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Not that much has been written about the lesser-known non-fish roemakers. I\u2019ve learned that crab roe is an essential ingredient in Chinese She-Crab Soup and that since Shrimp roe is carried externally by shrimp, it is often served that way to diners, who ask their servers, \u201cWhat are all these black specks on my shrimp?\u201d They are then assured that the roe makes the shrimp even more flavorful. Scallop roe is loved in France but is discarded in the U.S, because the scallops harvested here are not as flavorful. So far, the only use I\u2019ve found for it is to enhance the flavor of the scallops themselves in various recipes.<\/p>\n
And squid roe, or \u201csquid babies\u201d is a delicacy served in Thailand and Malaysia and seemingly nowhere else. Blogger Claire Handleman writes, \u201cSquid roe is like the veal of the sea. The sacs of eggs are creamy and tender, never developing into snappy adults with the characteristic rubber band texture (if cooked improperly). Whether pan fried or grilled, squid roe is rich and buttery, and more delicious than a fully realized squid.\u201d [Handleman, online.]<\/p>\n
We know about cuttlefish roe because of blogger Sean Chen and his \u201cWay of Eating\u201d Chinese blog. \u201cCuttlefish roe is very tasty but also rather difficult to prepare,\u201d he writes. \u201cOne needs to thoroughly boil it using river water to remove any sand and rid it of its stench. After that it must be simmered with chicken broth and mushrooms until tender. This is all well and good, Sean, but where can we buy it? [Chen, online.]<\/p>\n
And we know a lot more about sea urchin roe than the roe of all the other non-fish roe-makers. Why? Because its probably the most important roe of all in world cuisines, including caviar. But why is this creature called a Sea Urchin? We consulted with The Word Detective to find out.<\/p>\n
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\u201cUrchin\u201d first appeared in English in the late 13th century with the spelling \u201circhin\u201d (followed shortly thereafter by \u201churcheon\u201d and other variants).\u00a0 The word had been filtered through several other European languages, but the root of all the forms was the Latin \u201cericius,\u201d which meant \u201chedgehog.\u201d They are small, spiny mammals covered with quills, which they use to defend themselves when threatened by rolling themselves into a tight ball so the quills point outward. The first use of \u201curchin\u201d in English was to mean, logically, \u201chedgehog,\u201d but soon the word was also applied to people with \u201cprickly\u201d personalities. Those spiny sea urchins have been so called since the early 17th century.\u00a0 The use of \u201curchin\u201d to mean \u201csmall child\u201d or \u201cinfant\u201d appeared in the 16th century, but it wasn\u2019t until the 18th century that our modern sense of \u201cpoor street child\u201d became the dominant usage. <\/em>[Morris, Evan and Kathy Wollard. \u201cUrchin.\u201d The Word Detective, online.]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The reproductive organs of both male and female sea urchins, usually called sea urchin roe or corals, are culinary delicacies in many parts of the world. Jane Zatylny, an editor and writer based in Victoria, British Columbia described her first experience with sea urchin roe: \u201cI sat at a sushi bar in San Francisco, California, staring at the chef\u2019s display of tuna, salmon, red snapper, scallops, and eel, when something unfamiliar caught my eye: a wooden box filled with what looked like small, yellow-orange fillets. \u201cWhat are they?\u201d I asked the chef. \u201cUni<\/em>,\u201d he replied, using the Japanese name for sea urchin meat. \u201cTry one. They\u2019re really special.\u201d A few minutes later, he placed a piece of nigiri topped with urchin flesh in front of me and watched me take a cautious bite. I adored that first hit of brine on my tongue, followed by the uni\u2019s rich, sweet taste. And that was it; I was hooked on urchin before I even realized I was eating its reproductive organs.\u201d [Zatylny, online.]<\/p>\n Zatylny notes that green urchins are known for their small, sweet-tasting gonads, while giant red sea urchins offer larger, firmer meat. \u201cThere\u2019s no crystal ball to tell chefs how good the gonads are in any given shipment,\u201d she writes. \u201cJust as terroir<\/em> imparts a signature flavor to wines, gonad quality depends on a variety of factors, including \u2018merroir,\u2019 the watery environment where sea urchins mature. And just like wine, the only true way to test quality and flavor is to open a sea urchin and taste it.