#我来唠家常#
▲Sea urchin. Photo/Visual China
-The Legend of the Gentleman of Things-
Why does sea urchin look like this? Why is it so delicious?
▲ The article is reprinted from China National Geographic BOOK, ID: CNGBOOK360
"Ass to the sky"
Don't look at the sea urchin as a ball, it also has positive and negative sides. The side that is close to the ground is called the "mouth side" because the mouth is long on this side. The sky-high side, called the "reverse side", is actually its "ass".
▲Sea urchin group. Photo/Visual China
Many people love to eat sea urchins, but few people have seen sea urchins eat. Because its mouth is under the body, it is out of sight. But if you open its shell, an ingenious chewing organ is revealed. It is made up of dozens of small bones, which are very mechanical, like a delicate lantern.
▲ Schematic diagram of the structure of the orthogonal sea urchin. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle described its structure in the Zoology, so this part has a particularly interesting name: "Aristotle lantern", which is also taxonomically referred to as "lantern". The lantern has 5 teeth connected to it, and the teeth are usually exposed, so you can chew food, and if you are too strong to eat, the lantern will also stick out.
▲The middle part is the Aristotelian lantern. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
When you open the sea urchin, it is full of yellow, which is its gonad, which has the functions of reproduction and storing nutrients. It is rich in protein, polysaccharides and high unsaturated fatty acids, and is very fat.
The yellow color of sea urchin is tongue-shaped, and it is sweet and smooth in the mouth, and it is known as the most delicious "tongue" in the world. Some people say that this touch is comparable to a "fragrant French tongue kiss".
▲ Steamed sea urchin. Photo: Aomori Agri-Forest-Fisheries Department
You don't have to pick and choose sea urchins like crabs, just buy them directly, all of them are yellow. As for the difference between male and female yellow, it is said that male yellow is light, female yellow is dark, male yellow is more stiff, and female yellow is easy to be paralyzed.
Chinese eat sea urchin, in addition to eating raw, but also popular "sea urchin steamed egg" method, pouring the egg liquid into the sea urchin shell and steaming into egg custard. However, in this way, the faint taste of sea urchin is completely covered by eggs. Sea urchin yellow still has to be eaten raw, and no seasoning can be added to feel the satisfaction of the mixture of fat and flavorful amino acids.
▲ Wandering sea urchins. Photo/Visual China
There are more than 850 kinds of sea urchins, there are seven or eight kinds of ones that are often eaten, the flavors are different, the purple sea urchin is light, the red sea urchin is rich, and it is also distinguished by the season, there is the saying of "winter yellow and summer purple", it is suitable to eat yellow sea urchin in winter, and it is suitable to eat purple in summer.
The more common type of sea urchin used for eating is called horse dung sea urchin. This is not an insulting nickname, its official Chinese name is horse dung sea urchin. It owes itself to its name: it is the same size and size as horse manure, and the spines are green, short, and jumbled, like undigested grass stalks in horse manure. I look like this, and I can't complain about others.
▲Horse dung sea urchin. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
Don't look at its name as indescribable, the taste is very delicious, and the yellow is very full. Open a horse dung sea urchin, yellow in the body arranged into a five-pointed star, the color orange and yellow bright, the grain is distinct. Whether it is made into sushi or rice bowls, it is thick and luscious, compared to the hard-won yellow in the hard shell of the crab, this whole "tongue" goes down to the stomach, making people shout "enjoyable!"
▲ Qingdao farmers take advantage of the low tide to pick up sea urchins to prevent sea urchins from devouring marine plants and damaging sea cucumbers and abalone. Photo/Visual China
Sea urchins have different feeding habits. Like horse dung and sea urchins, they love to eat kelp. In the past, people who raised kelp had a headache with sea urchins, and they would get rid of them when they saw them. Unexpectedly, later sea urchin became a more sought-after seafood, and everyone began to specialize in raising sea urchins again. The newly hatched larvae do not look like sea urchins at all, floating in the water. After raising it in the tank to look like a small thorn ball, it is released to the shallow sea to free-range. Farmers dig several large ditches in the shallow sea, so that the walls of the ditches are covered with kelp for sea urchins to eat. Feng Shui takes turns, and the kelp is transformed from a protected baby into feed.
The positive ones can be eaten, but the crooked ones cannot
Edible sea urchins, both male and female, have five gonads, and their anuses grow in the center of the mouth, that is, their mouths are facing the ground and their "buttocks" are facing the sky. The common sea urchins are all orthogonal sea urchins, which are of course very "positive", they are very regular oblate spherical shapes, and the body is radially symmetrical in the shape of a pentagram.
▲Sea urchin. Photo: Aomori Agri-Forest-Fisheries Department
Find a sea urchin shell with all the thorns gone, and hold it against the light, and a five-petal "flower" will appear on the sea urchin shell. These five lobes are called "step belt area", which are composed of hollow holes that can transmit light.
When the sea urchin is alive, it has soft tubular feet sticking out of the hole, allowing it to walk, climb, and grasp food. The opaque area between the step zone area is called the "interstep zone area", which is all tumor protrusions, and hard spines grow on these tumor protrusions. This radial symmetry is the same as that of its relative starfish.
