A week and a half ago, a good friend of mine served me a delicious meal: Whale Steak.

I realize this is a controversial meal to eat, and it is currently (to my knowledge) illegal outside Norway, Japan or Iceland. However, there is a lot to be said about this ban, as I will detail a bit further down.

First - how to prepare a decent meal if you can get hold of this fine, red meat: I translate one reciepe from Norwegian whale meat cooking website hvalbiff.no

Whale steak with herbs

Ingredients (for 4 persons)

ca. 600 g whale beef in thin slices
1 1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
8-10 soup spoons finely chopped herbs (various)
butter (for the frying)
caviar (for decoration)
fried potatoes
green salad, small tomatoes

How to prepare

1) Mix pepper, salt and herbs and marinate the slices of meat in this mix just before frying

2) Fry the slices in butter in the pan; approximately 1 minute on each side

Decorate with caviar, serve with fried potatoes and salad.

(Source & picture: Hvalbiff.no: Urtehval)

So why don't I feel guilty eating this?

A lot has been said about commercial and scientific whaling, and much of it can be summarized like this:

A parable tells of three blind men confronted by an elephant. One touches the leg, and concludes the elephant is built like a tree. The next grasps the trunk and believes the elephant to be a giant snake. The third strokes the side, and describes a solid wall.
A parallel exists here with the controversy over commercial whaling. No matter how long or hard proponents and opponents debate the subject, they never seem to be looking at the same animal.
There are, of course, several aspects which have to be brought into perspective - ethical, cultural, scientific and political - and objectivity is inevitably compromised by one's order of priorities.
It is also in the nature of believers in causes to practice selective myopia, intentionally or otherwise seeing only those "facts" which support their particular foregone conclusions.
(Source: The Facts, "Facts" and Fiction of Scientific Whaling)

The International Whaling Commission estimates that there are more than 100,000 Minke Whales in the North Atlantic. Norway has a hunting quote of approximately 500, defined according to the most strickt criteria the Revised Management Scheme.

More information:

• International Whaling Commission
  
• The Observer: 'You eat cows and pigs, so why can't we eat whales?'
  
• Dmoz: Pro-whaling
  
• More whale recipes from google

(PS - yes - I know - I post this to provoke a discussion... Write a comment below! ;-)

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