I will never forget that rainy night for more than twenty years. The first time I set foot on the land of Qingdao, I was helpless in the dim light of a small restaurant in the face of a plate of "sauce and popcorn snails". Curious to order this dish, after serving it, I don't know how to eat it, which is a lifelong shame.
Fig. 1 Sauce stir-fry snails
Empty mouth white teeth to eat "fragrant snail" is not OK, you must use a toothpick into the shell of the snail meat, along the direction of the spiral to transport the internal force, in order to pull the snail out. But how to pick up such an oil-stained snail with oil stains is also very problematic, which is an embarrassment that "old bazi" like me will inevitably encounter. To this day, I still have a grudge against "fragrant snails", and generally do not take the initiative to buy or eat, unless someone asks for it, I have to give a face.
Figure 2 Flat jade snail
"Fragrant snail" is called flat jade snail / Glossaulax didyma, it is indeed very (under) flat, there are north and south coasts, north than south. I said that I was related to this thing, and I saw and knew it in books when I was in elementary school. Most of the conchs included in the book are a bit strange in shape, only the flat jade snail has a flat and round shape, gentle and thick, so I firmly remember this snail, but I did not expect that the first encounter in Qingdao was an unpleasant experience, just as the so-called "life is weak as the first sight" also.
Fig. 3: Slightly yellow-scythe snail
Figure 4 The vast flat jade snail
Snails similar to conchs, as well as yellowish-scythe snails/Polinices fortunei and broad flat snails/Glossaulax reiniana, which I have long confused with "snails". Of course, a closer look is different: the former's shell has the highest conch tower, the top of the shell is sharp, and the shape is more like a field snail, which is very different from the style of the flat jade snail; the shell top of the latter is neither as sharp as the former, nor as flat as the flat jade snail, which is generally between the two. I heard that the taste is slightly different, and some people say that the slight yellow and sickle snail is the best, but I can't tell the difference.
Figure 5 Micro-yellow-sickle jade snail, flat jade snail and large flat jade snail
Fig. 6 Short-legged snail
The bloggers in Figure 5 label the micro-yellow flat jade snail, the flat jade snail and the large flat jade snail as gray wave snail, chambor snail and sand snail, but more people say "chambor snail" has nothing to do with flat jade snail, but refers to the short coast snail / Littorina brevicula, which is very small and often appears densely on the intertidal reef. Although this snail is not proud of its appearance, it is really fragrant, "ordinary people do not know, a knowledge of life", there is nothing to eat and play is still good. Well, I don't eat this, I don't have the patience, and I can't do it no matter how fragrant it is.
Figure 7 Kamin's Eluo
Both the snail and the chambord snail are just colloquial names; when we want to talk about animal and plant species, we still have to follow authoritative standards, even if we don't use Latin names, at least the official names in the zoology, otherwise it will lead to chaos. You say it's a snail, he has to say it's that, what's the point of this argument? If the conch is mentioned on an "academic" occasion, then the flat jade conch must stand on the sidelines, because there is really a Chinese the proper name is called the conch, and Taiwan takes the Latin transliteration of the name, called Kamin Eluo /Neptunea cumingi.
Fig. 8 Left Carmin's elongosis, right vein red snail
This snail is huge and is one of the common edible snails along the Yellow Bohai Sea, but Qingdao is rare, Dalian and Dandong are more. Photo 6 at Qingdao Buxi Seafood Wholesale Market, the entire market seems to be the only stall selling snails. The rest of the large conchs are veined red snails/ Rapana venosa, and their shells are apricot-red with dark stripes, which Dalian calls "red lizi"; while the shell of the Kamin emus is relatively white, and the difference is obvious. In terms of taste alone, the meat of Carmin's snail is more crisp than that of the vein red snail, and the price is higher.
Figure 9 Carmin's Eoso
Large conchs eat similar to small snails, and they have to use tools to remove the snails from the shell, but in the size of The Carmin's snail or the red snail, the toothpick is slightly too thin, just move the chopsticks directly. The snail in the picture above belongs to the Kamin ebony snail and is edible in its entirety. Perhaps some friends have doubts about the black part of the tail (actually the abdomen of the snail), rest assured, it is not a arrow, but the liver and pancreatic part of the snail, which is where the essence is, and must not be thrown away by the violent object.
In addition, the Kamin elong is also called a fragrant snail, but it is not a ringing snail. The raw material for the Famous Chaoshan dish "Charcoal-fired Snail" refers to the horn snail of the family Helmet Snail family/ Hemifusus colosseus or an analogous species of Pipe Horn Snail (The Helmet Snail family is also known as the Snail Family in Taiwan, is it a bit chaotic?). It is produced in the southern seas, the north is not available, and the price is extremely expensive, and the average person cannot afford to eat it. There is no need to dig deeper.