On Food and Cooking

ingredients in seafood soups and stews. Choosing and Handling Molluscs Unless they’ve already been remo ...

technique is to wedge the blade of a small, strong knife between the shells near the hinge, then cut throug ...

meat can be quite tough, in part because they apparently accumulate connective-tissue collagen as an energy ...

“siphons,” one for inhaling and the other for exhaling, which may be separate or else joined together in ...

elephant’s trunk. Though most are 3 lb/1.5 kg, geoducks can reach 15 lb/8 kg with a neck 3 ft/1 m ...

mollusc with the heavy and bone-colored s h e l l . Scallop, with its unusually symmetrical and pa ...

farmed and marketed at 2.5 in/6 cm in less than two years. The Mediterranean and Atlantic ...

prepare; they tolerate some overcooking and readily come off the shell. Both characteristics reflect the relativ ...

cut from the shell and eaten raw. It’s big enough to make a generous morsel, has a full, compl ...

species are commercially important; they have different shapes and subtly different flavors. European flat o ...

to oysters. The greater the salinity of the water, the more taste-active amino acids the oyster’ ...

causes savory succinic acid to accumulate in their tissues. Preshucked oysters are rinsed with cold ...

tissues are prized in Europe but not in the United States. The oyster body (right) is mainly ...

end, using a central striated muscle that can be an inch/2 cm or more across and long. This adductor ...

have less flavor and lose large amounts of liquid when heated. Untreated scallops have a duller, off-whi ...

the coastal-bottom cuttlefish (species of Sepia) and open-ocean squid (species of Loligo, Todarodes, Ilex) ...

textured. They’re arrayed in multiple layers, and greatly reinforced with strengthening and toughening connective-t ...

Cephalopod Flavor and Ink Like finfish, squid and octopus maintain their osmotic balance largely w ...

half dozen commercial species of sea urchins with average diameters of 2.5–5 in/6–12 cm. They’re almost entirely ...

chance to eat fresh fish. Before refrigeration and motorized transportation became common, fish were harvested ...