Bldgblog has a great post on the possibilities of water. Not homeopathy but taste, specifically terroir: how geography can bestow special characteristics. To point, London hotel Claridge offers a selection of over thirty mineral waters from around the world, complete with suggested flavor pairings. It makes a mockery of the familiar question, “still or sparkling?” And it can add up on your bill like a fine wine. That is if you go for freshwater from an iceberg that melted thousands of years ago and is collected off the ocean floor near Hawaii by a 3000 ft long pipe. See Bldgblog for a more elequent description.

From the official website:

Bakon Vodka is a superior quality potato vodka with a savory bacon flavor. It’s clean, crisp, and delicious.

Check out their site for lots of weird talk about drinking bacon and some recipes. I think this calls for a road trip. ]]> http://www.foodandtell.com/2009/06/03/pure-refreshing-bacon/feed/ 1 http://www.foodandtell.com/2009/04/30/diver-scallops/ http://www.foodandtell.com/2009/04/30/diver-scallops/#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:36:27 +0000 jonathan http://www.foodandtell.com/?p=53

After enjoying some diver scallops at Chambar, I started thinking: what are diver scallops anyway? (other than delicious) Could they really be hand-collected? A little searching led me to an interview on ChefTalk.com with Maine’s Tim Hunt, a 20-year veteran scallop diver.

Tim explains that diver scallops really are collected by hand, in contrast to normal scallops, which are collected by fishing boats that sweep the sea floor, or are harvested in scallop farms. As a result, diver scallops tend to be less gritty, higher quality, and a lot more environmentally friendly. Scallop divers also get their product to market a lot faster than other methods, and tend so to be fresher.

Scallops can be collected at varying depths, typically 50-100 feet, and are often harvested in low visibility conditions, with only a few feet of visibility. A good diver will only collect the bigger ones, and will get 10-20lbs of scallops per tank of oxygen.

The key to scallop quality is water current, and the best scallops will be firm with no grit. In poor conditions, scallops will be soft and grainy.  The fishing season for scallops varies by location, but is all-year round if you get into international waters. The problem with off-season deep water scallops is that they are frequently gray, and treated with a solution for preservation for the trip back, which hurts their quality. The best scallops are in-season diver scallops.