Bob J - It's a common topic - the scallop skate wing thing. Reel Easy is the first person I've heard of who's tried to duplicate this process for the sake of giggles, grins and good eats - and notably not for the purposes of faking someone out at the fish market. I'd say Reel E. deserves garbage fisherman of the month honors for his efforts. I've talked with commercial fishermen who have definately been in the position to see or carry out the counterfeit scallop thing - and nobody has fessed up. With that said - can't imagine a whole lot of people who would admit and risk incriminating a captain or boat owner carrying out a deceitful mission like fake scallop wings. (i love those fake crab sticks but they make no bones about them being fake on the packaging.) With all that said - yeah - most clearnose skate wings wouldn't yield a realistically thick scallop shaped piece of meat - but I have caught skate big enough to accomodate that. Again, it's just trying to pass off skate meat for a scallop, regardless of how it was cut or prepared to look as such, would be like trying to pass off Joy Behar as Angelina Jolie.

As far as skinning them - the fish skinner plier things really do help with the skinning process and we'll have a special cutting board next year to help too.