Fudgie the Whale

...sorry Greenpeace!

The late Tom Carvel had a great ice cream cake called, "Fudgie the Whale". It was great. Not only was it great tasting ice cream, the commercials for this product still resonate in the recesses of my mind. So with setup in your mind, let me tell you that I went to Asakusa the other day. It is pronounced like "Ah-sox-ah" but you can say it any way you like. Wandering around in this part of Tokyo, I happened across a small shop that had a giant poster of a giant whale. It wasn't Fudgie, but a real whale. Upon closer inspection, the store wasn't selling posters but whale meat! I looked at the frozen section of the store and the food - can I say it is food ?? - and it looked a little bit like beef. I was not heading straight for home, so I passed on the frozen whale. But there where cans of whale meat!

I bought a can and had it for dinner tonight. The whale meat was cooked in some kind of a stew; there was plenty of sauce in the can. It tasted pretty good! There was a kind of sweetness that was reminiscent of certain kinds of sea food that was very pleasant. I don't know how much the sauce contributed to the flavor, but I will have to return to pick up something up from the frozen food section of the store! Now, I wonder if the Japanese have something similar to "Cookie Puss"...

P.S. If you read the wikipedia entry for Tom Carvel, you will know that some people believe that Tom met an untimely death. I don't know if anyone looked at the Greenpeace angle, but that is where I would start.

UPDATE: I can't believe it! Fudgie the Whale is on myspace ! He is a self proclaimed spokeswhale. This beats anything I could write. It's actually depressing to know that a fake whale can write a better blog entry than me. (Checkout Fudgie vs. Elevator for example.)