>> ^ipfreely:

Shark fin soup, brought to you by same people who eat Tiger testicles.
@dannym3141, You don't know what you are talking about. This is how Chinese people behave. They are not nice people in general.
It's their culture to fuck you over. Ever dealt with Chinese business people?
http://videosift.com/video/Fake-Eggs-and-Grapes-Being-Sold-In-China
They will fuck you over because even if you complain, there are others who you can fuck over.


Yeah, all 1.4 billion chinese people act exactly the same. Just like all americans are fat, all brits are snooty and all italians are mobsters.

That was an example of a generalisation. Generalisations aren't helpful. It's much better instead to look at an individual and judge them by their words and actions. That way, I can read your posts and safely decide you're a moron.

>> ^legacy0100:

Mind you that I have never tried shark fin soup, but I must point out that Ramsey again puts himself in the shoes of an extremist. I've seen the documentaries of Ramsay and he is not this intense egomaniac he presents himself in front of Cameras. So I'm not sure how much he believes in the things he's preaches in this video.
But my main concern of this video is this ridiculous Hypocracy that's going on in this video. He has yet again taken this role as a very ethnocentric typical westerner judging and criticizing cultures that are different from his own for the sake of entertaining television. In the video he is arguing that harvesting fins from sharks are bad because:
1. Sharks are endangered species
2. The rest of the shark meat is being wasted.
3. The fins doesn't taste that good.
4. Sharks are killed inhumanely.

Then I've compared it with a delicacy from western tradition: Foie gra. http://www.foodreference.com/html/artgoose.html
1. Foie Gras Geese are Specially bred species that will not survive out in the wild. They are specialized to live ina mechanized farm to yield maximum production.
2. Goose meat is generally gamier and intensely flavored, and considered a 'delicacy'. Translation= People would rather eat chicken.
3. A lot of Easteners do not like the taste of Foie Gras, as they consider it to be too rich and fatty.
4. Geese are force-fed against their will, and killed as any farm animal would.
The only difference between these two delicacies is that western chefs are 'taught' to be comfortable with process of making Foie Gras. They are 'taught' to think it's okay to force-feed the Goose, that they're physiologically different from us, and that shoving metal tubes down their throat doesn't hurt them as much as we imagine it to be, so it's okay to do it.
So as long as we are used to the idea, it's perfectly normal. After all, western chefs make good money off of serving Foie Gras. But Shark fins? No western customer has ever came in demanding those. So it's pretty useless in his/her eyes.
The only argument the western Foie Gras' got going for is that the Goose species isn't endangered, since it's bred in a mass farm, in a cramped space, being force-fed periodically.
Yea, I find this video very hypocritical. Oh and then there's the problem of Eurpoean fisheries over farming the fish and devastating local ecology. Oh and then there's western demand for large fish, which has created this monster of a shrimp farming economy in Southeast Asia that's basically creating the most disgusting thing you can put in your mouth, yet westerners still buy them up.
Yea. So... Why is Ramsay, someone who's openly endorsing these products by constantly releasing recipes using Foie Gras and other unethical shit, hosting this video?


So your argument is that it's ok for one ethnic group to wastefully kill an endangered species for an over-priced, tasteless status symbol because another ethnic group force feeds birds to make an over-priced status symbol?

Ah, the old "two wrongs make a right" argument! Ramsay's an ass. He's an ass that can cook, but he's still an ass. He can barely interact with other humans let alone animals (if my boss swore at me or called me "big boy", I'd quit so fast he wouldn't know what hit him. And I'd probably hit him). But that doesn't mean he's wrong about this or right about foie gras.

Mind you that I have never tried shark fin soup, but I must point out that Ramsey again puts himself in the shoes of an extremist. I've seen the documentaries of Ramsay and he is not this intense egomaniac he presents himself in front of Cameras. So I'm not sure how much he believes in the things he's preaches in this video.

But my main concern of this video is this ridiculous Hypocracy that's going on in this video. He has yet again taken this role as a very ethnocentric typical westerner judging and criticizing cultures that are different from his own for the sake of entertaining television. In the video he is arguing that harvesting fins from sharks are bad because:

1. Sharks are endangered species
2. The rest of the shark meat is being wasted.
3. The fins doesn't taste that good.
4. Sharks are killed inhumanely.


