Bahraini Fish Knife?

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DitmasPork

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I stumbled across this video from a fish market in Bahrain, and I'm intrigued by the knife being used. Looks like a very specialized knife for cutting steaks from round bodied fish.

Does anyone know what that type of knife is called? I'm not particularly interested in getting one, but think it looks kinda cool—liked how he used the tip to gut the fish without slicing down the belly. Always been interested in unusual cooks tools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7tgD1r9GCc
 
the way he prepares fish is putrid gutting it and cutting on the blood with a bloody knife.
 
Never mind the blood, blood is sterile, it's the fish crap I'd be worried about. He's just grabbing the organs at the neck and pulling. He must be leaving half the internal organs in the body cavity the way he does that (and there's no way to know how much was left inside). Pulling a torn intestinal tract through the body cavity must be leaving a pool of contamination inside, which he doesn't rinse out, and then cuts through with the knife, which transfers it into the meat. There's a reason they open the belly to gut the fish pretty much everywhere else in the world.
 
Looks like he should stick to cutting carpet with that thing.
 
Never mind the blood, blood is sterile, it's the fish crap I'd be worried about. He's just grabbing the organs at the neck and pulling. He must be leaving half the internal organs in the body cavity the way he does that (and there's no way to know how much was left inside). Pulling a torn intestinal tract through the body cavity must be leaving a pool of contamination inside, which he doesn't rinse out, and then cuts through with the knife, which transfers it into the meat. There's a reason they open the belly to gut the fish pretty much everywhere else in the world.

I suppose that's the reason why I was never taught to clean fish that way.

Here's another unorthodox tool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNAke8aYTyY
 
I always like watching real pros at work and how smoothly they seem to move. There are a world of radically different knives out there doing basically the same job in the markets. People that are fussy about sanitation should probably stick to the western countries because you aren't going to like what you see in most Asian and third world butcher and fish monger stalls. But then these are some of the most populated spots on the globe so it must not be killing off many of them.
 
i think it's interesting to see how someone else fillets a fish with interesting equipment. i'm sticking to my deba.
 
I always like watching real pros at work and how smoothly they seem to move. There are a world of radically different knives out there doing basically the same job in the markets. People that are fussy about sanitation should probably stick to the western countries because you aren't going to like what you see in most Asian and third world butcher and fish monger stalls. But then these are some of the most populated spots on the globe so it must not be killing off many of them.

You make a good point. Made me think of my first trip to a non-European country, which was to Marrakech, where I had some of the best food of my life at the Jemaa el-Fnaa Square food stalls at night—the food handling practices would have freaked out my wife. That food experience really opened my eyes with regards to cooking.
 
I have some photos of a old lady fish monger in Chiang Mai Thailand selling live "snakehead" fish out of a falling down shanty. Everything in it is coated with about an inch thick layer of scales, blood and fish slime. I doubt she cleaned her cutting blocks more than once every week or two. But I made a curry out of a fish I bought off her later that day and I'm still here. :)
 
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