WOW!!! Scientists capture giant squid on camera

Mr. Pessimistic

Scientists capture giant squid on camera
First images of creature live in the wild

Giant Squid Photos!

Quote:
TOKYO - When a nearly 20-foot long tentacle was hauled aboard his research ship, Tsunemi Kubodera knew he had something big. Then it began sucking on his hands. But what came next excited him most — hundreds of photos of a purplish-red sea monster doing battle 3,000 feet deep.

It was a rare giant squid, a creature that until then had eluded observation in the wild.

Kubodera’s team captured photos of the 26-foot-long beast attacking its bait, then struggling for more than four hours to get free. The squid pulled so hard on the line baited with shrimp that it severed one of its own tentacles.

Never before has this creature been captured on film! I love this stuff!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

ADO15

And the first thought of most journalists on seeing pictures of this amazing elusive creature is to ask top chefs how they would cook it! ::70

_________________________________________________________

Il Sotto Seme La Neva

Chris OConnor

You actually heard a reporter asking a chef this?

ADO15

I'm aware it's meant to be a light-hearted piece, but I'm not laughing.

What's the best way to cook a giant squid?

Laura Barton
Thursday September 29, 2005
The Guardian

Scientists in Japan have, for the first time, taken a photograph of a giant squid in its natural habitat, at a depth of 450 fathoms off the Ogasawara Islands in the north Pacific. It is 60ft long and has tentacles that can stretch up to two-thirds of its length. That is a whole heap o' calamari. And, now that we know what they actually look like, it can surely only be a matter of time before we start catching them and serving them up with a samphire garnish in the nation's most bourgeois eating establishments. But what is the best way to cook a giant squid? Fry it? Bake it? Make it into a big squid pie?

"A squid of that size would feed 30 people, a whole Christmas party!" declares Aldo Zilli, famed fish chef. "You would boil it. You need the largest pot in the world. Boil it for 10 hours with lots of wine corks to tenderise the squid - and I don't mean plastic corks, I mean cork corks - then leave it in the same water for five hours to cool down. Take it out, cut it up in small pieces - you'll need a very, very, very sharp knife. Soak the tentacles separately in cold, salted water for a couple of hours, because that's where the sand is. Boil those as well; red wine is a good source of tenderising, so use a couple of bottles of chianti and leave to rest in the juice. Take it out, cut it up, then sauté in garlic and chilli and serve with coriander and a nice sauvignon blanc."
Paul Gildroy, head chef at the Magpie cafe in Whitby, purveyors of arguably the nation's finest fish and chips, agrees that a stew is your best option: "With this being a very large squid, it must be very old and quite tough," he explains. Though they are suited to younger squid, you could, he concedes, make squid rings. "But they'd be very big rings!" he cautions. "The key to the batter is to have it of double cream consistency, with a little baking powder just to lift it - it makes it nice and light and crispy."

But there's always someone ready to rain on the parade. In this case, it's Steve Hatt, London fishmonger extraordinaire. "The giant squid is poisonous, so you can't eat it," says Hatt, the spoilsport. "It has a high ammonia content - it's a totally different species to the squid that live nearer the surface." Sometimes, it seems, there are reasons why things live 450 fathoms under the sea.

www.guardian.co.uk/g2/sto...53,00.html

_________________________________________________________

Il Sotto Seme La Neva

Chris OConnor

Get in the chat room!

I see all types of people online right now and only 6 of us in the chat room! We have a weekly Thursday night chat session.

MadArchitect

Can I just say that I love giant squids -- I've been fascinated with them for years. For the longest time, they were regarded as a myth, despite occasional run ins with sailors and fishermen.

Mr. Pessimistic

Exciting that the myth is now confirmed! Or is it!?

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

MadArchitect

It's been confirmed for at least a few years. A giant squid corpse washed up on the shore of Australia a few years ago. And there have been bits and pieces of evidence here and there along the way. Fairly reputable reports from whaling vessels, large bits of squid flesh reigned in by fishing boats, sperm whale carcasses with very large ring-shaped scars, and occasionally the half-digested giant beak. Really, it didn't matter to me one way or another whether or not giant squids really existed -- just the idea was cool enough on its own.


	FORUMS	ABOUT	BOOKS	VIDEOS	TRANSCRIPTS	LINKS	BLOGS	DONATE	CONTACT