The flaky, red-edged faux crab in your seafood salad or California roll is most likely made of Alaska Pollock. Also called Walleye Pollock, Snow Cod, or Whiting, this fish is abundant in the Bering Sea near Alaska and can also be found along the central California coast and in the Sea of Japan. Pollock has a very mild flavor, making it ideal for the processing and artificial flavoring of imitation crab. While Pollock is the most common fish used to make fake crab, New Zealand Hoki is also used, and some Asian manufacturers use Southeast Asian fish like Golden Treadfin Bream and White Croaker.
The processing of imitation crabmeat begins with the skinning and boning of the fish. Then the meat is minced and rinsed, and the water is leached out. This creates a thick paste called surimi. The word means "minced fish" in Japanese, and the essential techniques for making it were developed in Japan over 800 years ago. Surimi is commonly used in Japan to make a type of fish ball or cake called kamaboko. In 1975, a method for processing imitation crabmeat from surimi was invented in Japan, and in 1983, American companies started production.
Many ingredients are added to the surimi to give it a stable form, appealing texture, and crab-like flavor. Sugar, sorbitol, wheat or tapioca starch, egg whites, and vegetable or soybean oil can all help improve the form of the surimi. Natural and artificial crab flavorings are added, and some of these flavorings are made from real crab or from boiled shells. Carmine, caramel, paprika, and annatto extract are often used to make the crab's red, orange, or pink coloring. Imitation crab is cooked, which helps set the surimi and give it the final texture and appearance. Nutritionally speaking, surimi is not that different from real crab, although it is lower in cholesterol.
That ad is so creepy. Hope you don't mind me stealing some of your thunder Slip, but I've been wanting to post this craigslist post somewhere for a while and, well, there's a nice fish-shaped hole right here.
Comedy-freakin-Gold I say. Damn he must have ridden on some of the same lines I have. ROTFLMAO!!
I was all ready for a hot story... something to light the burning embers that are my loins... but... as I read into the first part in that post and and he managed to string together "hulking girth" "sweating profusely" and "wearing a blanket"... BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! My loins are no longer embers... in fact they're just dry cold ash now.
i really enjoyed that Hambeast listing on craigslist. I am guessing it had to be rather large bus, for that person to not have given the elderly woman their seat instead. I would have said something to the cow.
Aaaaand Slip is truly back! I got this funny feeling in my gut as I read that turned out to be my body not knowing whether to laugh out loud or retch a little bit. Truly creepy that guy is. The imitation crab meat is probably his former 'playmate'.
As for the person asking about HO, that is a scale size that model trains come in.