot of survival foods. Yes, 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.000 where Yeah, it may not seem as as delightful, but 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.320 you have to put it in the context of surviving 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.520 the winter with the foods that could be preserved. Yeah, 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:11.920 this is this is a common feature of of far 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.120 northern climates where you you have dishes that were kind 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:19.520 of fermented or preserved in a way that produces chemical 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:24.720 combinations that might seem unappealing to people not accustomed to them. So, yeah, 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.160 so this is Greenland shark meat, and I've never had 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.960 it before. I've read that the texture is also sort 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.720 of sometimes compared to cheeses, like it's a it's a 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:35.800 little bit chewy at first, but then it kind of 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:39.120 descends into a powdery grain kind of texture as it 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:42.560 dissolves in the mouth. And they say you are supposed 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:44.800 to chase it with a shot of Brinnavin, which is 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:50.800 an unsweetened caraway schnops from Iceland that I did taste 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.120 that when I was in Iceland, and you know, I 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.680 love Iceland. It was not a fan of that liquor. 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:57.600 It was it potent that it like warm me up. 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.160 It was very herbal, you know, it was like it's 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.600 like somebody got some herbal tea and then reduced it 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.959 down by like not making it thicker, but just concentrated 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.920 the flavor by about ten thousand times, and that that's 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.839 what it was. So how do you get some of this, 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:16.680 he carl, how do you make it? You? Well, first, 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:18.880 like I said, you start with a nice freshly called 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.200 greenland shark or another shark from the same family, the 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:27.640 sleeper sharks, the somniosis sharks. The greenland shark in particular 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:32.520 is the somniosis microcephalus, which sounds like it means a sleepy, 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:37.720 tiny head. But the greenland shark is a really cool animal. 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:42.160 It's It's also known as the ecolossuac, which is the 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:44.760 an Inuit term. I've seen a lot of variations on 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.360 the Inuit spelling and pronunciation, so I think they're just 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:52.000 different transliterations of the same term. And it's a huge shark. 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:56.160 The greenland shark gets as big or bigger than great whites. 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.520 It grows uh lives probably for more than two of years. 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.960 It grows very slowly, and it can get more than 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.080 twenty ft long ways, more than a ton, and they 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.640 dwell in some of the coldest waters of the earth, 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:14.320 between like freezing and about ten degrees celsius. And it's 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.680 funny that it's known for appearing very sluggish. They say, 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.080 when you see it in the water, it looks lethargic 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.200 and impassive. Is just not really impressed by anything. I 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.280 read one account that said that people just you can. 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.200 You can catch them by literally just dragging them out 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:32.560 of the water with your bare hands. If they get 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:36.040 close enough to the surface. They don't fight much. So 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:37.760 it sounds like if all the sharks, it's kind of 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.440 the most stoic and resigned to the whims of fate. 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.800 But the question that I had was like, wait a minute, 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:48.520 why does it taste like urine? Uh? This knowledge about 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.080 the taste of greenland shark meat apparently goes back a 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.440 long way. I found an interesting article by Lindsay O'Reilly 0:15:55.480 --> 0:16:00.240 and Canadian Geographic Magazine about the Greenland sharks significan against 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.000 an Inuit culture and uh, it's it's offering another variation 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:07.720 on that same name. This time it's Skalougsuak. Yeah, I 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:11.040 love that scalouksuak, And I want to read a little 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.360 quote from this article. She says Inuit legend has it 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.840 that once long ago, an old woman was drying her 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.040 hair after washing it with urine, when the wind suddenly 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.320 whipped the damp cloth from her hand and carried it 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:29.960 out to see. This cloth, the Inuit say, became skalouksuak, 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.440 the greenland shark. I love that because it sounds like 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:35.360 there's been a recent trend I think in a couple 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.080 of different skits where you have individuals coming up with 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:43.440 elaborate descriptions of how bad a beer is, and this 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.680 seems like a more primal version of that. I can 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.080 imagine Inuit setting around eating some of this and saying, 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:54.200 you know this, uh, this particular meat taste as if 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.120 an old woman washed her hair in urine and then 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.000 threw that hair into the water and it became a shark. Yeah, 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.679 it's very flowery. Yeah, it's like somebody is really overriding 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:09.760 the Spear Advocate article. But anyway, getting to the point 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.960 about the dangers associated with it. If not prepared properly, 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.040 you don't want to eat greenland shark meat fresh. You 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.360 might not want to eat it anyway because it smells 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.880 like bleach and urine. But let's say you're really really hungry, 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:26.720 or you're looking for something to feed your dogs, don't 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.280 go with fresh greenland shark meat because it is poisonous 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.640 as hack. So when it's fresh and raw, the meat 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.400 of a greenland shark contains high levels of uric acid 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:41.520 or urea and trimethylamine oxide, and so if it's eaten 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.800 in high enough doses, it can cause effects that from 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.439 the outside resemble drunkenness. Sometimes people can say like, this 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.280 person is drunk on shark, but it can lead to 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:57.359 really bad things like nausea and vomiting, oral burning sensations, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:03.680 explosive diarrhea, muscle twitching and convulsions, trouble breathing, and even 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:07.800 in some cases coma and death. And the most toxic 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:12.000 ingredient in the greenland shark meat is the triethlamine oxide. 