A DELICACY THAT LOOKS LIKE ANYTHING BUT!

Geoduck at Uwajimaya Store
Seattle, WA
(Hawaiian Odysseus photo)

Seriously...or maybe not...what was God thinking?

Wasn't it enough of a heavenly laugh to take leftover parts and create a  platypus?

Whatever the case may be, the geoduck (pronounced as gooey duck). is both a spelling bee favorite and a physical  oddity.

Seeing these huge clams with the massive elephantine siphons for sale at Uwajimaya Store in the Seattle Chinatown/Interntational District made me wonder...how do people eat these things?

So I Googled it, and this is what I found.

The Chinese consider it a delicacy and more often than not cook it in a fondue-style hot pot.

Geoducks are eaten raw, doused with spicy chili sauce, in Korean cuisine.  It is also sauteed or used in soups and stews.

Like their Korean cousins, the Japanese eat the geoduck raw, preparing it as sashimi, dipped  in soy sauce with wasabi for that great kick-in-the-head  sensation.

Go ahead!  Take a close look at the photo above.  Imagine yourself slicing those bad boys up and then--armed only with a pair of chopsticks and nerves of steel--dipping each delectable porsel of elephant trunk into soy sauce and fiery wasabi.  

WHAT A HEAD RUSH!

Hey, this is a shout out to all of you opihi pickers in Hawaii.  In Asia, geoducks are selling for $168 a pound!  Just think, you could fly up to Washington, dig in the sand for geoducks over the weekend, and make enough money to pay for your round trip.  So what are you waiting for?  Drop those opihi bags, butter knives, screwdrivers, or whatever scrapers you're using and do something more fun and less labor intensive.  Besides, you're working on a sandy beach, not slippery rocks where crashing waves could instantly sweep you  out to sea.

Meanwhile, the image that comes to mind is that of a geoduck scout whose responsibility it is to be vigilant for approaching predators.  He's got his elongated siphon poking through the sand like a rubbery periscope.  At the sight, sound, and tremor of oncoming flipflop-clad feet, he reels in his siphon with a snap and screams,

"Enemy approaching!  DIVE!  DIVE!  DIVE!"