February 14, 2025 • 40 mins
This marine sea snail, considered a delicacy in lots of cuisines, often needs some tender(izing) love & care. Anney and Lauren dip into the biology and history of abalone.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reeves.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And I'm mourn Vocal Bam, and today we have an
episode for you about abaloney.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, I say, that's what to laugh because these episodes
are always fun for me?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Are sea creature episodes? Oh yeah? Fascinating, so weird.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Sea life is so weird and delicious, and it's really
really great getting to go through a whole thing where
I'm like, check out these weird little buddies.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm completely in love with them. Here's how to eat them.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, I feel a little bit like maniacal, evil.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Villain character about it, but you know.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, I have to reevaluate your Dungeons and dragons alignment.
Perhaps was there any particular reason this was on your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I guess I was.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I was looking for something because as we record this,
like Gallentine's Day, Valentine's Day, that entire industrial complex is
upon us, and so I wanted some kind of like
premium ingredient, you know, something really special. And also, as
everybody knows, snails have the most interesting sex in general.
(01:35):
So yes, of course snails and slugs. The abalone actually
kind of falls down on that count but wow. Sorry sorry,
But generally speaking, I was like, yes, let's talk about
(01:56):
a c snail for Valentine's Day.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
That is very your own brand. It is very on brand.
I believe I've had abolone.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I feel like I've had it at a nice omakase
place where they give you a bunch of stuff and
it's hard to remember at the end everything that you've had.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Because you've had nineteen small bites and you're just kind
of like, h yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I recently went to a fancy amacassa place where I
think I had abaloney, but I also think I accidentally
tipped the incorrect amount. Oh no, and it's keeping me
awake at night, Lauren, I'm like considering contacting the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I mean you can, I mean, if it should be
I mean, if it's on your credit card or something,
you can you can check. You can check your statement
and you can check the final amount versus the amount
that the dinner was worth. I mean, I've I've done
that before. I've like gone back to a place and
(03:00):
just been like, hey, I'm not ordering food, but here's
twenty bucks.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Like I just feel so bad because this service was
so great.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, and I'm worried they got in trouble because I'm
pretty sure what happened. Why do we ask people to
do mad after they've had tricks. I'm pretty sure what happened.
Is my way calculate tip is I go, I just
move the decimal point one and that's ten, and then
you double it.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
And then you double it. Yeah, totally the same. I
don't think I doubled it. Oh no, so I think
it was just person Oh the guilt, lord guilt. It's
it's gonna be okay. Annie. You have ways of checking
this and ways of fixing it. Thank you, Thank you, Lauren.
(03:48):
I have been too cowardly to check the statement.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
But if I check it and it's incorrect, I will
contact them and just be like, look, I've had some sucket.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The math was not there for me.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
But anyway, I don't think I've ever had abalone before,
and now I'm doing that thing where I have a
huge craving for something I've never had, so.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Oh gosh it yeah mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Well, you can see our past episodes on sea urchins,
which is a favorite of mine because we talked about
hats on sea urchins, scallops, maybe calamari, squid, snails.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Cargo, yeah, gooey duck. Sure. Yes. Also, just don't want
to mention.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
You can see stuff on Never Told You's episode on Hanya,
which we did mention them in our sea urchin episode.
But these are Korean women who dive for things like
abalone and sea urchins and have for entries and it's
pretty dangerous and interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah yeah, and wild levels of breath support.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, yes, oh my gosh. Yes, But I guess that
brings us to our question. Sure, abalone, what is it?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Abaloney are a genus of saltwater sea snails that come
in a lot of sizes and varieties around the world.
But you're you're basically looking at a uh you know
once once you have the meat part of them, you're
looking at like a dense, snappy to chewy oval of
seafood with a delicately sweet, briny like rich and buttery flavor.
(05:46):
They grow a single shell, so not like a double
sided case like an oyster or a clam, but but
just like a like a big hat, and the meat
inside is creamed orange to brown in color, and they
tend to be large, like at least a few inches
in length. There are several centimeters. It can be eaten raw, sliced, thin,
(06:06):
or cooked however you like cooking seafood in soups and stews,
grilled or roasted, breaded and fried, or just given a
little light saute. Though it does benefit from being tenderized
before cooking. Ebaloni are also preserved by being canned or dried,
and although that changes the flavor, it's still a pretty
pricey ingredient. It is considered a delicacy in a lot
(06:27):
of places, partially because of historical overfishing.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Woo.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
They are weird little buddies. They're like a rich living rock.
They're like the ocean, strengthened and condensed. M y'all, I
love snails. I love them so much. They're so cute.
(06:56):
I really missed my snails. If any of y'all have
been wondering about my aquarium, uh, the ecosystem, and it
collapsed at some point during my moving adventures last year,
and so it is currently sitting empty. And I was
looking at all of these photos of abalony and just
missing my snails intensely.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
So yeah, oh all right.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Anyway, Abaloni is a kind of umbrella term for like
a whole dang mess of species in the genus haliotis.
How many species in the genus great question. Scientists like
arguing about that, like more than twenty, less than one
hundred and fifty, I don't know. There's a wide range
(07:46):
of opinions.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
However. They all live in like.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Tropical to temperate coastal marine environments around the world, places
with reefs or rocks where they can latch on and
go about their business. Some live intertidal shallows, and some
live as deep as like sixty five meters that's two
hundred and fifteen feet, so it can really range. Their
bodies consist of this large, single muscular foot like a
(08:14):
suction cup that can grasp on two rocks or other
solid surfaces and either kind of hang out there or
crawl along on the ocean floor. Yeah, the foot has
a sensory extension like a skirt that goes the whole
way around it with tentacles all across to see what's
going on around it. See in quotation marks because it's
(08:37):
not a visual sensory thing. But yeah, lots of little
tentacles on a skirt. They also have digestive and reproductive
organs and a heart and gills tucked up in between
the muscular foot and the shell, and they have this
creepy little suction mouth with a weird little oval as
scrapy teeth that they use to like chomp algae or
scrape algae off of surfaces. They are herbivores. If you've
(09:01):
ever watched any kind of snail crawl around and eat
like one in your garden or if you have an
aquarium or something like that, that's what this buddy looks
like from the underside. But their top side is encased
in this flatish shell. So yeah, they grow these oval
shaped shells that are rough on the outside and smooth
(09:22):
on the inside. It's like the cup half of an
oyster shell, and like an oyster shell, it can be
either deeply or shallowly cong cave, depending on the species.
The inner layer of the shell is composed of iridescent
mother of pearl also called knacker, which abiloni have also
been harvested for over the years, and yes, abiloni can
(09:44):
form pearls if some bit of grit gets stuck between
their body and their shell. The shell is in the
shape of a Fibonacci spiral that develops as the ablony
grows and the inner surface looks a bit like the
curve of a human ear, which is why they're sometimes
called sea ears, which I love.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And if you think about.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
The shape of the shell like an ear, there's always
a series of holes kind of like piercings along the
outer edge of the lobe.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Part.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, they use those holes to excrete waste, push water
out from their gills, and to release reproductive cells. And yes,
the holes make them look a little bit like an
ocarina yep. The inner and outer surfaces of the shells
can sport different colors depending on the species of abalony
(10:33):
and what they eat, like what color of algae or
kelp they're into. The inner surface can be pretty much
any shifting color of the rainbow. The outer surface can
range from white to green to like rusty red to
blue to black. They can also grow to different sizes,
anywhere from like a couple inches up to a foot long,
like five to thirty centimeters, like surprisingly large, because I'm
(10:57):
used to small snails. These are, yeah, and they kind
of look like fuzzy rocks from above. I'm just like
just like, why is there tentacles on that rock? What's
going on there? And they can live a few decades
in the wild, like thirty to forty years. They they
reproduce by spawning, so again kind of boring for snails.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Both they have males and females and both will release
their their reproductive cells out into the water and if
the cells meet, a baby develops. They go through a
few life stages. They'll float around as larva for a
while before they grow like heavy enough that they sink
to the seafloor and start forming a shell. When so cool, buddies,
here's how you eat them. You generally clean the organs
(11:47):
and that skirt away and just eat the muscular foot.
Some abaloni are small and pretty tender as is. Some
are large enough that people cut them with wise into
like steaks before using like octopus and squid and other
kind of like crunchy rubbery mollusks. If you obtain fresh abilony,
you will probably want to tenderize it by pounding it.
(12:10):
But I've seen all kinds of recipes that call for
brining or marinating in buttermilk or like low and slow
braising to help make them tender in addition or instead
of that, And yeah, people eat them anyway you want.
To eat seafood raw as sashimi or cooked by acid
and a savices pan fried in butter, you know, as
(12:31):
an ingredient in risotto, diced into stir fries, blended into soups.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It is a.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Popular Lunar New Year treat in some cuisines. I saw
a lot of this Chinese recipe for abalony served with lettuce,
and the abalony is braised with like mushrooms, garlic and ginger,
and then yeah, served over fresh lettuce. So simple, looks
so good. And I will put in here that the
(12:58):
Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch rates farmed abaloni as a
best choice seafood. So pretty cool. Yeah, oof, I want
that right. Oh, it sounds so good. I've never had
abaloni before.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I don't know what it tastes like. It sounds so good.
Oh that sounds solicious. Oh well, what about the nutrition
by themselves?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Abiloni are pretty good for you. A great source of protein,
you know, a limited amount of good fats, smattering of
micronutrients once you fryem and butter. That's kind of a
different thing. But you know, yeah, eat a vegetable.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yes always. We do have some numbers for you. We do.
Heck okay.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
So around the world people harvest just about two hundred
and fifty thousand metric tons of abalony a year, some wild,
but about ninety five percent farmed. In China by far
produces the most, like over eighty percent on its farms.
South Korea is another major player in abalony aquaculture, producing
(14:08):
about eight percent of the global supply. As of twenty
twenty two, there were two five hundred and forty nine
abaloni farms in South Korea. That sounds like a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
It does, but cool, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
The main wild harvest areas are around New Zealand, Australia, Japan,
and Mexico. Wild harvest has been banned or at least
decommercialized in a lot of places, though we will talk
a lot about that in the history section, and that
is partially in response to illegal harvesting in areas where
conservation efforts has limited legal fishing. Back in two thousand
(14:50):
and eight, a study suggested that as much as sixty
percent of the global wild harvest had been fished illegally
that year. And this stuff is obviously difficult to track,
but like for example, there's anecdotal evidence that Asia imports
about twice as much abalony from Australia and New Zealand
as those places are legally allowed to produce. M Yeah,
(15:17):
and another example out of California, organized crime rings operate
abalony harvesting schemes that could be worth as much as
twenty five million dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
See it's what we talked about on Criminalia with our
friends Holly and Maria.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
They need to do a food crime on crime crime.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Illegal abalony crime rings, I mean rights itself, all those
suz got Heres Brosnan on the line, let's go, I
need a movie about this. In Medicino, California, they used
(16:00):
to be a world championship Abaloni cookoff and festival for
like twenty plus years until the fishery in the area
was closed in twenty seventeen. It was a huge fundraiser
for the local parks and like you could buy a
ticket to judge the year's ten tastings for ninety bucks.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
A person man missed out. I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
There are several festivals for abaloni around Japan. At one
that happens every November in Miaco City, you can sample
seafood practice hooking up abalone from the bottom of a
tank and participate in a rice cake throwing competition. I
could not find more information about that I wish I had.
(16:44):
There is also a restaurant Abaloni Festival in Singapore sponsored
by the seafood brand Abbagold, that had its first iteration
in the spring of twenty twenty four. I saw dishes
like a abaloni aglio olio cavatelli, like like a pasta
(17:04):
with just a simple olive oil and garlic sauce, served
with these huge chunks of abalony. There was also a
chilled salad with like lettuces, fruit like strawberries and maybe mango,
chopped nuts, and then these delicate little slices of abalony
and a sour plum dressing. There was a dashi pierre
blanc with roasted shrimp and muscles and a billony. There
(17:28):
is an abaloni pizza with like a white chowder sauce
and mozzarella, and then slices of raw abialoni sprinkled with
a dusting of seaweed and parmesan.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Ye'all.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
They had a cocktail made with pisco removeth an abaloni brine.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Oh yes, I love the heavy size of florin.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
After every dish.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
You're so angry that you're not eating these things.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Visser really mad, understandably, un.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
I hope I try not to do too much breathing
into the microphone, so I hope that that wasn't annoying
but rather illustrated.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, it was illustrating the point.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Much much desire to try these things.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, okay, well.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
There is there is a history, murky as it might be,
but there is a history that we'll get into.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, this is one of the ones where I had
to kind of I've come back and apologized a couple
of times to Annie because I abaloney. We could probably
break out different species or of abaloney into their own episodes,
and so doing a single history, like doing a single
what is it is kind of logical doing a single
(19:08):
history was probably a pain in the tookis so sorry
about that.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, that's all right, Thank you, though.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
You're welcome, glad to apologize.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I appreciate your apology.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
At any rate, we are going to get into that
slightly murky, slightly confounding history just as student as we
get back from a quick break for a word from
our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So, yes, this one is murky. There's a couple different
types of abolony, and the history behind them is.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Complicated. I'll say.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Also, they're old. I love when we do these sea,
these seafood based episodes, and it's like, oh, yeah, abolonne
have lived along California's west coast for about seventy million years.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Oh yeah, sure.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
That's a that's a time frame I can fathom. Sure, sure, yes,
so they're old. Indigenous people along the coast of the
western western North America have eaten black abolonae for thousands
of years, and some middens and middens here being large
(20:43):
piles of abalone shells date back around seven thousand, four
hundred to twelve thousand years ago. I saw it again,
wide ranging dates, but.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Old.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
They weren't just a few source. The shells were traded
as well and used to decorate clothing or make jewelry.
Records indicate that commercial industries for abolone were in operation
about fifteen hundred years ago in China and Japan. At
different points in history, in these countries, abolone was especially prized.
It was kind of an up and down Beginning in
(21:22):
the mid eighteen hundreds, a commercial industry for black abalona
picked up in California, as well as a taste for
recreational fishing for them. At the time, a lot of
Chinese immigrants were coming to California as part of the
California Gold Rush, and some started sending dried abollone back
to China, and avoalonae had become rare there, so rare
(21:46):
that at the time it was illegal for many outside
of a certain class to have it. On top of that,
anti Chinese views prohibited Chinese fissures from the waters off
of California's Post around this time, which we've talked about
before in several of our fishing episodes. A couple of
(22:08):
articles from around this time and around this region make
mention of abolone about harvesting them and using them for jewelry.
When the Spanish arrived in California and the eighteen hundreds,
they started trading the shells for things like otter furs
or quicksilver. These practices had intensely negative impacts on the
(22:30):
indigenous peoples, from disease to genocide, all kinds of terrible things.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So in the.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Eighteen nineties, Japan was experiencing a shortage of Abolonae too,
so some exporters started focusing on getting their products to
that country, so exporters from the US. The industry in
Japan seemed to bounce back in the early nineteen hundreds.
I could only find one source that said that.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
California's Monterey County established some rules around abolone in eighteen
ninety nine, and in the ensuing decades they were really
looking out for we got to do something here.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Oh, this looks like it's collapsing.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Let's maybe try to not collapse it.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
But as always with these things, there was a lot
of argument about it, and a lot of finger pointing
about really who should pay the price. One of the
points that came up revolved around Russian fur traders, who
had pretty much destroyed the sea otter population along California's
coast for the otter's furs. The sea otter was one
(23:45):
of the Abolone's main predators, so with them kind of
out of the way, the population of Abolone skyrocketed, and
this led to a divide between those who wanted to
conserve the sea otter population and those who were like, no,
this is great, so much Abolonae.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
We don't need we don't need these sea otters.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Another thing that came up was discriminatory US prohibitions against
Chinese and Japanese divers who were successful but also mindful
of the population. But they were kind of left out
of these conversations because of these discriminatory practices, but they
(24:33):
were doing it right. By the nineteen hundreds, some folks
in California were canning abolone. There were a couple of
ups and downs with it, but by the nineteen twenties,
abolone was starting to show up more regularly on menus
in this area. I did read in nineteen twenty publication
(24:56):
The Daily Telegraph that there was an in salt the
abalone politician, meaning you don't have any bones, but we're
tough anyway.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Wow, this seems to have.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Been referring to a problem with canned abalone, like the
texture was really rubbery. I don't know, avalona politician. Yeah,
that's great.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Aquaculture of abalone began in the late fifties to early
sixties in China and Japan, which again we're already seeing
the effects of overfishing and trying to come up with solutions.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yes, by nineteen seventy three, fishers were landing about two
million pounds of abolone off the coast of California.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, during the nineteen seventies around the world, fishers were
harvesting some twenty thousand metric tons of abalone a year.
At the time, farm production was still negligible.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
This is also the same decade that organizations started monitoring
the population size of black abolonae in response to worries
around over fishing, and then a disease called withering syndrome
really decimated the black abalone population off California's coast in
nineteen eighty three. On top of that, a few measures
(26:20):
to rehabilitate the sea otter population led to increasing otter
populations and thus more otters eating Albollonae. In nineteen ninety three,
Southern California ban the fishing at black abollonae because of
a huge drop in their population, and the populations did
(26:41):
they did start to arise in the early two thousands. Still,
white Abolonae was listed as an endangered species as part
of the two thousand and one Endangered Species Act, and
as always, climate change is also a.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Threat and poaching even after legal action towards these conservation efforts.
For example, South Africa had to finally decommercialize abialone almost
entirely in two thousand and eight. I think it's either
turned around a little or there's some market for it now.
(27:21):
But part of the issue here is that, Yeah, there
wasn't really like mass aquaculture of abalony until the turn
of the twenty first century. It's been seriously ramping up
since then as farmers have improved various aspects of production.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, and there are ongoing efforts to replenish the abalone
population in California, including one in twenty nineteen that involved
releasing thousands of baby white abolone from a captive breeding
program into the water.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
And this is actually the result of like a really
involved area of study wherein researchers have basically been trying
to figure out like how to get abalony in the
mood Valentine's Day indeed, right, you know, you know, like
(28:15):
in nature, there are environmental cues that tell an animal like, hey,
spring is coming, that's breeding season, you should develop some
eggs or some sperm labs, you know, they don't have
whatever those cues are. So so researchers have been experimenting
with just all kinds of environmental variables like temperature and
(28:36):
water composition, and like cycles of light and darkness to
try to figure out what will make abalony produce and
release those reproductive cells.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Okay, I'm glad you bought that fact. Then here.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Oh, I was so joyous when I found it. Other
other programs have involved citizen science. Divers in northern California
can help gather data on the wild populations of red
abalony by taking pictures and taking measurements and then sending
them in.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yes, and there are efforts specifically led by indigenous folks too,
and artworks that you can look up and are really
amazing made by indigenous people using abalone shells as a
reminder of what has been lost.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
By the twenty twenty twenty one season fissures or pulling
in less than six thousand metric tons of abalony globally.
But farms we're producing over two hundred and forty thousand
metric tons. So that is a good sign. Yeah, it
(29:44):
is a good sign. That's nice. Yeah, we don't have
a good sign. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a it's a
good sign and for wild populations and a delicious one
for those of us who want to try to eat something, yes.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Which we clearly both do.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, Well listeners, if you have experience
with abolone, please write in. But I think that's what
we have to say about Abalona for now.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yes, we do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
And we're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with sure.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
There's a lot of gesticulation in that one of yeah,
slow snail movements.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yes, undulating.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, sometimes I feel it's meditative like that, I feel
good about what just happened.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah it was calming, Yeah, slow paced.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Other times it's very frenetic and not calming at all,
So you can never tell. Jared wrote, I noticed an
unusual synchronicity of topics with your show and stuff you
missed in history class. He both released a Nutmeg episode
at roughly the same time. Was this one deliberate or
(31:35):
just a happy accident? In your McCormick episode, you commented
on their ad campaign to encourage people to check the
expiration dates on their spices, and I think asked listeners
to weigh in on the old jars of spices. Well,
I don't know if this wins loses, but when I
(31:55):
was visiting my mom a few times over the last
few months of the year, I definitely saw some old canisters.
There were at least a couple that definitely looked familiar
from before I moved out as a young adult in
nineteen ninety six. There were about six or so that
(32:17):
bridged the decades between the oldest and the newest. Your
episode on guava gave me a tender moment of reminiscing
during the period when I was dating my future wife
a long distance. Before I moved here to southern California,
there was a local restaurant that started in her hometown
of Glendale, Portos, a Cuban bakery that has become legendary
(32:39):
and has expanded to five or six additional locations. One
of the treats she introduced me to was their guava
cheese Strudel. They had the guava puree and a sweet
cream cheese inside the puff pastry crust. They were amazing.
At some point, either over the phone from Idaho or
(32:59):
fa I moved here, I asked about the treats I
remembered that their name and filling involved a citrus fruit
and some kind of cheese, so I asked about the
Guda mango pastries. She was briefly confused and said, did
you mean guava cheese. Needless to say, it became one
(33:21):
of the many inside jokes that became part of our
personal couple language.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
All right, for the record, Guda mango pastries do sound
pretty good, like I would try to do.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
I would as well. I would as well. And that's
a great couple language when you have somebody that just
just like I get you.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, yeah, I hear what you're I hear what you're meaning,
not what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Let's go right right.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Also, yeah, the these old spices, my.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Friend, Yeah, yeah, from before nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
That's a hoofta. That's that is an antique That isn't
that is an antique spice? Yes, yes, vintage Victage has
it aged.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I don't know if i've I feel like my mom
did a kind of cleaning so she doesn't have anything
like that anymore.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I haven't checked my cupboard. We've done a couple. We've
moved a lot over the past. Again, we've moved a
lot over the past few years, and so i'd have
to look. I suspect that there's some from like the
early aughts in there.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, I think I've got some from at least the
like twenty tens.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, which I don't know. It's fine. I don't worry
about it.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Also about the synchronicity, I think sometimes it's just when
it like tint pole event like a holiday comes up,
We're all like, what's a holiday topict meg nut meg?
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yeah, but who knows. Sometimes Lauren and I do a
seemingly holiday topic.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Random Oh yeah, so I'll be like may time for Christmas,
like what.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Let's talk about gingerbread cookies, summer PA's the time?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
So yeah, so not deliberate, but not quite accidental. Yeah,
that's what I would say. There you go.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, oh gosh, those squava cheese strudal treats are so good.
That is exactly the kind of thing that I'm talking
about when I'm like, yes, that is what I want. Yeah,
more cravings. Okay, Melissa wrote, I just finished the episode
on White Tailed Deer. I never found them to be
particularly frightening until I saw the Dear Lady episode of
(35:51):
season three, episode three of Reservation Dogs. It's a mostly
standalone episode, mixing the indigenous mythology of the Dear Lady
with the history of residential schools and Indian boarding schools.
It's terrifying and heart wrenching and a truly excellent episode.
All of Reservation Dogs is worth watching, but it's not
necessary to enjoy this particular episode. Attached a buddy I
(36:14):
met recently while hiking north of Montreal, and as twenty
twenty five is already too long, some photos of our cats. Minx,
the Tabby and Billy. Minks was a shelter cat who
was very friendly and affectionate at the shelter, and became
notably more ferocious once safe and settled in my apartment,
hence the name and subsequent renaming to Minx'saurus aka Saurus.
(36:36):
Billy showed up on our doorstep with some concerned neighbors
about a year ago. They heard her crying in some bushes. Cold,
scared and starving. They were going door to door trying
to find her owner. We never did find them, but
quickly fell in love with the little scamp, who loved
climbing all the shelves and eating anything in sight, including pants. Pants, plants, paper,
(36:56):
and plastic. She sticks more to cat food these days,
but she's still Bill our billy goat. Oh my goodness,
good pet tax.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
We got a lot of pictures.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, oh what fluffy buddies. Yeah, yeah, so right, So
there's there's a there, there's a very handsome, beautiful tabby
making the kind of face you know that this cat
was meowing in the middle of the photo. It's the
kind of photo of a cat that you can hear.
(37:31):
You're like, yes, that was yeah, yeah, and then yeah,
Billy eating some kind of vegetation but also having a
very fluffy belly.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
And again the name's great Billy Coat and Minx of Saurus. Yes,
so good, so good. Your pet tax is paid. Appreciate
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
I love how many people are writing in about out
this deer, not necessarily like horror, but the ways it
shows up and media.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
And I recently started watching Reservation Dogs. I had been
kind of holding off because I understood that I would
like it, but also I was like, oh, is this
going to be one of those things. It's actually very
upsetting because of the subject matter and not no, but
but it is quite good. I'm super into it. And
I haven't seen the Dear Lady episode. I don't think,
(38:34):
but I've met I think i've met the Dear Lady.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Does she does she? I need to watch her? Yeah,
I think she's recurring. Yeah, so anyway, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I not a real fun fact about me, but just affect.
I hate AutoPlay and uh oh yeah, I hate it.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
So when I would watch It's over now, but that
what we do in the show at a show, it
would auto play Reservation Dogs after it, but I would
always fall asleep on the couch. And so I think
I'm in season four of Reservation Dogs, but I've never
watched it. Oh wow, So I need to go back.
(39:19):
And yeah, I've been meaning to watch it. I also
think I would like it. But it's just funny to.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Me that it's like.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You ready to start season four, episode three, and I'm
like like, no.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
No, I'm not silly. Asp how do I turn this off? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So far from what I've seen, it is more it
is more funny and heartwarming than it is terribly upsetting.
I mean it's still upsetting the subject matter is yeah right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, yeah, well always we appreciate the recommend.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yes, oh, yes, yes, so we appreciate the cat pictures.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Yes more, I mean, as we said, it's tax season,
so since your pet pictures. But yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Thank you so much to both of these listeners for writing.
If you would like to write to us, you can.
You can email us at hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
You can also find us on social media. We are
on blue Sky and Instagram at saver Pod, and we
do hope to hear from you. Savere Is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reeves.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And I'm mourn Vocal Bam, and today we have an
episode for you about abaloney.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, I say, that's what to laugh because these episodes
are always fun for me?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Are sea creature episodes? Oh yeah? Fascinating, so weird.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Sea life is so weird and delicious, and it's really
really great getting to go through a whole thing where
I'm like, check out these weird little buddies.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm completely in love with them. Here's how to eat them.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, I feel a little bit like maniacal, evil.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Villain character about it, but you know.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, I have to reevaluate your Dungeons and dragons alignment.
Perhaps was there any particular reason this was on your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I guess I was.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I was looking for something because as we record this,
like Gallentine's Day, Valentine's Day, that entire industrial complex is
upon us, and so I wanted some kind of like
premium ingredient, you know, something really special. And also, as
everybody knows, snails have the most interesting sex in general.
(01:35):
So yes, of course snails and slugs. The abalone actually
kind of falls down on that count but wow. Sorry sorry,
But generally speaking, I was like, yes, let's talk about
(01:56):
a c snail for Valentine's Day.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
That is very your own brand. It is very on brand.
I believe I've had abolone.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I feel like I've had it at a nice omakase
place where they give you a bunch of stuff and
it's hard to remember at the end everything that you've had.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Because you've had nineteen small bites and you're just kind
of like, h yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I recently went to a fancy amacassa place where I
think I had abaloney, but I also think I accidentally
tipped the incorrect amount. Oh no, and it's keeping me
awake at night, Lauren, I'm like considering contacting the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I mean you can, I mean, if it should be
I mean, if it's on your credit card or something,
you can you can check. You can check your statement
and you can check the final amount versus the amount
that the dinner was worth. I mean, I've I've done
that before. I've like gone back to a place and
(03:00):
just been like, hey, I'm not ordering food, but here's
twenty bucks.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Like I just feel so bad because this service was
so great.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, and I'm worried they got in trouble because I'm
pretty sure what happened. Why do we ask people to
do mad after they've had tricks. I'm pretty sure what happened.
Is my way calculate tip is I go, I just
move the decimal point one and that's ten, and then
you double it.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
And then you double it. Yeah, totally the same. I
don't think I doubled it. Oh no, so I think
it was just person Oh the guilt, lord guilt. It's
it's gonna be okay. Annie. You have ways of checking
this and ways of fixing it. Thank you, Thank you, Lauren.
(03:48):
I have been too cowardly to check the statement.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
But if I check it and it's incorrect, I will
contact them and just be like, look, I've had some sucket.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The math was not there for me.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
But anyway, I don't think I've ever had abalone before,
and now I'm doing that thing where I have a
huge craving for something I've never had, so.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Oh gosh it yeah mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Well, you can see our past episodes on sea urchins,
which is a favorite of mine because we talked about
hats on sea urchins, scallops, maybe calamari, squid, snails.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Cargo, yeah, gooey duck. Sure. Yes. Also, just don't want
to mention.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
You can see stuff on Never Told You's episode on Hanya,
which we did mention them in our sea urchin episode.
But these are Korean women who dive for things like
abalone and sea urchins and have for entries and it's
pretty dangerous and interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah yeah, and wild levels of breath support.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, yes, oh my gosh. Yes, But I guess that
brings us to our question. Sure, abalone, what is it?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Abaloney are a genus of saltwater sea snails that come
in a lot of sizes and varieties around the world.
But you're you're basically looking at a uh you know
once once you have the meat part of them, you're
looking at like a dense, snappy to chewy oval of
seafood with a delicately sweet, briny like rich and buttery flavor.
(05:46):
They grow a single shell, so not like a double
sided case like an oyster or a clam, but but
just like a like a big hat, and the meat
inside is creamed orange to brown in color, and they
tend to be large, like at least a few inches
in length. There are several centimeters. It can be eaten raw, sliced, thin,
(06:06):
or cooked however you like cooking seafood in soups and stews,
grilled or roasted, breaded and fried, or just given a
little light saute. Though it does benefit from being tenderized
before cooking. Ebaloni are also preserved by being canned or dried,
and although that changes the flavor, it's still a pretty
pricey ingredient. It is considered a delicacy in a lot
(06:27):
of places, partially because of historical overfishing.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Woo.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
They are weird little buddies. They're like a rich living rock.
They're like the ocean, strengthened and condensed. M y'all, I
love snails. I love them so much. They're so cute.
(06:56):
I really missed my snails. If any of y'all have
been wondering about my aquarium, uh, the ecosystem, and it
collapsed at some point during my moving adventures last year,
and so it is currently sitting empty. And I was
looking at all of these photos of abalony and just
missing my snails intensely.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
So yeah, oh all right.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Anyway, Abaloni is a kind of umbrella term for like
a whole dang mess of species in the genus haliotis.
How many species in the genus great question. Scientists like
arguing about that, like more than twenty, less than one
hundred and fifty, I don't know. There's a wide range
(07:46):
of opinions.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
However. They all live in like.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Tropical to temperate coastal marine environments around the world, places
with reefs or rocks where they can latch on and
go about their business. Some live intertidal shallows, and some
live as deep as like sixty five meters that's two
hundred and fifteen feet, so it can really range. Their
bodies consist of this large, single muscular foot like a
(08:14):
suction cup that can grasp on two rocks or other
solid surfaces and either kind of hang out there or
crawl along on the ocean floor. Yeah, the foot has
a sensory extension like a skirt that goes the whole
way around it with tentacles all across to see what's
going on around it. See in quotation marks because it's
(08:37):
not a visual sensory thing. But yeah, lots of little
tentacles on a skirt. They also have digestive and reproductive
organs and a heart and gills tucked up in between
the muscular foot and the shell, and they have this
creepy little suction mouth with a weird little oval as
scrapy teeth that they use to like chomp algae or
scrape algae off of surfaces. They are herbivores. If you've
(09:01):
ever watched any kind of snail crawl around and eat
like one in your garden or if you have an
aquarium or something like that, that's what this buddy looks
like from the underside. But their top side is encased
in this flatish shell. So yeah, they grow these oval
shaped shells that are rough on the outside and smooth
(09:22):
on the inside. It's like the cup half of an
oyster shell, and like an oyster shell, it can be
either deeply or shallowly cong cave, depending on the species.
The inner layer of the shell is composed of iridescent
mother of pearl also called knacker, which abiloni have also
been harvested for over the years, and yes, abiloni can
(09:44):
form pearls if some bit of grit gets stuck between
their body and their shell. The shell is in the
shape of a Fibonacci spiral that develops as the ablony
grows and the inner surface looks a bit like the
curve of a human ear, which is why they're sometimes
called sea ears, which I love.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And if you think about.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
The shape of the shell like an ear, there's always
a series of holes kind of like piercings along the
outer edge of the lobe.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Part.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, they use those holes to excrete waste, push water
out from their gills, and to release reproductive cells. And yes,
the holes make them look a little bit like an
ocarina yep. The inner and outer surfaces of the shells
can sport different colors depending on the species of abalony
(10:33):
and what they eat, like what color of algae or
kelp they're into. The inner surface can be pretty much
any shifting color of the rainbow. The outer surface can
range from white to green to like rusty red to
blue to black. They can also grow to different sizes,
anywhere from like a couple inches up to a foot long,
like five to thirty centimeters, like surprisingly large, because I'm
(10:57):
used to small snails. These are, yeah, and they kind
of look like fuzzy rocks from above. I'm just like
just like, why is there tentacles on that rock? What's
going on there? And they can live a few decades
in the wild, like thirty to forty years. They they
reproduce by spawning, so again kind of boring for snails.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Both they have males and females and both will release
their their reproductive cells out into the water and if
the cells meet, a baby develops. They go through a
few life stages. They'll float around as larva for a
while before they grow like heavy enough that they sink
to the seafloor and start forming a shell. When so cool, buddies,
here's how you eat them. You generally clean the organs
(11:47):
and that skirt away and just eat the muscular foot.
Some abaloni are small and pretty tender as is. Some
are large enough that people cut them with wise into
like steaks before using like octopus and squid and other
kind of like crunchy rubbery mollusks. If you obtain fresh abilony,
you will probably want to tenderize it by pounding it.
(12:10):
But I've seen all kinds of recipes that call for
brining or marinating in buttermilk or like low and slow
braising to help make them tender in addition or instead
of that, And yeah, people eat them anyway you want.
To eat seafood raw as sashimi or cooked by acid
and a savices pan fried in butter, you know, as
(12:31):
an ingredient in risotto, diced into stir fries, blended into soups.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It is a.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Popular Lunar New Year treat in some cuisines. I saw
a lot of this Chinese recipe for abalony served with lettuce,
and the abalony is braised with like mushrooms, garlic and ginger,
and then yeah, served over fresh lettuce. So simple, looks
so good. And I will put in here that the
(12:58):
Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch rates farmed abaloni as a
best choice seafood. So pretty cool. Yeah, oof, I want
that right. Oh, it sounds so good. I've never had
abaloni before.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I don't know what it tastes like. It sounds so good.
Oh that sounds solicious. Oh well, what about the nutrition
by themselves?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Abiloni are pretty good for you. A great source of protein,
you know, a limited amount of good fats, smattering of
micronutrients once you fryem and butter. That's kind of a
different thing. But you know, yeah, eat a vegetable.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yes always. We do have some numbers for you. We do.
Heck okay.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
So around the world people harvest just about two hundred
and fifty thousand metric tons of abalony a year, some wild,
but about ninety five percent farmed. In China by far
produces the most, like over eighty percent on its farms.
South Korea is another major player in abalony aquaculture, producing
(14:08):
about eight percent of the global supply. As of twenty
twenty two, there were two five hundred and forty nine
abaloni farms in South Korea. That sounds like a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
It does, but cool, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
The main wild harvest areas are around New Zealand, Australia, Japan,
and Mexico. Wild harvest has been banned or at least
decommercialized in a lot of places, though we will talk
a lot about that in the history section, and that
is partially in response to illegal harvesting in areas where
conservation efforts has limited legal fishing. Back in two thousand
(14:50):
and eight, a study suggested that as much as sixty
percent of the global wild harvest had been fished illegally
that year. And this stuff is obviously difficult to track,
but like for example, there's anecdotal evidence that Asia imports
about twice as much abalony from Australia and New Zealand
as those places are legally allowed to produce. M Yeah,
(15:17):
and another example out of California, organized crime rings operate
abalony harvesting schemes that could be worth as much as
twenty five million dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
See it's what we talked about on Criminalia with our
friends Holly and Maria.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
They need to do a food crime on crime crime.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Illegal abalony crime rings, I mean rights itself, all those
suz got Heres Brosnan on the line, let's go, I
need a movie about this. In Medicino, California, they used
(16:00):
to be a world championship Abaloni cookoff and festival for
like twenty plus years until the fishery in the area
was closed in twenty seventeen. It was a huge fundraiser
for the local parks and like you could buy a
ticket to judge the year's ten tastings for ninety bucks.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
A person man missed out. I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
There are several festivals for abaloni around Japan. At one
that happens every November in Miaco City, you can sample
seafood practice hooking up abalone from the bottom of a
tank and participate in a rice cake throwing competition. I
could not find more information about that I wish I had.
(16:44):
There is also a restaurant Abaloni Festival in Singapore sponsored
by the seafood brand Abbagold, that had its first iteration
in the spring of twenty twenty four. I saw dishes
like a abaloni aglio olio cavatelli, like like a pasta
(17:04):
with just a simple olive oil and garlic sauce, served
with these huge chunks of abalony. There was also a
chilled salad with like lettuces, fruit like strawberries and maybe mango,
chopped nuts, and then these delicate little slices of abalony
and a sour plum dressing. There was a dashi pierre
blanc with roasted shrimp and muscles and a billony. There
(17:28):
is an abaloni pizza with like a white chowder sauce
and mozzarella, and then slices of raw abialoni sprinkled with
a dusting of seaweed and parmesan.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Ye'all.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
They had a cocktail made with pisco removeth an abaloni brine.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Oh yes, I love the heavy size of florin.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
After every dish.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
You're so angry that you're not eating these things.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Visser really mad, understandably, un.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
I hope I try not to do too much breathing
into the microphone, so I hope that that wasn't annoying
but rather illustrated.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, it was illustrating the point.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Much much desire to try these things.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, okay, well.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
There is there is a history, murky as it might be,
but there is a history that we'll get into.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, this is one of the ones where I had
to kind of I've come back and apologized a couple
of times to Annie because I abaloney. We could probably
break out different species or of abaloney into their own episodes,
and so doing a single history, like doing a single
what is it is kind of logical doing a single
(19:08):
history was probably a pain in the tookis so sorry
about that.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, that's all right, Thank you, though.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
You're welcome, glad to apologize.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I appreciate your apology.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
At any rate, we are going to get into that
slightly murky, slightly confounding history just as student as we
get back from a quick break for a word from
our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So, yes, this one is murky. There's a couple different
types of abolony, and the history behind them is.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Complicated. I'll say.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Also, they're old. I love when we do these sea,
these seafood based episodes, and it's like, oh, yeah, abolonne
have lived along California's west coast for about seventy million years.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Oh yeah, sure.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
That's a that's a time frame I can fathom. Sure, sure, yes,
so they're old. Indigenous people along the coast of the
western western North America have eaten black abolonae for thousands
of years, and some middens and middens here being large
(20:43):
piles of abalone shells date back around seven thousand, four
hundred to twelve thousand years ago. I saw it again,
wide ranging dates, but.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Old.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
They weren't just a few source. The shells were traded
as well and used to decorate clothing or make jewelry.
Records indicate that commercial industries for abolone were in operation
about fifteen hundred years ago in China and Japan. At
different points in history, in these countries, abolone was especially prized.
It was kind of an up and down Beginning in
(21:22):
the mid eighteen hundreds, a commercial industry for black abalona
picked up in California, as well as a taste for
recreational fishing for them. At the time, a lot of
Chinese immigrants were coming to California as part of the
California Gold Rush, and some started sending dried abollone back
to China, and avoalonae had become rare there, so rare
(21:46):
that at the time it was illegal for many outside
of a certain class to have it. On top of that,
anti Chinese views prohibited Chinese fissures from the waters off
of California's Post around this time, which we've talked about
before in several of our fishing episodes. A couple of
(22:08):
articles from around this time and around this region make
mention of abolone about harvesting them and using them for jewelry.
When the Spanish arrived in California and the eighteen hundreds,
they started trading the shells for things like otter furs
or quicksilver. These practices had intensely negative impacts on the
(22:30):
indigenous peoples, from disease to genocide, all kinds of terrible things.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So in the.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Eighteen nineties, Japan was experiencing a shortage of Abolonae too,
so some exporters started focusing on getting their products to
that country, so exporters from the US. The industry in
Japan seemed to bounce back in the early nineteen hundreds.
I could only find one source that said that.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
California's Monterey County established some rules around abolone in eighteen
ninety nine, and in the ensuing decades they were really
looking out for we got to do something here.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Oh, this looks like it's collapsing.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Let's maybe try to not collapse it.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
But as always with these things, there was a lot
of argument about it, and a lot of finger pointing
about really who should pay the price. One of the
points that came up revolved around Russian fur traders, who
had pretty much destroyed the sea otter population along California's
coast for the otter's furs. The sea otter was one
(23:45):
of the Abolone's main predators, so with them kind of
out of the way, the population of Abolone skyrocketed, and
this led to a divide between those who wanted to
conserve the sea otter population and those who were like, no,
this is great, so much Abolonae.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
We don't need we don't need these sea otters.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Another thing that came up was discriminatory US prohibitions against
Chinese and Japanese divers who were successful but also mindful
of the population. But they were kind of left out
of these conversations because of these discriminatory practices, but they
(24:33):
were doing it right. By the nineteen hundreds, some folks
in California were canning abolone. There were a couple of
ups and downs with it, but by the nineteen twenties,
abolone was starting to show up more regularly on menus
in this area. I did read in nineteen twenty publication
(24:56):
The Daily Telegraph that there was an in salt the
abalone politician, meaning you don't have any bones, but we're
tough anyway.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Wow, this seems to have.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Been referring to a problem with canned abalone, like the
texture was really rubbery. I don't know, avalona politician. Yeah,
that's great.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Aquaculture of abalone began in the late fifties to early
sixties in China and Japan, which again we're already seeing
the effects of overfishing and trying to come up with solutions.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yes, by nineteen seventy three, fishers were landing about two
million pounds of abolone off the coast of California.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, during the nineteen seventies around the world, fishers were
harvesting some twenty thousand metric tons of abalone a year.
At the time, farm production was still negligible.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
This is also the same decade that organizations started monitoring
the population size of black abolonae in response to worries
around over fishing, and then a disease called withering syndrome
really decimated the black abalone population off California's coast in
nineteen eighty three. On top of that, a few measures
(26:20):
to rehabilitate the sea otter population led to increasing otter
populations and thus more otters eating Albollonae. In nineteen ninety three,
Southern California ban the fishing at black abollonae because of
a huge drop in their population, and the populations did
(26:41):
they did start to arise in the early two thousands. Still,
white Abolonae was listed as an endangered species as part
of the two thousand and one Endangered Species Act, and
as always, climate change is also a.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Threat and poaching even after legal action towards these conservation efforts.
For example, South Africa had to finally decommercialize abialone almost
entirely in two thousand and eight. I think it's either
turned around a little or there's some market for it now.
(27:21):
But part of the issue here is that, Yeah, there
wasn't really like mass aquaculture of abalony until the turn
of the twenty first century. It's been seriously ramping up
since then as farmers have improved various aspects of production.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, and there are ongoing efforts to replenish the abalone
population in California, including one in twenty nineteen that involved
releasing thousands of baby white abolone from a captive breeding
program into the water.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
And this is actually the result of like a really
involved area of study wherein researchers have basically been trying
to figure out like how to get abalony in the
mood Valentine's Day indeed, right, you know, you know, like
(28:15):
in nature, there are environmental cues that tell an animal like, hey,
spring is coming, that's breeding season, you should develop some
eggs or some sperm labs, you know, they don't have
whatever those cues are. So so researchers have been experimenting
with just all kinds of environmental variables like temperature and
(28:36):
water composition, and like cycles of light and darkness to
try to figure out what will make abalony produce and
release those reproductive cells.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Okay, I'm glad you bought that fact. Then here.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Oh, I was so joyous when I found it. Other
other programs have involved citizen science. Divers in northern California
can help gather data on the wild populations of red
abalony by taking pictures and taking measurements and then sending
them in.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yes, and there are efforts specifically led by indigenous folks too,
and artworks that you can look up and are really
amazing made by indigenous people using abalone shells as a
reminder of what has been lost.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
By the twenty twenty twenty one season fissures or pulling
in less than six thousand metric tons of abalony globally.