▲Looking at the sea urchin against the light, the "petal" part of the light transmission is the step band area, and the part between the "petals" is the interstep band area. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
I have to say that sea urchin is a very interesting special case: generally for seafood, inland people only know what it looks like after death, but not when it is alive, while sea urchins, inland people know what it looks like when they are alive, and they really stuff a thornless sea urchin shell into them, and many people don't know it.
The empty shell of the sea urchin that has been pierced off reveals a variety of colors and textures, which is actually a very good natural collection, so you can keep an eye out for it when you go to the beach.
▲ The empty shell of the sea urchin that pierced off the light is a very good collection. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
There are about 850 species of sea urchins in the world, but most of them are inedible. These sea urchins have 2~4 gonads, which are too small for anyone to eat, and are also called "crooked sea urchins".
As for the "crooked sea urchin", it is naturally crooked. Their mouth is not in the center of their body, and their shell is not very round, but often flat, with short, dense spines. After they die, the thorns fall off clean, and the shell is like a white cookie lying on the sand, with a distinct five-petaled "flower" on their back, which is their walking zone.
▲ There are many flat-shaped members in the crooked sea urchin, and the empty shell is like a coin, so it is called sand money. The picture shows the fossil of a sand coin. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
Crooked sea urchins are not as common as regular sea urchins. As I wrote in "Sea Mistake Diagram Note 2", in 2014, when I went to Hepu, Guangxi Province to inspect the seagrass bed, I walked in the shallow sea water and felt a flat object under my feet. Stand still and wait for the water to clear up, it turns out that there is a crooked sea urchin everywhere on the sand!
▲ Flat spider web sea urchin, a crooked sea urchin. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
"The crooked sea urchin looks like it has spines: it's not so much a thorn as a hair. Each thorn is only 1 millimeter long, and it is covered with a layer on the body, fluffy, not prickly at all, and very cute. Put it down, and it quietly walked with those thorns, sticking to the sand and crawling away, like a robot vacuum......"
This "thorn head" is a bit cowardly
The spines of sea urchins are generally long, making people afraid to touch them. Some sea urchins are poisonous and cannot be touched, and common edible sea urchins are not poisonous, so you can safely hold them in your hands, as long as you don't pinch them hard, you'll be fine.
Although it looks very difficult to mess with, in fact, many sea urchins are more "cowardly" than you, especially non-toxic sea urchins.
▲ Sea urchin. Photo/Visual China
For example, the "Plum Sea Urchin" hides in a hole in the coral reef, which often fits the size of their body, as if it were tailor-made. In fact, the hole was dug by the sea urchins themselves. They start digging from a young age, secreting acid to corrode the calcium carbonate of the reef and burrow with their own thorns. When it grows, the hole is dug.
▲There seems to be light coming out of Mei's long sea urchin, which is actually an illusion caused by body color. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
The long-grown sea urchin has been "staying" in its own hole for almost its entire life, eating food propelled by the sea, and swinging its spurs with satisfaction, which have been worn bald at the tip. It's like a man with a controlled knife on his body, who didn't choose to go rampant in the countryside, but used these knives to dig a cellar and get into it, watch TV, and eat potato chips.....
Another non-poisonous sea urchin is the "white thorn trifid sea urchin". Its thorns are red, black, and white, which is particularly good-looking, and is commonly known as "flower gall". It doesn't shrink all the time, it dares to crawl everywhere. But it will carry a lot of "garbage" on its back, such as seaweed, sand, crushed coral, etc., and from time to time it will also renew the burden on its body.
▲ 白棘三裂海胆。 图/Wikipedia
The reason why the white thorn trifid sea urchin is back to garbage has not yet been determined. Scientists have put forward several hypotheses, such as the theory of defending against predators, the theory of preventing dehydration, the theory of shielding from wind, waves and sediment, and the theory of resisting sunlight radiation.
▲ This sea urchin is not only carrying other garbage, but also carrying an empty shell of the same kind. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
And the poisonous sea urchin is much more "crazy", also in "Sea Mistake Diagram Note 2", I encountered a kind of "thorny crown sea urchin" when I was snorkeling in Koh Lipe, Thailand. Its spines were extremely long, two or three times the size of its body, and stretched out in all directions, as if it was afraid that it would not be able to pierce people. And there are a lot of them, and the dense places can cover the bottom of the sea, and all of them do not hide or hide, and walk on the bottom of the sea in a big way.
▲The arrogant appearance of the thorn-crowned sea urchin. Picture / "Sea Mistake Diagram Notes II"
"It was low tide and the water was shallow, and I floated on the surface of the sea as I skimmed over them. Looking down at them, their stomachs were only a short distance from the dark thorns. Sensing the fluctuations, the sea urchins adjusted their spines and aimed them upwards in unison. It's an amazing feeling. ”
Such a crazy sea urchin is not small in toxicity, and once it is hit, it is like fire. Moreover, there are barbs on the spines of the spiny crown sea urchin, which break in after penetrating the skin, and it is very difficult to pick out, and the more you pick it, the more swollen it becomes. As long as there is no severe allergic reaction, it is best not to pull it out. The local method is to slap the wound with the sole of the shoe, smash the thorn, and then leave it alone, and after a few days, the skin around the thorn will harden, and then the thorn will mysteriously disappear, probably decomposed. As short as a week or as long as a month, the hardened skin will regain its elasticity.