Wednesday, July 27, 2011

A Cut Up In The Kitchen

The class headed over to the the kitchen at 808 Commonwealth Avenue around 11:30am to see a striped bass filleted by Professor Bruce Berman. This was a very exciting because I have not seen a fish cut up in front of me from head to tail. I have seen it done on television, but seeing how it is really done in front of you gives a new meaning to cutting a fish. He discussed and showed us some of the Striped Bass's attributes. The basses gill's were red which was very surprising to me. They looked like sushi tuna that you see in a Japanese Restaurant. The Striped Bass had eight fins attached to its body in which one of the fins on top of his back had very sharp spikes. I felt his teeth and they felt like soft tooth brushes. The stripe bass had to holes on either side of the head which one of the students mentioned that these were his sensors. the scales were slippery and the looked iridescent. Professor Berman told us that you can tell how old a fish is by the number of rings on his scales. Prof Berman started to fillet the sides of the fish. This is a very hard task if you do not have the right kitchen knives to do the work. Taking off both sides smoothly, he removed the meat from the skin and placed both pieces on a cutting board. The fishes stomach and intestines where embedded in a sac.

We then headed to the another table where Professor Berman cut the fish in bite sizes pieces for everyone to eat. I did not eat the raw fish, but I was given some to take home to cook. I did so with some garlic table sesasonings, oinions, and olive and the results were delicious. This actually was the first time I ate bass freshly caught from the both of the sea.

No comments: