I am a native of Muping, Yantai, and grew up by the sea. When I was young, my grandfather opened a tailor shop in Muping Yangma Island, and my mother helped in the shop.
The earliest location of the shop is on the side of the large stone horse sculpture on the island of Yangma Island (now the sculpture has been demolished), push open the window, the bottom of the window is the sea, it can be said that you don't want to go to the beach every day.
Muping Yangma Island
As seaside people, our feelings for the sea are not limited to feeling the cool sea breeze and watching the rough waves, the sea can give us so many things.
I was born in the early 1980s, and when I was six or seven years old, I followed adults to the sea. At that time, the sea was still very rich, and there were many kinds of production.
Now that I think about it, the more exaggerated thing is the sea cucumber. Sea cucumbers probably began to gain value on the tail of the 1980s, and before that, people didn't know the various effects of sea cucumbers, and no one took them seriously.
Now you can sometimes pick up a few sea cucumbers when you go to the sea
Children who touch the sea cucumber in the sea water like to do the most is to pinch it with their hands, bring it out of their stomachs, and throw it away. In our village, sea cucumbers are mostly used to feed ducks, and the eggs laid are rich in color and high in nutrients.
Colleagues in the company and in the field in the past two years talked about this, and although they didn't say it verbally, the look on their faces clearly thought I was bragging. This is not surprising, now wild sea cucumbers are high-grade goods, how can the average person so easily accept the information of such a big gap!
Let's talk about another kind of high-end goods in the sea, crabs. On the yantai seashore, many foreign tourists can often be seen happily turning over stones to catch small crabs, which they call "catching crabs".
Slate crab
This kind of small crab is commonly known as "stone slab crab" on our side, with less hard shell meat, stubble, and the local people rarely take it as a target when they catch the sea. The crabs we caught were real big crabs.
When I was a child, the "Houhai" of Yangma Island could occasionally go to catch the sea, which was not as strict as it is now. The reefs lined with reefs along the seashore are densely covered with a variety of seagrasses and sea vegetables, and sea crabs love to eat seaweed, and the reef bushes are a treasure for catching crabs.
We have reefs here
The way to catch crabs could not be simpler - take a small branch and poke it into the crevice of the reef, and when the crab is angry, it will clamp the branch and hold it, and gently bring up a large crab with a few pairs, sometimes "red beetle", sometimes "flower lid", and it will not take long to get half a bucket.
Flower Lid and Red Beetle Red (the black-red one in the top left)
In 2018, I traveled for three months on a business trip to Yantai Long Island, and when I rested at night, I took a flashlight with my local colleagues to take pictures of crabs, and I was lucky enough to catch two or three pounds at a time, but it was not an order of magnitude before, and I could no longer feel the plump joy of my childhood.
Because my grandfather's shop on Yangma Island was facing the sea outside the window, I would hang out on the beach when I was a child, and I could have a windfall from time to time.
Once, a big fish ran aground on the beach, about the length of my forearm, with a flower and a fat belly. Kicking and kicking, I found that I was not dead, so I hurriedly lifted my tail and showed it to the adults. From the mouth of an adult, I learned for the first time that this two- or three-pound fish is called "straight fish" and needs veteran hands to make and eat it.
Straight fish
As a seaside person, we naturally do not lack "veterans", and in the evening I enjoyed the stewed "straight fish" of fresh white fish soup. When I grew up, I learned that this thing is a pufferfish, which is highly poisonous.
At that time, there was another kind of fish on Yangma Island that impressed me deeply - this fish died as soon as it left the water, and the death was very unbearable, so it got a name called "out of the water rotten".
Rotten fish out of the water
This fish can't be sold for a price, it's all about baskets, rarely by the pound, but the taste of it in memory is very delicious.
My grandfather's hometown is Dou Jia Yan, a town in Haiyang Guo, which is very close to Qixia Tao Village and Town, and belongs to the inland area of Yantai.
At that time, unlike the logistics now, it was not easy to eat seafood inland. There is a local saying that "rotten fish and rotten shrimp, sent to Qixia", which probably means that it is too far from the sea, and fresh fish and shrimp are also smelly.
Because of these reasons, my grandfather's family has some obsessive love for "sea objects", the "sea rainbow" that seaside people don't care about, my grandfather and my mother dry the sea rainbow meat platform by platform, and the sea smell of the yard is very headache.
