January 19, 2024 • 36 mins
These marine invertebrates have excellent skeletons and delicious gonads. Anney and Lauren dig into the science and history of eating sea urchin.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Save your Protection of iHeartRadio. I'm
Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Long Vocal BAM, and today we have an
episode for you about sea urchin. Yes, you know, we
love these weird sea creatures are so.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Weird, they're great. I know. I was stilling Lauren before
this A lot of times with these.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm like, I'm just gonna wait and see what Lauren
has to say about this, because I'm so I'll see terms.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm like, oh, I gotta know more, but I'm gonna wait.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So I'm very excited as well.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Was there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This was kind of with that batch of things that
I was feeling really ambitious about. I was like, you know, like,
like what is a like like a like a protein
was kind of up in the rotation, and uh, we
had never done sea urchin because I had never suggested
it because they're real strange. I was like, that's going
to be a lot of work, and listener, it was
(01:05):
in fact, like like right before we started, I was like,
do you want to do like a short side episode
about just sea urchin science that I didn't have time
to work into this outline because there's a lot of it,
and I said very enthusiastically, yes, yeah, of course, yeah,
possibly for a different show because it doesn't have a
(01:27):
lot to do with them as a food source for humans,
but you know, still still hard to resist.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's hard to resist, so cool.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I do love sea urchin, although I have to say
I don't know that I quite realized that I had
it because I usually see it as uni oh sure,
huh and I so when I was reading this, I
was like, oh that, but yes, I do enjoy it
(01:58):
quite a bit. Louren and I also were talking about this,
and we were discussing how terrifying they look. They do,
uh huh, yes, And I was seeing that. I have
had an experience where I was scuba diving there was
a shark near me, but I was more afraid as
(02:20):
the sea urchins, because I was pretty sure that shark
was a gray nurse shark.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
And I know a lot about gray nurse sharks, and
you're fine.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Oh yeah, yeah. Most sharks in general want nothing to
do with human people. I mean, unless you're really sloshing
around like a food source of theirs. Their sharks are
the puppos of the sea, like for the most part.
You're you're you're fine. You could go up and hug
them if you really wanted to. I don't necessarily recommend that, but.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
No, but yeah, I froze.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I was just floating above the sea urchins like, don't
move a muscle.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I mean, they don't want this. They weren't going to
come after you.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yes, it was just like share. They were close enough
afraid if I moved too much. Yeah, it wouldn't be
pretty for me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
M h.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah. When we were snorkeling out in Hawaii, Uh, yeah,
I definitely saw some in one of the tide pools
that we were in, And yeah, I had very much
the same reaction because I did not have gloves or
anything on, and so I was kind of like, oh,
oh hey, buddy, Hey, I want nothing to do with you.
I would like you to continue doing whatever you're doing,
(03:27):
and I would like to do something very far away
from that like that. Yeah, just go ahead.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And yet and yet some humans somewhere at one point
saw them, and we're like, I.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Wonder, I wonder what's in there and if I can
eat it and if it would be so delicious? Yeah,
and here we are and here we are. Yeah, I
will say I have very limited experience eating sea or chin.
They I had like a bad experience with a piece
of one once in a sushi kind of situation and
was off from it was very funky. I think it
(04:01):
had gone off a little bit. But uh, but then
I but I, but so I was reticent to try
it again in case that was just how they all are.
But yeah, but then I had another one at a
very good restaurant and it was denxious. So yeah, a
plus which would eat again?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Excellent news.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Uh yeah, and you can definitely see our past episodes
we've done on sea creatures.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Some are related than others, but I would say generally
check about Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, but I guess that brings us to our question,
Oh it does sea urchins?
Speaker 3 (04:41):
What are they?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Well?
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Sea urchin meat is the gonad of male or female
animals from a number of marine species of invertebrates that
are easily identified by their sort of globe shape that
has a lot of spiky spines coming up off of it.
Oh that's a whole sentence. I love it, Okay, Yeah, yeah.
The meat is really beautiful, often bright orange yellow, like
(05:07):
like school bus yellow. Each piece will be just a
couple inches long and like an inch or so wide,
maybe three to six centimeters. The texture and taste can
vary a little bit, but you're basically looking at like
a briny, creamy, melty, slightly sweet, funky little bite. It
is often eaten raw, as in a sashimi or nagery sushi,
(05:30):
or it's almost like a garnish for pasta or rice dishes.
It's been called the fuligrave the sea. It is just
a shockingly tender and delicious thing for coming from something
that so clearly does not want to be picked up
and eaten. It's like a it's like a danger chrysanthemum
(05:50):
that contains these five little bites of just creamy ocean foam.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
M hm.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I feel like it's the definition of your kind of
outwardly spiky.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Character, the softest.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Sweetest little, just little nibbling little inside. Yeah, you just
have to break past their spikes, you. Oh my goodness.
There There are several hundred known species of sea urchin
within the class kind of Idia, which encompasses two subclasses
(06:27):
and just a whole bunch of orders and genuses and species.
They are marine animals and different species and habit every
ocean on the planet from tropical tupolar at all kinds
of different depths. They live on the seafloor, and their
mouths are on the underside of their bodies, and they
scrape up bits of algae or seaweed or really anything
that moves slow enough for them to get their mouth on.
(06:50):
Different types have all kinds of different bodies and lifestyles
really fascinating and weird and beautiful. They're related to other
kind of like the sea cucumber, the starfish, and sand dollars.
But we are ostensibly a foodshell of all of those varieties.
We tend to eat ones from cooler waters, which are
(07:12):
less likely to be venomous yay, and specifically ones that
are commonly called the purple sea urchin, the red sea urchin,
and the green sea urchin for pretty top down obvious
color coating purposes. Yeah, there are among those two different
genuses and than within one. Yeah, two different species. But
(07:36):
I'm not going to say the names of them because
I don't feel like doing that today. I already have
one Latin word and that's all you get.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
So that's enough.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
That's it, Okay. So, because they are from from different species,
I'm going to make some generalizations here, but all have
this sort of a spherical skeletal shell made of calcium carbonate,
and the shell is called a test, and I love
(08:03):
that terminology. That's just great. The test has these little
openings all over from which the sea urchin's tube feet
can reach out and help propel it slowly wherever it
wants to go, and then a large opening on the
underside for the mouth. If you've ever seen a sand
dollar skeleton, a sea urchin, a sea urchin's test looks
(08:26):
like a puffy version of that. Okay, now, okay, with
within within the mouth its jaw is in this configuration
commonly called Aristotle's lantern. This this has these five triangular
teeth that come together in a sort of beak like
(08:46):
five sided pyramid. Yes, this is another thing that looks
like a sarlac. Oh. Yeah, and it's actually really clever
for for grasping and grinding food. So that's on the underside.
Then on the outside, the test is covered with a
layer of skin and muscles which hold on to the
(09:08):
animal's many movable spines, which also can help it boop
around the ocean floor. And these spines are often brightly colored,
and they come off it just at all angles and
discourage predators. Although we are not the only ones who
enjoy eating it. Other things like lobsters and sea otters
like it too. The anus of the creature is at
(09:31):
the top of the shell and then along the inner
upper of the test. The animals, reproductive organs or gonads
are sitting in these sort of little sacks, five of them,
arranged in a star shape. You may have noticed that
there were five teeth. There's also five gonads. Sea urchins
(09:53):
have fivefold symmetry, similar to how we have twofold or
bi symmetry. Yeah, and okay, Like, if you look at
a cross section of a sea urchin, it looks shockingly
like the interior of the tartis that they introduced for
(10:14):
the twenty first century remount of Doctor who like the
ninth and tenth Doctor so much so that I would
be very surprised if that were not a design influence.
Except the Tarti that tartist was hex based. These are
five penta penta based. Yeah. Other than that, pretty close.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
That's cool. Now I won't be able and see it,
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Oh yeah, look up, look up photos or illustrations. It's
really it's really cool. But okay, all right, uh back
back to the gonads. So uh so, the gonads are
the only particularly fleshy bit within the sea urchin. They
also helped store nutrients to keep the animals going during
(11:01):
lean times. But when there is a good supply of food,
usually during the warm spring and summer months, sea urchins
build up their gonads in preparation to spawn during the
colder months. But if you catch them before they use
all that potential energy to fuel the creation and release
of eggs or sperm. The gonads will be large and
fleshy and high quality, and can account for up to
(11:24):
a quarter of the urchin's total weight.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So yeah, at which point they may be harvested and
kept chilled for immediate market. This means that fresh sea
urchin is a seasonal product in the northern Hemisphere. It's
available like late summer to early to midwinter, depending on
the specific species. When buying, look for bright color and
like a defined bumpy surface. If they look dull or
(11:50):
a little bit gooey, they may be past their prime.
Enthusiasts do get really into those local varieties, like the
same way that people talk about the terearoir of wine
or the flavor of like acorn fed pork products. People
talk about searechin from Hokkaido having this really special flavor
from the particular combo that it eats. Oh yeah, there's
(12:12):
a lot of different varieties. They can be golden yellow
to deep orange in color and range from like creamier
when they're harvested earlier in the season to almost grainy
kind of when they're harvested later. People like different things,
and yet searechin aren't really farmed. I read that about
ninety nine percent are harvested wild by either drags, which
(12:32):
are these kind of almost like chainmail bags but large
that you just sort of scrape along the seafloor to
collect the urchins, or harvested by hand by divers. There
are hatcheries working to provide environments to protect young sea
urchin until they're large enough to avoid predation by by
most animals, which usually takes like a couple years. It
(12:55):
can be about five years from birth before a sea
urchin is considered large enough to be marketable or hatching.
I should say they don't really, they're not really. It's
not a burst kind of kind of animal, partially because
of all of this, they can be pricey, though they
are so like rich and flavorful that a little bit
(13:16):
goes a long way, Like you're probably not looking to
consume more than a few pieces, even when you are
cooking with them. Speaking of yes, a sea urchin is
very popular in Japan as a sushi item, whereupon it
is known as uni and usually eaten raw, either by
itself or maybe with some sushi rice, maybe a little
bit of garnish on there. Other seaside cultures also eat
(13:37):
them simply raw. You can also use them themselves as
a kind of garnish on worn dishes like risotto or eggs,
or spread on toast. Maybe they can also add a
complex zing to like creamy bright pasta sauces, either blended
or whole, adding them at the end of cooking and
like just heating them through. Yeah yeah, sound so good.
(14:00):
I've only added in sushi, so yeah, yeah, I was
reading as per the usual. Jkeng Lopez Alt writing for
Serious Eats has like a really good basic guide to
see yourchin pasta sauces, so I recommend looking that up.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Okay, definitely, all right, Well, what about the.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Nutrition by themselves. Searchin is pretty good for you, like
a nice punch of protein and good fats, smattering and micronutrients,
eat a vegetable.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yes, always, Well, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
We do because se yourchin can be expensive. It's typically
like five to ten bucks per ounce, which is not cheap,
but can be like two bucks per gram, which is
like three hundredths of an ounce, like zero point zeros
(14:56):
zero two pounds for two dollars.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I hate converting these things. I have to say.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I'm the one in the grocery store that's like, I
don't know why this isn't court, this is not this
is now.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Anyway, I feel like it's expensive. Yeah, it's expensive.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
According to one source that I found, eighty percent of
sea urchin consumption takes place in Japan.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
That was as of twenty seventeen, so that might have
shifted a tiny bit, but I suspect it's still pretty
much that thing. Yeah. There is a sea urchin festival
in the south of France every March, for which some
twenty thousand sea urchins are harvested, and apparently for like
five euro you can get like a glass of white
(15:48):
wine and a plate of raw sea urchin with bag
at and butter. Sounds pretty good to me, right, yes,
oh heck yeah. There's also a sea urchin festival in
June that I think just started last year in California.
Yeah yeah, listeners, let us know. There is also a
(16:09):
sea urchin Science Center and gallery in Australia in the
Lower Blue Mountains, not at all.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Near the sea.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's run by the world's pre eminent sea urchin taxonomist
and opened in twenty eighteen. He sounds like a fascinating dude,
like he got invited out to the research center in
Antarctica to study the sea urchins there. I yeah, and
this is just his personal collection. He was like, this
is cool. Do you guys think it's cool? Do you
want to see? Did you do you want to see
(16:37):
my sea urchin collection?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Cool? Yes? Oh my gosh. Should I want to know
more about that?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Oh yeah, and one last number for you. Some species
like the red sea urchin which we eat, can live
over fifty years and research has found specimens that were
over too hundred years old. Dang, yeah, all right sea urchins.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, well they are quite old as a species.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Oh yes, and.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
We will get into the history. After a quick break
for a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
And we're back.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay, So yes, if
you are talking about the family that sea urchins are
a part of the fossil record indicates they go back
a stunningly long time, like impossible to comprehend for my brain.
Long sea urchins probably evolved four hundred and fifty million
(17:50):
years ago, so a long time.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So a minute. Yeah, the ones, the species that we
know today evolved from that older group a little more recently,
like sometime in the Triassic period, you know, just just
only two hundred to two hundred and fifty million years ago.
So so yeah, mere babes in the woods. That Aristotle
(18:14):
described sea urchins in the fourth century BCE, which is
where we got the term Aristotle's lantern for its mouthbits. However, interestingly,
research in Greece from like the twenty oughts showed that
he was probably referring when he said lantern. He was
probably referring to the entire skeleton or test, you know,
(18:37):
not just the mouthbits, because they found they totally had
similarly perforated lamps around that time.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
So yeah, yeah, Aristotle's lantern is such a cool name
that is at or.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Something like, oh, I mean now it is okay.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Coastal areas like Peru, create Greece, and Italy have a
long history of fishing and harvesting sea urchins.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
And I would like to come.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Back to this because we've actually talked about this a
couple of times. But yeah, for centuries, women scuba divers,
they actually free dive in Korea, trained to yes, free
dive and harvest these creatures with knives, which is not easy,
can be dangerous.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
It's usually older women. Really interesting history.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Sure, because it's based on breath support and really developing
the musculature that the training to do that kind of
breath support is wild. Yeah, yes, yeah. Et homology note, okay,
the word urchin in English comes from the French, which
comes from a Latin word for hedgehog, which itself comes
(19:49):
from an old pie a proto Indo European route, meaning
to bristle, from which we also get the word horror,
as in bristle with fear.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Okay, but okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
In English, the term urchin was applied to all sorts
of bristly beings during the fifteen hundreds, including goblins, people hunchedbacks,
grubby looking kids in general, and bad girls in particular.
Oh yeah, the sea urchin for the animal entered the
written record in the fifteen nineties, so around the same time,
(20:28):
indicating that that English speakers were familiar with them around then.
And it was around the time of this urchin expansion
that English speakers seemed to agree to call hedgehogs hedgehogs
instead of urchins. I don't know what the transfer was, yeah,
although I should also note, because of course I looked
(20:50):
into it, street urchin was not popularized. Although it had
come about during this time, it wasn't popularized until like
Victorian England.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Oh, I was wondering about that. I was like, that's
my experience with that term, and I wonder.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, or like like a little bit before, like like
the seventeen nineties ish, I think, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Also urch and expansion again sounds like a card game
where you're buying the expansion pack.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I want the urchin expansion.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yes, I bet it's hard. Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So basically from what I read, I couldn't find a
lot of specifics. But again, coastal areas where sea urchins
were available, people were probably yep, eating them.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Found it harvest them.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Some sources I read suggest that for a while sea
urchins were largely used as bait in Japan until about
the nineteenth century, when sushi chef started using it after
they realized it was a great compliment to sushi rice.
At first, only select regions in the country offered it,
and it was considered a local specialty. When Japanese cuisine
(22:01):
started to really take hold globally in the mid nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Uni sushi got more popularity worldwide.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
It did take time depending on the area, but that
was when it started to be.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Like okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
During the eighteen hundreds, some Japanese Americans living in California
formed fishing villages, especially near Monterey, and they foraged for
sea urchins off the coast.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yes. Yeah. They were also apparently harvested in Newfoundland in
the eighteen hundreds, where they further apparently had the nicknames
eggs oh my, yep, yep. So many animalogy nets in
this one. You're well, I love it, thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
When Sicilian immigrants arrived in New York in the early
twentieth century, they started to demand for sea urchin, which
led to the harvesting of sea urchins in Maine that
were then shipped to New York.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
A little bit more on that later.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Salvador Dali was a big fan of them, so much
so that he started in a nineteen thirty short film
or he explained how to eat them. I had to
look this up because I was like, wait, what what Yeah,
you can still watch it?
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Cool yep.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
And in his book Fifty Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, he wrote,
to begin with, you will eat three dozen sea urchins
gathered on one of the last two days that precede
the full moon, choosing only those who star is coral red,
and discarding the yellow ones, which have, according to him,
quote sedative and narcotic virtues so special and so proprietous
(23:44):
to your approaching slumber, so basically make you nap.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
And you don't want that if you're trying to make.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Something, No, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. The star that
he's referring to is okay. Usually when you crack open
a sea urchin to consume it, you often use either
a knife or like a special kind of kind of
pinchy scissor thing that that just cuts off the top
(24:12):
of the sea urchin where the gonads are attached to
that top of the of the skeletal system and then
just kind of kind of open it up like a
like a like a skull, like a human skull, you know.
And and then on the inside those those five gonads
form a little star on the inside of that cap.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
So that's that's what.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
He's referring to. Okay, I got you. Wow, Well, there
is a lot of horror imagery in this one. I'm
gonna say. Well. In nineteen sixty seven, Dolly finished a
painting called sea Urchin Yes So Cool, Big Fan. In
(24:53):
the nineteen seventies, Japanese seafood traders reached out to those
in the US that might help them supplement there's a
in Japan. They're basically like, we would like more of these,
can you get them? Divers in California and Maine who
were willing to take the risks, including shark attacks, could
make a lot of money. At one point in the
nineteen nineties, they could earn up to two thousand, five
(25:14):
hundred dollars of sea urchins in a week. Yes, and
the sea urchin harvest in Maine saw a massive rise.
From about nineteen eighty seven to nineteen ninety two. The
value of their the market went from about fifty thousand
dollars to fifteen million dollars in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, yeah wow, or by nineteen ninety yeah, from like yeah,
over the course of just a couple of years, because
they had been previously producing this relatively small amount for
these local markets like Sicilian immigrants to the New Yorkish area.
So they've been they've been harvesting maybe like forty five
metric tons a year, and then that jumped in the
(25:54):
same short period to over fifteen thousand metric tons, which
unfortunately led to a marked decrease in the sea urchin population,
like a ninety percent decrease. And so that is where
you get these sustainability efforts happening to try to protect
the young population until it can help repopulate the area.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Rights.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Also, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to three
scientists in two thousand and one quote for their discoveries
of key regulators of the cell cycle. And that's from
the Nobel Prize website that they came to by observing
sea urchins.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yes, I very briefly, right before we started recording, tried
to figure out what that means. And I don't know
so made so so maybe science episode science many in
those sature Yeah, yeah, we'll find out, because I do
know that sea urchins are pretty widely used to study stuff.
(26:56):
I don't remember why, So there you go. What I
do know about is the Internet.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
So okay.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Sea urchin hit another spike of more like mainstream popularity
around twenty sixteen, which I strongly suspect is due to
what researches of the future shall surely call the Instagram effect.
You know, they look real pretty and weird, and so
there you go. And that was combined with a surge
of interest in like new foods, although of course people
(27:25):
had been eating them forever, right, And speaking of Internet influence,
I do have to put in here because of this
thing that happened like early pandemic. Yes, many sea urchins
enjoy wearing hats, or at the very least, we'll put
(27:46):
on a hat if you give them one. Okay. A
lot of sea urchin species have this natural behavior of
grabbing up shells or rocks or like branches of seaweed
with there were weird little suction arms, and then wearing
them around as like a sort of camouflage to avoid
(28:07):
predation and possibly in areas in like tidepools that are
nearer to the surface, maybe to avoid sunburn. So if you,
for example, three D print a tiny sinkable cowboy hat
and you leave it in a seaarch and habitat, there's
(28:30):
a decent chance it's going to pick it up and
put it on its little searearch and dome.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I need this my life.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
I didn't know I needed it so badly until you've
said it.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
It's very cute. I highly recommend googling seaarchin hats.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Can you imagine if you'd like printed out a bunch
of hats and then we have like a search and
party hat party.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
This is pretty much occurred. I again, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I thank you, Lauren. You've done me a great service today.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I have like never wanted a marine a saltwater aquarium
as much as I did when when all of this
started coming out on the internet.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
New character for donut guard to that is so good.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Oh gosh, trying to prevent someburn. They're just being smart,
they are and don't get sburn. Yeah, come on, that
fashionable had perfect perfect all right? Well, future research for
me I did see a lot of stories that started
(29:50):
circulating in twenty twenty three about the quote moral imperative
to eat sea urchin in certain places since they are
invasive there. For example, one story reported that off the
coast of California, the sea urchin had devoured ninety percent
of the bull kelp there, which is important to the
local ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah. Yeah, as opposed to the overfishing that we've seen
in some areas like Maine and many parts of Japan.
The problem in California is that when the natural predators
that usually keep sea urchins in check, when they decline
in population, like like otters and sea stars, which are
(30:32):
cousins of sea urchins, those urchins will overpopulate and just
totally take over. It's you know, like you probably learned
an elementary school, whenever there's an imbalance in the food chain,
everything gets messed up.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
So yeah, yeah, yep, that's I know. I've mentioned this
game before, but I loved this Magic school Bus game.
I played Elementary School and it had this whole we've
got to keep the ecosys them and check and kelp
was a big part of it.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
I had to make manage the kelp.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, yeah, I had it was an important job. No,
it was fun. It was actually really fun game.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
But it's just it was funny that I was like,
oh yeah, school us. Yeah, thanks, yes, absolutely, well, for sure,
there is a plethora of things we could come back
to you with this one. Oh yeah, right yeah, but
I think that's what we have to say for now.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I think it is. We We do have some listener
mill 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 3 (31:50):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
And we're back with Spikey on the outside. It's off
on the inside.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Oh yeah, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Okay, I love this. A couple of people have written
in about this.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Okay, okay, okay, I'm gonna leave you in suspense. Melissa wrote,
just listened to the latest episode of muld Wine and
the aside about the Muppets Christmas Carol reminded me of
a tweet that was recently circulating. Disney owns the rights
to the Muppets, so why aren't they making Muppet versions
of their classics instead of all these live action remakes?
(32:31):
We need Muppets, Beauty and the Beast, Muppet Pinocchio, all
of it. I wish I could find the original tweets
so I could credit the writer. However, the more a
titchen this idea gets, the more likely it is for
someone at Disney to see the wisdom and create these
obvious masterpieces.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Oh right, I mean especially right, especially Disney films where
you have this interaction between humans and very read other characters. Yes,
I mean, I'm not saying that Cinderella herself could not
be a muppet, but like human Cinderella with a bunch
of muppets would be pretty aces.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yes, all, while the Muppet Christmas Carol we have Michael
Kane playing it so seriously. Yeah, around these muppets, it's
just a fun dynamic. There's a lot of fun to
be had there. Oh my goodness, I think this is
a great idea. We could have more classics on our hand,
like the Christmas care Rol.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Oh beautiful, beautiful herd degree, Heidi wrote, first, I want
to say thank you for all the enjoyment and knowledge
you have brought to my life from the beginning of Savor.
I'm currently a little behind on episodes, but always get
excited when a new episode drops and I get to
see what's coming my way. On the recent episode about Zelee,
(33:55):
you asked for more information about cookie tables. Oh, yes, okay.
As someone born and raised in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania,
I had never heard about cookie tables nor seen one
at a wedding until I got engaged while living in Pittsburgh.
The greater number of Scandinavians over German, Polish, Italian, and
Greek immigrants where I grew up only two and a
(34:15):
half hours north of Pittsburgh, meant the cookie table didn't
develop into a thing. It was one thing my now
spouse insisted on having had our wedding, even though we
got married in northwest Pennsylvania. My family was a little
surprised by the table, but loved the table and the
to go bags, which all good cookie tables must include.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
That seems to be a consensus. I'll say, oh, yes,
that is beautiful. Love this because we've said before it's
so fun when we learn about like very localized things.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
But I love that you were like only.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Two and a half hours away and it would still
be on your can. Yeah, that's so great, wonderful, right, Yes,
and we have several more messages coming up about this
that is it's fantastic and pictures that look like.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Like banquet hauls, I mean just of cookies. It's amazing.
So thank you all for answering when we were like, let.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Us know more about it.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yes, yes, so much. Yes, yeah, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
And and if you and if you have anything, if
if you have anything to say about sea urchins?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yes, have you have you been diving for sea urchins?
Do do you have a do you have a recipe
that we should have?
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Did you make one a hat?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Did have you made one a hat?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
We have to know, we have to let us know
we do.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Please, yes, please, Thanks to both of these listeners for
writing in. If you would like to write to us
with answer these very important questions, you can our email
is hello at saverpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio four more
podcasts from my heart Radio. You can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
(36:32):
more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Save your Protection of iHeartRadio. I'm
Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Long Vocal BAM, and today we have an
episode for you about sea urchin. Yes, you know, we
love these weird sea creatures are so.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Weird, they're great. I know. I was stilling Lauren before
this A lot of times with these.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm like, I'm just gonna wait and see what Lauren
has to say about this, because I'm so I'll see terms.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm like, oh, I gotta know more, but I'm gonna wait.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So I'm very excited as well.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Was there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This was kind of with that batch of things that
I was feeling really ambitious about. I was like, you know, like,
like what is a like like a like a protein
was kind of up in the rotation, and uh, we
had never done sea urchin because I had never suggested
it because they're real strange. I was like, that's going
to be a lot of work, and listener, it was
(01:05):
in fact, like like right before we started, I was like,
do you want to do like a short side episode
about just sea urchin science that I didn't have time
to work into this outline because there's a lot of it,
and I said very enthusiastically, yes, yeah, of course, yeah,
possibly for a different show because it doesn't have a
(01:27):
lot to do with them as a food source for humans,
but you know, still still hard to resist.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's hard to resist, so cool.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I do love sea urchin, although I have to say
I don't know that I quite realized that I had
it because I usually see it as uni oh sure,
huh and I so when I was reading this, I
was like, oh that, but yes, I do enjoy it
(01:58):
quite a bit. Louren and I also were talking about this,
and we were discussing how terrifying they look. They do,
uh huh, yes, And I was seeing that. I have
had an experience where I was scuba diving there was
a shark near me, but I was more afraid as
(02:20):
the sea urchins, because I was pretty sure that shark
was a gray nurse shark.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
And I know a lot about gray nurse sharks, and
you're fine.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Oh yeah, yeah. Most sharks in general want nothing to
do with human people. I mean, unless you're really sloshing
around like a food source of theirs. Their sharks are
the puppos of the sea, like for the most part.
You're you're you're fine. You could go up and hug
them if you really wanted to. I don't necessarily recommend that, but.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
No, but yeah, I froze.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I was just floating above the sea urchins like, don't
move a muscle.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I mean, they don't want this. They weren't going to
come after you.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yes, it was just like share. They were close enough
afraid if I moved too much. Yeah, it wouldn't be
pretty for me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
M h.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah. When we were snorkeling out in Hawaii, Uh, yeah,
I definitely saw some in one of the tide pools
that we were in, And yeah, I had very much
the same reaction because I did not have gloves or
anything on, and so I was kind of like, oh,
oh hey, buddy, Hey, I want nothing to do with you.
I would like you to continue doing whatever you're doing,
(03:27):
and I would like to do something very far away
from that like that. Yeah, just go ahead.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And yet and yet some humans somewhere at one point
saw them, and we're like, I.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Wonder, I wonder what's in there and if I can
eat it and if it would be so delicious? Yeah,
and here we are and here we are. Yeah, I
will say I have very limited experience eating sea or chin.
They I had like a bad experience with a piece
of one once in a sushi kind of situation and
was off from it was very funky. I think it
(04:01):
had gone off a little bit. But uh, but then
I but I, but so I was reticent to try
it again in case that was just how they all are.
But yeah, but then I had another one at a
very good restaurant and it was denxious. So yeah, a
plus which would eat again?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Excellent news.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Uh yeah, and you can definitely see our past episodes
we've done on sea creatures.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Some are related than others, but I would say generally
check about Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, but I guess that brings us to our question,
Oh it does sea urchins?
Speaker 3 (04:41):
What are they?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Well?
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Sea urchin meat is the gonad of male or female
animals from a number of marine species of invertebrates that
are easily identified by their sort of globe shape that
has a lot of spiky spines coming up off of it.
Oh that's a whole sentence. I love it, Okay, Yeah, yeah.
The meat is really beautiful, often bright orange yellow, like
(05:07):
like school bus yellow. Each piece will be just a
couple inches long and like an inch or so wide,
maybe three to six centimeters. The texture and taste can
vary a little bit, but you're basically looking at like
a briny, creamy, melty, slightly sweet, funky little bite. It
is often eaten raw, as in a sashimi or nagery sushi,
(05:30):
or it's almost like a garnish for pasta or rice dishes.
It's been called the fuligrave the sea. It is just
a shockingly tender and delicious thing for coming from something
that so clearly does not want to be picked up
and eaten. It's like a it's like a danger chrysanthemum
(05:50):
that contains these five little bites of just creamy ocean foam.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
M hm.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I feel like it's the definition of your kind of
outwardly spiky.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Character, the softest.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Sweetest little, just little nibbling little inside. Yeah, you just
have to break past their spikes, you. Oh my goodness.
There There are several hundred known species of sea urchin
within the class kind of Idia, which encompasses two subclasses
(06:27):
and just a whole bunch of orders and genuses and species.
They are marine animals and different species and habit every
ocean on the planet from tropical tupolar at all kinds
of different depths. They live on the seafloor, and their
mouths are on the underside of their bodies, and they
scrape up bits of algae or seaweed or really anything
that moves slow enough for them to get their mouth on.
