Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
How many people are eager to sit down to an entrée of slimehead? Or Patagonian toothfish? Or mud crabs? Or oilfish? Or, dare we even bring this up, a sushi delicacy of whore’s eggs?
Not many of us, we would guess. All those seafood entrees sound, to put it mildly, unappetizing. Please pass the peanut butter.
We’d much rather munch on more elegant fare. Give us orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, peekytoe crab, blue cod or Maine sea urchins. Perhaps with a whimsical sea shanty playing softly in the background.
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Except, of course, that the more appealing-sounding entrees are just cleverly rebranded versions of seafood with the names we mentioned up top. It’s a marketing idea that works. With its new description, the one-time throwaway mud crab, er, peekytoe crab, became a culinary celebrity. Similarly, the Patagonian toothfish gained palate popularity when it was reintroduced in 1977 as Chilean sea bass, even though it is not technically a bass. Names do make a difference. A slimehead by any other name tastes a lot better.