{"id":15205,"date":"2021-09-15T09:28:19","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T13:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/?p=15205"},"modified":"2021-09-23T08:37:54","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T12:37:54","slug":"it-knows-it-when-it-sees-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/?p=15205","title":{"rendered":"It Knows It When It Sees It"},"content":{"rendered":"

A long time ago, in a century far, far away (or so it seems), there was an enduring earworm of a hit song entitled “Shrimp Boats Is A-Comin'” popularized in 1951 by singer Jo Stafford. (If you’re under 60 years of age, you can hear it here.<\/a>) So being of a certain age and a lover of wordplay, the original title for Monday’s post about shrimp balls was, of course, “Shrimp Balls Is A-Comin’.”<\/p>\n

Quite by coincidence, a couple of days before it went up, my webhost had dispatched a routine missive to their clients indicating that they had upgraded some underlying code and suggesting that we have a look at our sites to ensure that all was well. A healthy round of clicking revealed no anomalies, so I thought nothing of it.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, I published the shrimp balls piece, apparently without incident, but although it looked just fine online, none of my subscribers had received the customary notification that a new post had dropped; everything else about it, text, photos, internal links and the like, worked as anticipated. I tried a repost. Nothing. I assumed that it might have something to do with the under-the-hood tinkering (perhaps involving the outgoing email system?) that had recently taken place, so armed with a steaming mug of coffee and prepared to spend the day staring at my computer screen while listening to music on hold, I called my webhost.<\/p>\n

I’ll spare you the details because I’m certain that you’ve all been victims of Customer Support Abuse: scripted questions like, “Are you sure your computer is plugged in?” “Is the caps lock key engaged?” “Have you tried wiping it down with a soft cloth?” and finally, “All right then, I’ll escalate you to Technical Support…” [of course, I had already pressed 3 when I called initially] “…and when [WHEN?]<\/em> we get disconnected, call us back. Please hold.” \ud83c\udfb6\ud83c\udfb6\ud83c\udfb6….<\/p>\n

Mercifully, I was connected to someone who knew the difference between a plug and a jack, and we unearthed the answer: their mail server’s oblivious algorithm had dutifully flagged the title of the post as porn and refused to distribute the message! So to verify, while Tech Support was standing by, I hastily substituted the rather insipid but assuredly safe title “Another Chinese Snack”, reposted it, and Bob’s your uncle, the announcements were dispatched.<\/p>\n

Clearly, algorithms are not programmed to include a sense of humor.
\n 
\n 
\nWhat follows is the post “Shrimp Balls Is A-Comin'” as it originally appeared; only the name has been changed to – ostensibly – protect the innocent.<\/p>\n

Although in retrospect, I think the backstory is more likely to grab you. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\n

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)<\/em>
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nThe Japanese inscription \u30a8\u30d3\u306e\u30dc\u30fc\u30eb reads ebi no b\u014dru,<\/em> shrimp balls, although it\u2019s a Chinese product; the package shows a serving suggestion so don\u2019t expect to find the sesame\/cumin seeds or sprinkles of seasoning depicted in the photo. They bear some resemblance to the fish balls I wrote about in my post Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of\u2026Fish?<\/em><\/a> (a particularly popular post among spammers, BTW – IDKW \ud83d\ude09) but rather than being something fished out of the freezer case destined for a soup pot or the like, these are a packaged item destined for snackin\u2019 right out of the bag.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIndividually wrapped as so many of these snacks are.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe inner workings. They\u2019re moist, about 1\u00bd inches in diameter, and actually pretty tasty; seems like there\u2019s something more shrimp-related in there beyond what I\u2019m guessing is mostly surimi masquerading as a higher form of seafood – plus the tiniest bit of spice. They have enough flavor on their own that I wouldn\u2019t try to repurpose them into some loftier culinary creation; they might be more at home toothpicked with others of their ilk on a party platter.<\/p>\n

 
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some part of today’s post might look familiar to you. But it’s really about the backstory. Read on…. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-15205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snacks","category-stories","tag-chinese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15205"}],"version-history":[{"count":106,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15358,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15205\/revisions\/15358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}