Open the bar
Opening the sea is a big event for the lives of Qingdao citizens. Rich in seafood, it is a symbol of Qingdao's vivid and fragrant city. It is hard to imagine how lonely it should be for a citizen's table to be absent from seafood.
Fried small yellow flowers, spicy fried clams, garlic scallops... Seafood, which is integrated into daily life, is also one of the elements that make up Qingdao's cheerful urban character. Taste seafood, know Qingdao. What kind of incubation and baptism has seafood experienced before it gradually becomes rich and "swims" on the citizens' table? Starting from today, this reporter will take you to count the past and present lives of several common seafood in Qingdao.
Speaking of Qingdao, you can't help but mention clams. Walking in the streets, the slogan "Eat clam beer" in front of the restaurant can be seen everywhere. But do you know how baby clams grew up little by little and walked onto the public's table?
It turns out that the earliest baby clams were plankton, small white dots suspended in the water layer with the flow of water, the individual is very small, just can be distinguished with the naked eye, only under the microscope can see its body structure. At this time, baby clams are called "clam seedlings" by farmers, and they like the water quality and water temperature in the south.
Fertilized eggs of a microscopic clam.
Seedlings in the planktonic stage under the microscope.
Every year in November, farmers in the south start sowing clam seedlings. In the seedling breeding base, the baby clams are carefully cared for, and in about 10 to 15 days, they grow new shells and begin to crawl into life. At this time, the baby clams are small and thin- shelled, until they grow into the size of rice grains, the body color is still transparent or white, called "white seedlings" by farmers, and more than 100,000 clam seedlings weigh only one pound. The general harvest period of white seedlings is from December to January of the following year, and the clam seedlings mixed with sediment are cleaned and separated by the on-board machine, and then bagged and transported to farmers in Guangxi, southern Fujian and Fujian coasts for tidal flat culture.
Every year in November, farmers in the south start sowing such clam seedlings.
After the baby clams stay in the comfortable growth environment of Guangxi, southern Fujian and Fujian coastal areas until March and April, their body shape slowly becomes larger, and the size is close to that of rice grains, 3000-5000 clams weigh a pound, and the shell also changes from thin to thick, from white to gray, known as "gray seedlings", also known as "middle seedlings". Seedlings can be transported to Shandong, Jiangsu and other northern regions for breeding, Hongdao clam seedlings are mostly from Putian, Fujian, and the clam seedlings bought back are sprinkled by farmers into the mudflats of Hongdao, only to grow up.
Clam seedlings in June and July.
Clams in September-October.
After a year of growth, the gray seedlings turned into juvenile clams. Clams that have grown for a year are called "new life", the meat is delicious, the skin is thin and fat, and the clams weigh about 180-200 pounds. Clams that have grown for two years are called "old students", the individual is large, and a pound can only be called 40-60 grains, at this time the clam skin is thicker, the meat is fatter, and the taste is delicious. When catching clams, farmers use so-called "old cattle nets" to fish clams off the beach and wash them with their own mud to separate the fleshless clam skins.
It is understood that with the gradual increase in the demand for clams, Qingdao's naturally grown clam seedlings can not meet the production needs, and every year there are farmers who buy clam seedlings in large quantities from the south and other places and transport them back to the region for stocking and breeding. Fujian Putian is China's clam seedling base, 90% of the country's clam seedlings are from Putian, only because of the growth water quality, beach environment is different, the clams that are transported to various places have different sizes and edible tastes. Hongdao is located in the northeast of Jiaozhou Bay, the beach area is vast, the land source runoff brings rich nutrients, coupled with the excellent water quality of the surrounding sea, the clam shell raised is thin and fresh, very delicious. (Qingdao Daily/Qingdao Guan/Qingdao Daily reporter Yu Ruixin Data photo provided by Shandong Institute of Marine Biology)