Mouthful

What in the world are you eating?

A tale of two lobsters

17 December 2008 | 0:45 - By Phil Lees

Lobsters on opposite sides of the planet are facing distinctly different fortunes.


It has turned out to be a strange year for lobster species. If you're thinking about eating WA lobster for Christmas, be prepared for a rude shock. In Western Australia, crayfish numbers are predictable. In its larval stage (or puerulus), Western rock lobsters settle into seaweed beds to grow to their larger and tastier size. This behaviour acts as a handy way to predict future numbers of crayfish. Each month, the Department of Fisheries in Western Australia harvests a sample of puerulus from sets of traps. There is a direct correlation between the numbers of puerulus caught and the number of full-size lobster in 3 years time.

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Foie Gras: Rich, buttery cruelty

11 December 2008 | 18:45 - By Phil Lees

Is the debate on the cruelty behind foie gras over?


If you happen to be following the Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World blog (that as a coincidence, I write), you'll notice that the discussion centres entirely on animal cruelty. There is no escaping it and it is always a discussion that interests me insofar as it only occurs on blogs when an aspect of the food processing system is made obvious. Talk about meat as meat and the reaction is muted. Talk about how living animals become meat and the spectre of animal cruelty rises.

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The End of Restaurants

03 December 2008 | 1:05 - By Phil Lees

 In cash-strapped times and with the need to appear frugal, the breakfast meeting supplants the three-martini lunch. Will 2009 hold the end of the restaurant?


The more sober food writers use the end of the year to round up the longer term issues that have already happened. With the spreading economic downturn and the decline in eating out at a corporation's expense, it is a grim time to be opening a restaurant or any other business that relies on discretionary income to survive.

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About this Blog

A blog about what the world eats, when and where it eats it, and why it matters to us all. Only much less ambitious than that sounds and with more excruciating puns.

Phil Lees grew up in rural Victoria, the first generation in his family to not have lived on the farm and thereby not slaughter their own meat.

In 2005 he moved to Cambodia and started the nation’s first food blog, Phnomenon.com, named after the best pun that he has ever made. It turns out that Cambodian food is delicious and unlike the warnings in most guidebooks, is not likely to kill you with any immediacy. Gridskipper called him a “national treasure”. Lonely Planet’s Greater Mekong guide called him “the unofficial pimp of Cambodian cuisine”. The New York Times laughed at a funny hotdog he saw.

Phil makes a mean sausage, a hoppy pale ale, a modest laksa. He owns three barbecues and is in the market for a fourth.

 
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