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.240 This is a chemical used by the shark as a 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.600 kind of natural anti freeze for the proteins and enzymes 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.040 in its body, and it it does a good thing 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:22.360 for the shark because it allows the shark to survive 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:25.240 the freezing temperatures of the water that it lives in 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.800 without the formation of ice crystals and the destruction of 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.120 proteins inside the body, so it's it's a fish that's 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.760 got anti freeze in it, and you you know, you 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.520 know the rule about not eating anti freeze. Yeah, that 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:40.840 one's drilled in at an early age, you know. I 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.639 think there was an episode of the documentary series Human 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.160 Planet in which you see some some fishermen actually pull 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.359 one of these creatures out of the water and then 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.200 I believe they feed it to a dog. I can't 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.240 remember if they cooked it or not. Yeah, actually, I 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.040 I've read that sometimes the meat is fed to dogs 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.960 and it's it makes the dog dog's drunk essentially, but 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.840 it doesn't sound like something. Don't feed greenland shark to 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.520 your pet if you happen to have some fresh greenland shark. 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.480 I don't know why you would, because you typically don't 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.520 get it fresh unless you catch it yourself, because it's 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.000 so poisonous and and so how do you get the 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.639 hakarl the version that's okay to eat, even if some 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.520 people find it very disgusting. Well, the traditional Icelandic way 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.760 of preparation is let it rot, and specifically let it 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.639 rot under pressure, So you bury it under rocks or 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.520 gravel for like three months, and then you'll let it 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.280 rot there and then you dig it up and you 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.200 hang it out to dry for another three or four months. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:41.640 So this has had, you know, many months of rotting 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.080 under pressure to press out some of the liquids and 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.960 then hanging up to dry. And this process supposedly makes 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.040 the shark safer to eat, as the poisons are removed 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.480 through the pressing and through the chemical action of the fermentation. 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.399 But another method of preparing greenland shark would simply be 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.160 to boil it in several changes of water to leach 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.640 out the toxins. But the several changes of water is important. 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.600 You don't want to eat greenland sharks soup made from 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.920 a you know, a broth of the meat. But anyway, 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.040 if prepared in the correct way they say it is. 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:21.600 It is very pungent and likely to terrify tourists, but 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.359 it's safe to eat. You can eat this rotten shark 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:28.320 and not die. I'm I'm reminded of the episode of 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:32.880 The Simpsons in which Homer had an especially long sub 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.840 sandwich Marge made him throw out ended up hiding behind 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:38.800 a radiator and he would sneak it out from the 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:44.240 radiator and eat it gray and rotten. Um that sounds 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:52.159 very familiar. All right, Well, let's clear these dishes away 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.960 because we have we have another Arctic dish coming out 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:58.720 for us. Well, it is labeled on the menu as 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:03.320 boreal wild game. Uh, it smells very gamy. Oh, I 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.440 see the description here. This is polar bear meat. We're 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.639 being offered polar bear. Okay, Well, I don't seem like 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.200 there could be a problem there, right, No, it seems 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:16.120 like bear probably shouldn't eat polar bear? Should well? Probably not. 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:20.840 But I imagine before I think when, because when I 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.399 was a kid in Newfoundland, Canada for about three years, 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:29.560 occasionally interesting meat to present themselves, such as moose or 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.199 in I think one case there was bear stew. You 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.280 have to put yourself in a pretty extreme situation, I 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.159 think for the question to even come up, should I 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:40.560 eat this polar bear? Yeah? But it turns out that 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.520 the polar bear, like the acky fruit and the Greenland shark, 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:47.320 is a food that if you're in a position where 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.199 you find yourself needing to eat it, you better have 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.199 somebody on hand who knows how to prepare it and 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:57.560 knows which parts to avoid. That's right, because you know, 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.720 the native peoples of the Arctic they've done for a 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.600 long time that some days the bear eats you, and 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:05.800 some days you eat the bear, right, but on the 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:07.760 days some days you eat the bear, and then it 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.720 gets you back, yes, because you when you do eat 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.199