Herring Entertainment in New York's Time Square!!

As reported in the gothamist on-line:

Herring Ice Cream Cone: Free, Weird Ice Cream At Ripley's Believe It Or Not Today

This is what came up when we searched for "weird ice cream" (Steve Lovegrove / Shutterstock)

Would you eat herring ice cream? Or horseradish ice cream? Well, Ripley's Believe It Or Not! in Times Square will be offering some free—but definitely weird—flavors today.

The attraction says, "To help beat the summer heat, guests visiting the Odditorium from 12pm to 6pm are invited to take a spin on the Wacky Wheel of Ice “Screams” to receive a free sample cone and the chance to earn half-price admission. Filled with outrageous tasting challenges, Ripley’s Wacky Wheel features a variety of shocking flavors such as pizza and curry, a blind taste test, mystery topping, and much more. Guests who successfully complete their designated ice cream tasting (or at least make a valiant effort trying), will receive half-price admission to the museum on Friday, August 17."

The location's general manager Michael Hirsch said, "At Ripley’s Times Square we’ve mastered the unexpected and with flavors like horseradish…people will literally scream for ice cream." Apparently theflavors will also include mustard and pickle! Quick, tell your pregnant friends!

An Unbelievably Sweet Dare on August 17 at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Times Square 

Eat Pickle, Mustard, Herring Ice Cream and More

 
Wacky Wheel of Ice “Screams” Challenges Adventurous Eaters to Earn Half-Price Admission
Believe It or Not! Ripley’s Times Square is scooping up freeice cream cones for visitors on Friday, August 17, 2012…but don’t expect the standard vanilla, chocolate or strawberry.

To help beat the summer heat, guests visiting the Odditorium from 12pm to 6pm are invited to take a spin on the Wacky Wheel of Ice “Screams” to receive a free sample cone and thechance to earn half-price admission. Filled with outrageous tasting challenges, Ripley’s Wacky Wheel features a variety of shocking flavors such as pizza and curry, a blind taste test, mystery topping, and much more. Guests who successfully complete their designated ice cream tasting (or at least make a valiant effort trying), will receive half-price admission to the museum on Friday, August 17.

“At Ripley’s Times Square we’ve mastered the unexpected and with flavors like horseradish…people will literally scream for ice cream,” said Michael Hirsch, president and general manager of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Times Square. “What better way to escape the hot, humid, dog days of summer than a frozen treat and discounted admission to 18,000 square feet of icy cold air conditioning and unbelievable exhibits?”

Ice cream samples available while supplies last. Discount cannot be combined with any other offer. 

Thanks to Moish Epstein for the heads up on this one!!

The Key To Success Begins With Herring!!!!

Journalist Malcolm Gladwell’s  must-read book of the season is Outliers and is subtitled The Story of Success. It looks at a variety of people deemed “successful”, including Bill Gates, wealthy Jewish lawyers, sports stars and the Beatles. It tries to determine what factors besides inborn talent made their success possible and tries  to explain why some people succeed way more than others. 

In an on-line book review by Leon Malinovsky:  “Nature versus nurture. It’s among the oldest debates in history and lies at the heart of what Outliers is about. Gladwell’s position is unambiguous. “I’m a big-time nurturist,” he says. “I don’t mean to deny the role that your own personal characteristics and talent play, but I’m trying to layer on what I think the other critical factors are.” Those factors include “hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies,” he writes.

Chapter 5 [The Three Lessons of Joe Flom] tells the tale of attorney Joseph Flom, of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher and Flom. According to Gladwell, Flom did not succeed through hustle and ability but rather by virtue of his origins. Intelligence, personality and ambition were not enough, but had to be coupled with origins in a Jewish culture in which hard work and ingenuity were encouraged, and in fact a necessary part of life. This, along with having to scrabble in a firm cobbled together out of necessity because Jews were not hired by white-shoe law firms, gave the partners and unusual and timely expertise: Flom's firm decided it had to take hostile takeover cases when no one else would, and that turned Flom and his partners into experts in a kind of legal practice just beginning to boom when they hit their stride.”

