Removing the Y-bone from a Northern

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20 thoughts on “Removing the Y-bone from a Northern

  1. I’m not up on pike anatomy, but it looked to me like he was removing the epipleural ribs, I’m familar with Y-bones in suckers, minnows, characins, etc. They are in the myosepta and there are often two sets, a dorsal set and a ventral set. The boneless carp and buffalo you get have been run through a device which cuts the fillet vertically and breaks up the Y bones. Then when fried, the bones crisp up and can be eaten. I had a student do a class project clearing and staining suckers. There is a great deal of variability and compexity in sucker Y bones. I showed the results to several sucker people. They were impressed but nothing came of it.

  2. Finally found a diagram of the pike skeleton. Looks to me like the mentioned Y-bones are double headed epipleural ribs. I didn’t know pike had those. What I was thinking of as Y bones can be found by googling Carp intermuscular bones, for example. All very interesting. Learn something new every day!

  3. A Minnesota classic is to have northern fillets rolled in cracker crumbs and cooked in bacon grease.It don’t get no better than that, ya betcha!

  4. First, that’s not a northern…it’s affectionally known as a hammer-handle. These minor notherns are also known as dwarfus northernus where I come from which is just south of Virginia, MN down the dirt road from Cotton.Second, I can save everybody that final y-bone step: simply stream or poach the dwarfus for 6-10 minutes and the y-bones becomes easy to see and extricate with just a common fork (forget that electric thing, you could get hurt…that dude must be from Wisconsin.) Dip the remaining fish in a little garlic seasoned melted butter or margarine, serve with red potatoes, fresh green beans and fresh picked Minnesota wild blueberries and you’ll then have a real Minnesota fish dinner.

  5. Yup, does sound a bit Canadian, eh?But what’s this biz with the electric knife? Come ON, already. I’m all for MORE POWER!!!!!! but that’s about a half mile past redonkulous.

  6. Is it my imagination, or does the Minnesotan accent sound similar to a Canadian accent?I don’t know where Jason is from, but he works in the vicinity of my lake, mainly on Leech. Very few Minnesotans would agree that a Minnesotan and a Canadian accent are similar, but they are. I personally believe that the linkage has to do with the introduction of a northern Native American lilt and possibly Arcadian French. Growing up in upstate New York, I knew this accent as Mohawk. Living for a year in Wisconsin, I realized it was a more widespread Native American accent and noticed the link to English-speaking Canadians. Then I moved to Minnesota and it all made sense.Minnesotans are in denial of their French heritage. Don’t even mention this to a Minnesotan. In fact, I’ve set this comment up on my blog so that it cannot be read from any Minnesotan localities.By the way, the Ontario Out is a real OOOT while the Minnesotan Out is a round O, but similar.

  7. I think the reason we Minnesotans don’t hear the similarities is that we’ve known both accents for so long that we hear the differences instead. It’s like knowing that the people who live in the mostly German-settled areas of the state don’t sound like those from the Norwegian-settled areas. To an outsider like Greg, they all sound very similar. I can tell you whether someone grew up around Princeton or Fairmont.And I don’t deny my French heritage. I am rather miffed at my French great-…-great grandfathers for caving to the idea that my great-…-great grandmothers’ names couldn’t be recorded in the family bible because they were heathens. I’d like to know who they are, since there are huge swaths of Canada they could have come from.

  8. It is true that I can’t tell regions in Minnesota (yet in Boston I can tell Medford from Revere!)When I first moved here, I was lucky to gain a wonderful and close friend (who happens to also be named Stephanie) who taught me a great deal about Minnesota and especially Minneapolis. She had (has, actually) certain mannerisms that of course I found endearing, and thought were her own. Some of them wore, of course.Then many years later I met my wife (well, she was not my wife when I met her, of course) and found that she had some of the same mannerisms. Then I noticed her sister had similar mannerisms. Then I realized that Stephanie and Amanda grew up in the same exact sub-suburb. Aha! Yes, it’s true, Plymouth girls have a certain thing going, probably passed on from generation to generation.

  9. The dialect is called wither Upper Midwestern or North Central American. As a MN native who has also lived in both the LP and UP of MI, I can speak both my native dialect and the Inland Northern American dialect which also covers upstate NY as Greg mentions above and is defined by the northern cities vowel shift.See http://www.pbs.org/speak/ about the PBS program “Do You Speak American?” for more info on this accent.Sorry, I was just teaching a unit on this in my grammar class.

  10. I’m not sure about the generation-to-generation bit. Plymouth is awfully young as communities go. But I do know that there are several phrases (and probably mannerisms, but I notice language more) common among people who went to my high school that can be traced back to a particular story or very clearly mock a particular teacher. Don’t underestimate peer-to-peer transmission.

  11. Stephanie: Actually, I was joking about the generational thing, imagining the distanct ancestors of the present plymouthians living in mat huts during the summer and underground houses in the winter and such. But it was kind of a private joke…Plymouth actually does have euro settlement back in the mid-19th century, but almost everyone who lives there is either a displaced TC resident (often from NE Minneapolis) or a recent immigrant to the region.What high school?

  12. Stillwater. The stuff I was talking about is mostly localized in the geek communities in the school–science and drama. Well, it was. Chances are good it didn’t outlast the teachers and the youngest siblings of the kids who featured in the stories. Teens are pretty good about wanting their myths to relate to them directly.

  13. Not as a family. I think I went to school with one, since the name is ringing bells, but the school was huge, it was long ago, I left the area as soon as possible, and I spent much of my time in school in a couple of nests I built for myself. I expect my upcoming reunion to be rather odd. I don’t know that I’d go if it weren’t an excuse to get an old friend or two back in town to really catch up.

  14. Whoa, Jeeez, you guys sure do go on about his accent. I didn’t even hear one there, ok? Maybe you need to sit down for a cup a coffee; well, of course, only if the pot is already made up there.This guy is pretty darn good at this. I learned from an Indian guide while I was up north, but my guy used one of them electric fillet knives for everything.When this guy says, “We’ll do ‘er one more time,” and, “This one ain’t goin’ quite as well” He really made my day!I wish I’d a seen this video a long time ago. It woulda saved me lotsa time in the cleaning shack.Oh, yeah, as I was saying, you guys and gals need to lighten up on his accent over there.

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