Then I've compared it with a delicacy from western tradition: Foie gra. http://www.aprl.org/sdcitybeat.php

1. Foie Gras Geese are Specially bred species that will not survive out in the wild. They are specialized to live ina mechanized farm to yield maximum production.
2. Goose meat is generally gamier and intensely flavored, and considered a 'delicacy'. Translation= People would rather eat chicken.
3. A lot of Easteners do not like the taste of Foie Gras, as they consider it to be too rich and fatty.
4. Geese are force-fed against their will, and killed as any farm animal would.

The only difference between these two delicacies is that western chefs are 'taught' to be comfortable with process of making Foie Gras. They are 'taught' to think it's okay to force-feed the Goose, that they're physiologically different from us, and that shoving metal tubes down their throat doesn't hurt them as much as we imagine it to be, so it's okay to do it.

So as long as we are used to the idea, it's perfectly normal. After all, western chefs make good money off of serving Foie Gras. But Shark fins? No western customer has ever came in demanding those. So it's pretty useless in his/her eyes.

The only argument the western Foie Gras' got going for is that the Goose species isn't endangered, since it's bred in a mass farm, in a cramped space, being force-fed periodically.

Yea, I find this video very hypocritical. Oh and then there's the problem of Eurpoean fisheries over farming the fish and devastating local ecology. Oh and then there's western demand for large prawns, which has created this monster of a shrimp farming economy in Southeast Asia that's basically creating the most disgusting thing you can put in your mouth, yet westerners still buy them up.

Yea. So... Why is Ramsay, someone who's openly endorsing these products by constantly releasing recipes using Foie Gras and other unethical shit, hosting this video?

Shark fin soup, brought to you by same people who eat Tiger testicles.

@dannym3141, You don't know what you are talking about. This is how Chinese people behave. They are not nice people in general.

It's their culture to fuck you over. Ever dealt with Chinese business people?

http://videosift.com/video/Fake-Eggs-and-Grapes-Being-Sold-In-China

They will fuck you over because even if you complain, there are others who you can fuck over.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

@dannym3141 You disagree, that's fine, you had a visit to China and you know all about it. I guess a lot of Americans 'know all about' Mexico from all the time spent in resorts there.
I'm not kidding, Chinese people who have lived here for over 30 years hate the new immigrants more than anyone. That's not because they're 'Chinese' it's because of what's become of the culture. I have lots of Chinese friends, but all of them have been here quite some time. It's not because I don't care to get to know more recent immigrants, but rather that they shun anyone who doesn't look and talk like they do, and my Mandarin is quite rusty, my skin too pale.


This would have been very cutting if i had stayed in a resort; i'll spare the details but i was in a beijing student accomodation or in xian staying with a family of the chinese students from beijing. I'm not a scholar of their culture, i'm just a guy who's been there and had to rely on a lot of good will from people who had no reason to give it.

On the subject of what modern china is like and whether it is populated with "horrible people" i think my moderate knowledge trumps your lack of knowledge? Please feel free to make some more wild assumptions about my life if it helps your monologues flow.

It can be very easy to judge this as horrific and brutal and wasteful and so alien.

However I am a Westerner who eats meat... who knows that the beef and lamb and pork and salmon etc. etc. that I eat also comes from animals. I know that the meat I eat comes from animals who may not have had the best life and were killed so I could eat them.

BUT.

We strive in the west to be humane to animals, to let them have a reasonable quality of life, to kill them quickly and as painlessly as possible.

And we try not to be wasteful.

Those last two things are the horrific parts of this, in particular the last. Animals being killed and their carcasses thrown away (still living, that's just horrible) just to cut off fins that taste like nothing.

It's not getting highly nutritious food, it's not getting something with amazing flavour, it's purely eating something because it's rare.

And that's pretty fucking sick.

I'm sure there's a lot more work to be done with fishing for western tables too, I'm sure plenty of the fish that are caught are not quickly killed. I know that fish are being over fished to the point of extinction.

But the thing that stands out for this, and something that makes it an achievable thing to stop is that it is ONE DISH. ONE SINGLE DISH that is causing this much carnage, and this much wastage and killing. So stop ONE dish and you can save entire species of animal.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

I'm sorry, but Chinese (the modern culture, not the race) are horrible people. Flame me all you want. I know first generation Chinese who came over 30-40 years ago who are kind, decent, hardworking people, but the more recent immigrants, who were really brainwashed under communism are mostly self-centred assholes, who would honestly keep eating shark-fin soup if it meant some random person in the third world would be executed for every bowl, because it's a good way to show everyone how rich they are. The Chinese people I know who have been here for over 30 years hate the new generation of Chinese more than anyone else. They represent a perversion of the culture by Mao, who admitted hating Chinese culture and did his best to destroy it.
Obviously this does not apply to all individuals, but the culture as a whole is sick.


