The world is queerer than I can imagine

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  • 14/05/2020

    Katherine Rundell writes in the LRB about the Greenland shark. I learn that these beasts who inhabit the cold deeps can live for up to 600 years. Not surprisingly, they run their lives — and their metabolism — slow: moving at 1-2mph, and only requiring the equivalent of a biscuit or two to keep a 200kg beast turning over for a day. If you wish to choose between a biscuit and the shark flesh, go for the familiar. Their fins smell of pee and the urea in their flesh is poisonous to humans. Seemingly, you have to bury the meat for months, allowing it to ferment, before hanging it out for yet several more months. She writes that for some it is a delicacy, for others an abomination. I don’t need persuading.