Haihong is called "mussel", southerners call it "mussel", and now we have ten yuan and three catties here, which is higher than in previous years.
A rainbow plucked by the sea in the development zone
Now there are many sea rainbows near the rainwater pipes on the seashore in Yantai Development Zone, and there are also sea oysters and spicy snails growing with the sea rainbows. I've had a good time picking a lot of scallops.
Wild scallops picked from the sea
There is nothing good to say about sea oysters and scallops, focusing on this "spicy snail".
Spicy snails
The scientific name of the spicy snail is "warty lychee snail", which is found on the reef where sea oysters grow and feeds on shellfish such as barnacles and sea oysters, so some people also call it "sea oyster snail". This kind of snail is not large, two or three centimeters of the largest, the small one is more than one centimeter, the meat is delicious, some with a little bitter and spicy, some will be very sweet, is a good product for wine and bragging.
There is also a kind of snail that we call "sparrow", which is also called sharp smoke and sea cone, which is particularly smeared on the beach in my Muping hometown. When I go back to my hometown, if there is a low tide, I often feel the sea cone under the Muping Xin'an River Bridge with my mother.
Sea cone
Sea cone is a cheap small seafood, the general market will sell for five or six yuan a pound, but the size of the particularly large is more expensive.
There is a kind of seafood that people did not eat in the past, but in recent years it has been served on the table and sold for a high price - it is starfish. This thing is either steamed or roasted, take the middle seed to eat, especially fragrant, but it is said that the cholesterol is extremely high, should not eat more.
starfish
Catch starfish, to find the stone roots, generally when I go to Yangma Island, I encounter more, sometimes windy, in the development zone can also be found by the seaside.
On the coast of the urban area of the development zone is 10,000 meters of golden beaches, and sand clams and water chestnuts can often be touched when chasing the sea.
Sand clams
Sand clams, also known locally as "flying clams" or "fat clams", have a smooth shell with yellow and white patterns, which are fresher than the clams dug up in the mud, and the price is also much more expensive.
water chestnut
Water chestnut (pronounced bi qi), the local name is also called lao niang navel (navel, Yantai native pronunciation biqi), the scientific name of bian yu snail, it is said that the appearance and the southern vegetable water chestnut (also called horseshoe) similar to such a name, I do not know whether it is accurate.
In July 2014, there was a typhoon that rained heavily for a day in the Yantai Development Zone.
The next day the sun was shining brightly and the temperature was hot. When I went to swim in the sea, I stepped on the bottom of the sand and felt that the skin of clams was densely packed under my feet.
After playing for a long time, on a whim, I grabbed a handful of "clam skins" and fished out the water to find that it was all live sand clams and water chestnuts, which should have been blown up along the coast by the wind.
As a seaside person, the random benefits given by the sea are certainly not once and a half times. Another time was in March 2018, at 8:30 in the middle of the night, someone in the circle of friends posted a picture saying that shells were flooded on the beach.
When I look at those "shells", they are "clams", how can there be so many? When the letter was suspicious, I took my wife and children to see the hilarity.
People didn't lie, there are so many clams on the beach that they are everywhere, and it is estimated that it is still a masterpiece of high wind.
Catch the sea in the middle of the night
My harvest
Soon we picked up two buckets full of dozens of pounds, and went home to relatives and friends for a good meal.
At the beginning of this year, the seashore in the development zone came again, probably late in the discovery, and when someone noticed, it had been spoiled by seagulls.
Catching the sea, clams, small fish and shrimp, sea vegetables and other conventional harvests are many. If there is a routine, then naturally there is something that is not a routine, such as a sand silkworm.
Sea earthworms
This thing is also called sea earthworm, which is haunted by the mud and sand on the seabed, and its appearance is more disgusting. It can be used for fishing, and it can also be used to eat - it can be said that it is one of the delicacies in the world after spitting out mud and sand and then using it to scramble eggs.
Catching the sea is similar to fishing, not just for the result, but more about enjoying the happy process. A good life is all around us, life is full of fun at any time, and we must be good at discovering.
Friends in the game
Catching the sea is one of the important leisure of seaside people, and many inland friends are also full of expectations for catching the sea. As early as last year, our friends in the "World of Warcraft" game union expressed their desire to come to Yantai to catch the sea after the epidemic eased, and made many plans, hoping that this year they can successfully make the trip.