But farms we're producing over two hundred and forty thousand
metric tons. So that is a good sign. Yeah, it
(29:44):
is a good sign. That's nice. Yeah, we don't have
a good sign. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a it's a
good sign and for wild populations and a delicious one
for those of us who want to try to eat something, yes.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Which we clearly both do.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, Well listeners, if you have experience
with abolone, please write in. But I think that's what
we have to say about Abalona for now.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yes, we do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
And we're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with sure.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
There's a lot of gesticulation in that one of yeah,
slow snail movements.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yes, undulating.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, sometimes I feel it's meditative like that, I feel
good about what just happened.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah it was calming, Yeah, slow paced.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Other times it's very frenetic and not calming at all,
So you can never tell. Jared wrote, I noticed an
unusual synchronicity of topics with your show and stuff you
missed in history class. He both released a Nutmeg episode
at roughly the same time. Was this one deliberate or
(31:35):
just a happy accident? In your McCormick episode, you commented
on their ad campaign to encourage people to check the
expiration dates on their spices, and I think asked listeners
to weigh in on the old jars of spices. Well,
I don't know if this wins loses, but when I
(31:55):
was visiting my mom a few times over the last
few months of the year, I definitely saw some old canisters.
There were at least a couple that definitely looked familiar
from before I moved out as a young adult in
nineteen ninety six. There were about six or so that
(32:17):
bridged the decades between the oldest and the newest. Your
episode on guava gave me a tender moment of reminiscing
during the period when I was dating my future wife
a long distance. Before I moved here to southern California,
there was a local restaurant that started in her hometown
of Glendale, Portos, a Cuban bakery that has become legendary
(32:39):
and has expanded to five or six additional locations. One
of the treats she introduced me to was their guava
cheese Strudel. They had the guava puree and a sweet
cream cheese inside the puff pastry crust. They were amazing.
At some point, either over the phone from Idaho or
(32:59):
fa I moved here, I asked about the treats I
remembered that their name and filling involved a citrus fruit
and some kind of cheese, so I asked about the
Guda mango pastries. She was briefly confused and said, did
you mean guava cheese. Needless to say, it became one
(33:21):
of the many inside jokes that became part of our
personal couple language.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
All right, for the record, Guda mango pastries do sound
pretty good, like I would try to do.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
I would as well. I would as well. And that's
a great couple language when you have somebody that just
just like I get you.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, yeah, I hear what you're I hear what you're meaning,
not what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Let's go right right.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Also, yeah, the these old spices, my.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Friend, Yeah, yeah, from before nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
That's a hoofta. That's that is an antique That isn't
that is an antique spice? Yes, yes, vintage Victage has
it aged.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I don't know if i've I feel like my mom
did a kind of cleaning so she doesn't have anything
like that anymore.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I haven't checked my cupboard. We've done a couple. We've
moved a lot over the past. Again, we've moved a
lot over the past few years, and so i'd have
to look. I suspect that there's some from like the
early aughts in there.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, I think I've got some from at least the
like twenty tens.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, which I don't know. It's fine. I don't worry
about it.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Also about the synchronicity, I think sometimes it's just when
it like tint pole event like a holiday comes up,
We're all like, what's a holiday topict meg nut meg?
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yeah, but who knows. Sometimes Lauren and I do a
seemingly holiday topic.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Random Oh yeah, so I'll be like may time for Christmas,
like what.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Let's talk about gingerbread cookies, summer PA's the time?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
So yeah, so not deliberate, but not quite accidental. Yeah,
that's what I would say. There you go.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, oh gosh, those squava cheese strudal treats are so good.
That is exactly the kind of thing that I'm talking
about when I'm like, yes, that is what I want. Yeah,
more cravings. Okay, Melissa wrote, I just finished the episode
on White Tailed Deer. I never found them to be
particularly frightening until I saw the Dear Lady episode of
(35:51):
season three, episode three of Reservation Dogs. It's a mostly
standalone episode, mixing the indigenous mythology of the Dear Lady
with the history of residential schools and Indian boarding schools.
It's terrifying and heart wrenching and a truly excellent episode.
All of Reservation Dogs is worth watching, but it's not
necessary to enjoy this particular episode. Attached a buddy I
(36:14):
met recently while hiking north of Montreal, and as twenty
twenty five is already too long, some photos of our cats. Minx,
the Tabby and Billy. Minks was a shelter cat who
was very friendly and affectionate at the shelter, and became
notably more ferocious once safe and settled in my apartment,
hence the name and subsequent renaming to Minx'saurus aka Saurus.
(36:36):
Billy showed up on our doorstep with some concerned neighbors
about a year ago. They heard her crying in some bushes. Cold,
scared and starving. They were going door to door trying
to find her owner. We never did find them, but
quickly fell in love with the little scamp, who loved
climbing all the shelves and eating anything in sight, including pants. Pants, plants, paper,
(36:56):
and plastic. She sticks more to cat food these days,
but she's still Bill our billy goat. Oh my goodness,
good pet tax.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
We got a lot of pictures.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, oh what fluffy buddies. Yeah, yeah, so right, So
there's there's a there, there's a very handsome, beautiful tabby
making the kind of face you know that this cat
was meowing in the middle of the photo. It's the
kind of photo of a cat that you can hear.
(37:31):
You're like, yes, that was yeah, yeah, and then yeah,
Billy eating some kind of vegetation but also having a
very fluffy belly.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
And again the name's great Billy Coat and Minx of Saurus. Yes,
so good, so good. Your pet tax is paid. Appreciate
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
I love how many people are writing in about out
this deer, not necessarily like horror, but the ways it
shows up and media.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
And I recently started watching Reservation Dogs. I had been
kind of holding off because I understood that I would
like it, but also I was like, oh, is this
going to be one of those things. It's actually very
upsetting because of the subject matter and not no, but
but it is quite good. I'm super into it. And
I haven't seen the Dear Lady episode. I don't think,
(38:34):
but I've met I think i've met the Dear Lady.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Does she does she? I need to watch her? Yeah,
I think she's recurring. Yeah, so anyway, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I not a real fun fact about me, but just affect.
I hate AutoPlay and uh oh yeah, I hate it.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
So when I would watch It's over now, but that
what we do in the show at a show, it
would auto play Reservation Dogs after it, but I would
always fall asleep on the couch. And so I think
I'm in season four of Reservation Dogs, but I've never
watched it. Oh wow, So I need to go back.
(39:19):
And yeah, I've been meaning to watch it. I also
think I would like it. But it's just funny to.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Me that it's like.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You ready to start season four, episode three, and I'm
like like, no.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
No, I'm not silly. Asp how do I turn this off? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So far from what I've seen, it is more it
is more funny and heartwarming than it is terribly upsetting.
I mean it's still upsetting the subject matter is yeah right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, yeah, well always we appreciate the recommend.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yes, oh, yes, yes, so we appreciate the cat pictures.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Yes more, I mean, as we said, it's tax season,
so since your pet pictures. But yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Thank you so much to both of these listeners for writing.
If you would like to write to us, you can.
You can email us at hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
You can also find us on social media. We are
on blue Sky and Instagram at saver Pod, and we
do hope to hear from you. Savere Is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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