Ok, speaking as someone who has very recently been to china for an extendad stay, and i've met and had extensive experience with young and middle aged chinese;

How did you get the impression they were horrible people? Every single person i met in china was generous and selfless and went a long way out of their way to make sure i had a good time and to make sure i was completely taken care of. Their culture almost DEMANDS them to be respectful and polite to strangers. Self centred is a word which i could not apply to a single one of the several hundred chinese people that i've met.

Show off their wealth? Do you realise that the chinese people are extremely poor? The government may be fucking rich but the people certainly aren't. They work their fucking arse off in a shit job they get given and they get paid pennies, PENNIES, and they work fucking hard at it and fucking long hours because guess what they'd get if they didn't? Fuck all. I have never met a more humble and polite people, the chinese people seem to me like the british were 60 years ago (of which i am proud and sad we're not like that anymore).

I must remind you, with my limited knowledge, of the Cultural Revolution and other periods in chinese history where the people were so poor and desperate that they would eat more or less anything to survive. I was told that diverse foods were more common in the south (i was in beijing and xian) and that they are also very poor there.

I don't know what modern china is a representation of, but i suspect you know less than you claim to about modern china.

I do not promote the eating of endangered species, and i do not know the ins and outs of the shark fin stuff, but i don't need to for the point i am making, because i address solely your retarded opinion that modern chinese are "horrible people".

If anything, i would probably rate the chinese people as being the nicest i've met. Least proportion of assholes to nice guys; i didn't meet a single asshole in china. No one even rudely bumped into me or in front of me, literally not a single chinese person gave me cause to be offended or upset in any way in the entire time i was having dealings with them. The chinese are amazing, the government isn't, and i hope the chinese will soon notice that.

You're an ass and i think you're quoting some shite that you've heard on some government-funded war-mongering tv show.

I'm sorry, but Chinese (the modern culture, not the race) are horrible people. Flame me all you want. I know first generation Chinese who came over 30-40 years ago who are kind, decent, hardworking people, but the more recent immigrants, who were really brainwashed under communism are mostly self-centred assholes, who would honestly keep eating shark-fin soup if it meant some random person in the third world would be executed for every bowl, because it's a good way to show everyone how rich they are. The Chinese people I know who have been here for over 30 years hate the new generation of Chinese more than anyone else. They represent a perversion of the culture by Mao, who admitted hating Chinese culture and did his best to destroy it.

Obviously this does not apply to all individuals, but the culture as a whole is sick.

I've had sharkfin soup several times, and he's right there isn't much flavor in the fin by itself if you get the expensive one.

the cheaper ones have more fishy type flavor...

the same idea is similar to bird's nest soup. The cheaper ones have a funky gamey little bitter flavor while the more expensive ones are sorta neutral taking on the flavor of the broth and surroundings.


I've only had cheap bird's nest soup cause that is one dish that can reach thousands of dollars in different areas.


The best sharkfin soup I've had was actually in Iceland, but I've also ate Puffins in Iceland also which are a delicacy.

Those are really the only 3 "controversial" items I've ate, but being from south I eat many things people would frown upon.

From baby deer, to gators in the deep south, we'd eat just about anything or at least try it once

Thanks for the promote, I hope he can do it. Such a travesty.

In reply to this comment by Skeeve:
Amazing. I hope he can stop the sale of shark fin soup altogether.
*promote

Amazing. I hope he can stop the sale of shark fin soup altogether.
*promote

>> ^nosro:

This is the same principle used to brake some of the newer roller coasters like Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbN3NU4hIZg. In the roller coaster, the train has the magnet which passes over vertical copper fins that you can see protruding up from the track at the end of the ride.


LOL - even better are the times when it goes backwards. Or simply gets stuck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeOEZqbCjzQ&feature=related

>> ^bareboards2:
Usually having to hit up Google to understand a joke undermines it.... not this time.
>> ^radx:
That's what "Fall Gelb" was all about -- dinner with Sandrine at "Le Chapon Fin" in Bordeaux.



Lol. Usually not getting the joke undermines it

Usually having to hit up Google to understand a joke undermines it.... not this time.


>> ^radx:

That's what "Fall Gelb" was all about -- dinner with Sandrine at "Le Chapon Fin" in Bordeaux.

That's what "Fall Gelb" was all about -- dinner with Sandrine at "Le Chapon Fin" in Bordeaux.