Guess what lesson 3 was about? You got it—Herring!!! Here is an excerpt:

“In 1889, Louis and Regina Borgenicht boarded an ocean liner in Hamburg bound for America. Louis was from Galicia, in what was then Poland. Regina was from a small town in Hungary. They had been married only a few years and had one child and a second on the way. For the thirteen-day journey, they slept on straw mattresses on a deck above the engine room, hanging tight to their bunk beds as the ship pitched and rolled…….. Louis and Regina found a tiny apartment on Eldridge Street, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, for $8 a month. Louis then took to the streets, looking for work. He saw peddlers and fruit sellers and sidewalks crammed with pushcarts……He went to his sister’s fish store on Ludlow Street and persuaded her to give him a consignment of herring on credit. He set up shop on the sidewalk with two barrels of fish, hopping back and forth between them and chanting in German:

‘For  frying, For baking, For cooking.  Good also for eating.  Herring will do for every meal, and for every class!

By the end of the week, he had cleared $8. By the second week $13.”

The most critical lesson—HERRING!


Thanks to Rav Elie for the heads up on this story!!

QUICK HERRING RECIPES: HOWIE'S HOPPED UP CREAMED HERRING

Here's a little herring fun we whipped up in the kitchen today. Creamed herring is not very easily found in the supermarkets around Modiin. With the exception of a non-dairy (pareve) variety that is found everywhere, there really isn't much around lately.

Most people here are into the matjes and schmaltz type of herrings. The well-liked creamed versions found in the US are not typically found here.

For a brief period we were really enjoying Kiddush Club herring, a boutique producer from Efrat, but they haven't been active lately. They had creamed herrings available with different levels of fat content and everybody was loving it.




So we decided, for a little change of pace, to do our own creamed herring thing at home. It was quite easy and took very little time - the results were great!









Here's how its done:

Start with some basic homestyle pickled herring. Drain it off, wash it and chuck the limp onion ring slices.

Finely dice two medium sized onions 

 Take the herring and cut it down into bite size pieces. Trim off any extra skin and mix with the onions.

 Pick a nice sour cream with a fat content that works for you. We went with 9%. Stir it in.

Add some apple cider vinegar. You don't need alot. Also add in some pepper, a little dill, and garlic powder.

Stir it all up and let it marinade in the frig.

Now bang it back with some good bourbon (or scotch if you must)!!!!!!

Herring in the Movies

From the 1959 classic: 'Some Like it Hot'

  

In the scene where Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis are on board the yacht he points out the difference between the fore and aft of the yacht, explaining that it depends on: "whether you're coming or going." Fancy servingware, candles, and a midnight snack are set out. When she points out a large trophy fish mounted high up on the wall, he pops the cork on the bottle of champagne and explains how the effects of alcohol deflate size:

Sugar: [admiring a large fish trophy] What is it? 
Junior: It's a member of the herring family. 
Sugar: A herring? Isn't it amazing how they get those big fish into those little glass jars? 
Junior: They shrink when they're marinated. 

Check this:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OhdD5n405I

Herring Depletion Problems?

"If you don’t have a good stock of herring, nothing else is going to stick around”

     

Odd Alliance Is Forged Over Access to Herring

Chris Becker for The New York Times

Crew members on the Western Sea, a fishing boat owned by Glenn Robbins, prepare the gear for their two-day voyage in the Gulf of Maine.

By JESS BIDGOOD

Published: July 3, 2012

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PORTLAND, Me. — There is no great love between Glenn Robbins, a bright-eyed third-generation fisherman, and the environmental lobby. Mr. Robbins grew up trapping Atlantic herring in cotton nets strung up in craggy coves off the Gulf of Maine. These days, he casts a net off a 104-foot boat, but catch restrictions limit those trips to twice a week, he says.

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Pat Wellenbach/Associated Press

Environmentalists and traditional fisherman are concerned that trawlers’ efficiency is depleting herring stocks and depriving other animals of a critical food source.

