On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 375

crustaceans, the hepatopancreas (p 219) The “tongues” of cod and carp are actually throat muscles and associated connective tissue that softens with long cooking Fish heads can be 20% fatty material and are stuffed and slowcooked until the bones soften And then there are “sounds,” or swim bladders, balloons of connective tissue that such fish as cod, carp, catfish, and sturgeon fill with air to adjust their buoyancy In Asia, fish sounds are dried, fried until they puff up, and slowly cooked in a savory sauce Fish Muscle and its Delicate Texture Fish have a more delicate texture than the flesh of our land animals The reasons for this are the layered structure of fish muscle, and the sparseness and weakness of fish connective tissue Muscle Structure In land animals, individual muscles and muscle fibers can be quite long, on the order of several inches, and the muscles taper down at the ends into a tough tendon that connects them to bone In fish, by contrast, muscle fibers are arranged in sheets a fraction of an inch thick (“myotomes”), and each short fiber merges into very thin layers of connective tissue (“myosepta”), which are a loose mesh of collagen fibers that run from the backbone to the skin The muscle sheets are folded and nested in complex W-like shapes that apparently orient the fibers for greatest efficiency of force transmission to the backbone There are about 50 muscle sheets or “flakes” along the length of a cod Connective Tissue Fish connective tissue is weak because its collagen contains less structure-reinforcing amino acids than beef collagen does, and because the muscle tissue also serves as an energy store that’s repeatedly built up and broken down, whereas ...muscles and muscle fibers can be quite long, on the order of several inches, and the muscles taper down at the ends into a tough tendon that connects them to bone In fish, by contrast, muscle... a fraction of an inch thick (? ??myotomes”), and each short fiber merges into very thin layers of connective tissue (? ??myosepta”), which are a loose mesh of collagen fibers that run from the backbone... backbone to the skin The muscle sheets are folded and nested in complex W-like shapes that apparently orient the fibers for greatest efficiency of force transmission to the backbone There are about