IMITATION SEAFOOD
Surimi, those seafood items that look like crab, scallops, etc. but are really mostly white fish fillets, are thought of by most people as some sort of modern high tech imitation products. They go by such names as 'sea legs', imitation crab or imitation shrimp, etc. In reality, this process was developed in Japan almost 1,000 years ago when the Japanese discovered that mincing fish flesh, washing it and then heating it, caused a natural gelling of the flesh. If this was then mixed with other ingredients and steamed, the resulting 'fish cake' (kamaboko) stayed together as though it were a natural product.
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