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Chris Becker for The New York Times

Environmental agencies have recently placed restrictions on herring fishing.

Chris Becker for The New York Times

Mr. Robbins, a third-generation fisherman, worked with advocacy organizations to impose the new restrictions.

If he can’t go out for herring, he fishes for lobster, and he serves as a deacon in a Baptist church. Mr. Robbins is a staunch skeptic of global warming.

So it was supremely odd, he said, to find himself working with advocacy organizations like the Pew Environment Group as the New England Fishery Management Council recently imposed new regulations on the herring fishery.

The issue at hand was about 30 large boats that use nets as big as a football field to scoop up hundreds of thousands of pounds of herring, a cheap fish often used for bait. Called midwater trawlers, they fish at a much higher volume than the purse seine nets used by operators of herring boats like Mr. Robbins’s, and they account for 98 percent of the roughly 100,000 tons of herring caught annually in New England waters, according to the council.

Their appearance in New England about 10 years ago alarmed both environmentalists and traditional fisherman, who are concerned that the trawlers’ efficiency is depleting herring stocks and depriving other fish, birds and sea mammals of a critical food source.

“They’re on the bottom of the food chain. Everything eats the herring — the whales, the mammals, the birds. If you don’t have a good stock of herring, nothing else is going to stick around,” said Mr. Robbins, who used to operate a trawler but does not anymore.

The new rules require midwater trawlers to have independent observers on every trip, and establish guidelines for weighing and sampling their haul. Such measures can help fishery managers get a better idea of whether the trawlers are depleting herring stocks and taking other species with them, as some fishermen and environmentalists insist. The new rules will also allow the council to cap the amount of river herring that trawlers looking for sea herring can scoop up by accident.

“While we’re trying to rebuild cod stocks and keep small boats alive, reintroducing industrial-scale fishing is a really bad idea, and doing it without any monitoring is real folly,” said Peter Baker, the director of Northeast Fisheries Program for the Pew Environment Group.

The alliance between groups like Mr. Baker’s and traditional fishermen is unusual, given that the two sides have battled fiercely over catch limits on other fisheries. “I had to get into bed with those guys,” said Mr. Robbins, indignantly, standing outside the meeting where the fishery management council voted to adopt the rules. “I don’t like it,” he added. “They want to save everything.”

Steve Weiner, who uses a harpoon to catch bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Maine, was another uneasy ally. “I would say Pew was one of the primary organizations leading that charge, which would have put us out of business,” he said, before chatting cordially over lunch with Mr. Baker during a break in the herring meeting.

But this issue, Mr. Weiner said, is fundamental enough to unite both sides. “It’s so obvious, the damage that was done,” he said. “These guys would come into small areas where we’d been tuna fishing, ground fishing, whale watching, where there is a lot of herring, and just fish, fish, fish. We call it localized depletion.”

Despite anecdotal accounts of localized supply problems, current assessments of Atlantic sea herring do not show major depletions in the overall stock since the midwater trawlers began harvesting the fish. The most recent assessment of Atlantic herring, released by the council in 2010, did not project that the stock would be overfished.

Eoin Rochford, who used to operate trawlers and now runs a factory that freezes herring, said that the assault on this corner of the industry amounts to a “witch hunt” and that the midwater trawler fleet is actually good for the ocean.

“These fish are the most abundant fish in the ocean,” he said. “ To keep the ecosystem in balance, somebody has to harvest them.”

Mr. Rochford is hopeful that the new observer requirements will prove that the midwater trawlers operate a clean fleet.

But traditional fishermen say they will continue the standoff, convinced the data will back up their anecdotal evidence.

“As a fisherman who spends his time observing, noticing, what we have observed is a very bad situation,” Mr. Weiner said. “A lot of times in commercial fishing, there’s a saying: don’t speak against another fisherman. But there’s times where you can’t do that, and this is one of them.” 