\u201d [Ibid.]<\/p>\n And that\u2019s precisely what Euell Gibbons, America\u2019s foremost forager, did back in 1964. He writes in Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop<\/em>, \u201cThe Sea Urchin has no flesh that I can discover, so only the roe, or gonads, are eaten, and they taste even more delicious and delicate than the finest caviar.\u201d He passed the urchin eggs through a sieve to remove the membrane of the egg sacs, then whipped the strained roe with a power hand mixer and the roe became thick and spreadable and turned a lemon-yellow color. \u201cEaten on small, round crackers or bits of toasted French bread,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthis Urchin butter will make caviar taste like very common fodder.\u201d And Gibbons suggested another reason to eat urchin eggs, \u201ctheir great reputation as an aphrodisiac.\u201d But he goes on to note that the roe works no better than any other reputed aphrodisiac, and that\u2019s not at all. He intimates that instead of performing in the bedroom, \u201cIts joys are those of the dining room.\u201d [Gibbons, 130, 134.]<\/p>\n Sea urchin roe has many uses throughout the world. In Mediterranean cuisines, it is often eaten raw, or with lemon and is sometimes used in pasta sauces. It can also flavor omelettes, scrambled eggs, fish soup, mayonnaise, b\u00e9chamel sauce, or Hollandaise sauce. In Chile, it is served raw with lemon, onions, and olive oil. In Japan, sea urchin is known as uni<\/em>, and its roe can retail for as much as $360 per kilo. It is served raw as sashimi or in sushi, with soy sauce and wasabi. Japan imports large quantities from the United States, South Korea, and other producers. Japanese demand for sea urchins has raised concerns about overfishing. In 2015, sea urchins were harvested in six states: Florida (27 metric tons), Washington (326 mt), Oregon (203 mt), California (3,677 mt), Maine (805 mt), and Massachusetts (23 mt). [Sonu, Sunee C. \u201cSea urchin supply, demand, and market of Japan,\u201d online; Anon. \u201cSea Urchin,\u201d online. ]<\/p>\n Jane Zatylny states, \u201cThe Japanese have by far the biggest appetites for sea urchins, consuming 80 to 90 percent of global supply. The country\u2019s annual demand has been estimated at about 50,000 metric tons, but due to declines in its own fishery, only about 8,000 to 10,000 tonnes are caught domestically.\u201d [Anon. \u201cSea Urchin.\u201d Online; Zatylny, Jane. \u201cSearchin\u2019 for Urchin,\u201d online]<\/p>\n However, the figure of 50,000 metric tons appears to be an exaggeration. Data from NOAA indicates that \u201cIn 2016, Japan imported about 11,000 metric tons (mt) of live sea urchins and sea urchin roe valued at about 183 million dollars, an increase of more than six-fold in volume and 9-fold in value from 1975.\u201d If this figure is added to Japan\u2019s typical domestic production of 10,000 metric tones, then Japan\u2019s demand is less than half of the 50,000 metric ton estimate. Still, the production of sea urchin roe appears to be the largest roe industry in the world, far surpassing that of caviar, which in 2017 amounted to approximately a mere 364 tons. [Sonu, Sunee C. \u201cSea urchin supply, demand, and market of Japan,\u201d online; Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, \u201cThe caviar market,\u201d online.]<\/p>\n An excerpt from the forthcoming book, The Seafood Harvest: A Culinary History<\/i>, by Dave DeWitt and Michael Cimarusti.<\/p>\n Not that much has been written about the lesser-known non-fish roemakers. I\u2019ve learned that crab roe is an essential ingredient in Chinese She-Crab Soup and that since Shrimp roe is carried externally by shrimp, it is often served that way to diners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49],"tags":[100,240,239,89],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6539"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6543,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6539\/revisions\/6543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafood-harvest.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\nUrchin Photo by Anna Tis<\/a><\/strong> from Pexels<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"