The Herring Maven

Always Fun To Find Other Herring Bloggers Out There:

AS THE TOP OF THE WORLD TURNS

                              RUMINATIONS AND RANTS FROM LAGUNA BEACH

JULY 13, 2006

The Herring Maven

During his visit to Germany, some German fisherman gave George W. Bush a barrel of herring as a present:

Greeting Merkel and city residents, Bush is full of charm. He says "good morning," mentions the gorgeous weather and thanks a local fisherman for the present he gave the president: a barrel of Bismarck herring.

Normally, I don't associate W. with Woody Allen, whose comedy Love and Death involves a herring merchant:

As if it wasn't bad luck enough, the second blow of fate is struck when the secret love of his heart and a frequent opponent in philosophical disputes, his beautiful cousin Sonja (Diane Keaton) decides to marry a foul smelling herring merchant Leonid Voscovec ("When something hurts herring, it hurts me") right before Boris' departure to the war.

However, I made an immediate association, notwithstanding the fact that even Mel Brooks's Yiddish-speaking Indian chief did not ride the range with herring in his saddlebags.

The connection to Israel's troubles in the Middle East is, presumably, coincidental.

The now closed Swedish restaurant Gustaf Anders, in Costa Mesa, Califonria, used to serve four kinds of herring. Tasty, if you like that sort of thing. And the herring was not only an important food fish, second only to cod, but was the subject of many jokes:

You've heard, perhaps, the one about the Jew who asks his friend a riddle: "What is green, hangs on the wall and whistles?"

The answer, as it turns out, is a herring. "But a herring isn't green," protests his friend.

"Nu, paint it green."

"But a herring doesn't hang on a wall."

"So, hang it on a wall."

"But a herring doesn't whistle!"

"I know," says the man. "I just put that in to make it hard."

Or the one about the herring that complains to a restaurant customer, "What's the matter, you don't eat no more at Ratner's?" Or Woody Allen's parody of chasidic tales, which turns on the question of whether a man's daughter most closely resembles a matjes or a Bismarck herring. Or any one of countless others — the point being that the herring, like the surly waiter or the arrogant beggar, has become, oddly enough, one of the defining motifs of Jewish humor.

If you are abundant, fatty, and easy to preserve, you have a place in history.

Back from Herring Land!!!

Back from a four day adventure in the Netherlands, centered around Amsterdam. Historical and cultural attractions aside, one of the true highlights of the visit was getting in Dutch herring. The Dutch have a really fantastic way of preparing their herring called "sousing". This is unlike anything I've experienced in all the years of herring eating and taste sampling back in the U.S. and here in Israel. For those who are not familiar with sousing, here is how  Wikipedia defines sousing:

"The term soused herring usually means 'soaked in a mild preserving liquid', and can be used to refer to raw herring in a mild vinegar pickle or the famous Dutch brined herring. As well as vinegar, the marinade might contain cider, wine or tea, sugar, herbs (usually bay leaf), spices (usually mace), chopped onion....

The soused herring (maatjesharing or just maatjes in Dutch, or matjes in German and Swedish) is an especially mild salt herring, which is made from young immature herrings. The herrings are ripened for a couple of days in oak barrels in a salty solution, or brine. The pancreatic enzymes which support the ripening make this version of salt herring especially mild and soft....

This process of preparing herring (known as "gibbing") was developed in the Middle Ages by the Dutch. Herrings are caught between the end of May and the beginning of July in the North Sea near Denmark or Norway, before the breeding season starts. This is because herrings at this time are unusually rich in oils (over 15%) and their roeand milt have not started to develop.

The brine used for Dutch soused herring has a much lower salt content and is much milder in taste than the German Loggermatjes. To protect against infection bynematodes of the genus Anisakis, Dutch regulations mandate freezing to at least minus 45°C before salting. In the modern day, soused herrings can therefore be produced throughout the year."

They are correct--- the herring has an incredibly mild taste and buttery texture. Every time we ordered one on the street, we ended up going for seconds!! Absolutely great!!