(06:50):
Different types have all kinds of different bodies and lifestyles
really fascinating and weird and beautiful. They're related to other
kind of like the sea cucumber, the starfish, and sand dollars.
But we are ostensibly a foodshell of all of those varieties.
We tend to eat ones from cooler waters, which are
(07:12):
less likely to be venomous yay, and specifically ones that
are commonly called the purple sea urchin, the red sea urchin,
and the green sea urchin for pretty top down obvious
color coating purposes. Yeah, there are among those two different
genuses and than within one. Yeah, two different species. But
(07:36):
I'm not going to say the names of them because
I don't feel like doing that today. I already have
one Latin word and that's all you get.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
So that's enough.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
That's it, Okay. So, because they are from from different species,
I'm going to make some generalizations here, but all have
this sort of a spherical skeletal shell made of calcium carbonate,
and the shell is called a test, and I love
(08:03):
that terminology. That's just great. The test has these little
openings all over from which the sea urchin's tube feet
can reach out and help propel it slowly wherever it
wants to go, and then a large opening on the
underside for the mouth. If you've ever seen a sand
dollar skeleton, a sea urchin, a sea urchin's test looks
(08:26):
like a puffy version of that. Okay, now, okay, with
within within the mouth its jaw is in this configuration
commonly called Aristotle's lantern. This this has these five triangular
teeth that come together in a sort of beak like
(08:46):
five sided pyramid. Yes, this is another thing that looks
like a sarlac. Oh. Yeah, and it's actually really clever
for for grasping and grinding food. So that's on the underside.
Then on the outside, the test is covered with a
layer of skin and muscles which hold on to the
(09:08):
animal's many movable spines, which also can help it boop
around the ocean floor. And these spines are often brightly colored,
and they come off it just at all angles and
discourage predators. Although we are not the only ones who
enjoy eating it. Other things like lobsters and sea otters
like it too. The anus of the creature is at
(09:31):
the top of the shell and then along the inner
upper of the test. The animals, reproductive organs or gonads
are sitting in these sort of little sacks, five of them,
arranged in a star shape. You may have noticed that
there were five teeth. There's also five gonads. Sea urchins
(09:53):
have fivefold symmetry, similar to how we have twofold or
bi symmetry. Yeah, and okay, Like, if you look at
a cross section of a sea urchin, it looks shockingly
like the interior of the tartis that they introduced for
(10:14):
the twenty first century remount of Doctor who like the
ninth and tenth Doctor so much so that I would
be very surprised if that were not a design influence.
Except the Tarti that tartist was hex based. These are
five penta penta based. Yeah. Other than that, pretty close.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
That's cool. Now I won't be able and see it,
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Oh yeah, look up, look up photos or illustrations. It's
really it's really cool. But okay, all right, uh back
back to the gonads. So uh so, the gonads are
the only particularly fleshy bit within the sea urchin. They
also helped store nutrients to keep the animals going during
(11:01):
lean times. But when there is a good supply of food,
usually during the warm spring and summer months, sea urchins
build up their gonads in preparation to spawn during the
colder months. But if you catch them before they use
all that potential energy to fuel the creation and release
of eggs or sperm. The gonads will be large and
fleshy and high quality, and can account for up to
(11:24):
a quarter of the urchin's total weight.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So yeah, at which point they may be harvested and
kept chilled for immediate market. This means that fresh sea
urchin is a seasonal product in the northern Hemisphere. It's
available like late summer to early to midwinter, depending on
the specific species. When buying, look for bright color and
like a defined bumpy surface. If they look dull or
(11:50):
a little bit gooey, they may be past their prime.
Enthusiasts do get really into those local varieties, like the
same way that people talk about the terearoir of wine
or the flavor of like acorn fed pork products. People
talk about searechin from Hokkaido having this really special flavor
from the particular combo that it eats. Oh yeah, there's
(12:12):
a lot of different varieties. They can be golden yellow
to deep orange in color and range from like creamier
when they're harvested earlier in the season to almost grainy
kind of when they're harvested later. People like different things,
and yet searechin aren't really farmed. I read that about
ninety nine percent are harvested wild by either drags, which
(12:32):
are these kind of almost like chainmail bags but large
that you just sort of scrape along the seafloor to
collect the urchins, or harvested by hand by divers. There
are hatcheries working to provide environments to protect young sea
urchin until they're large enough to avoid predation by by
most animals, which usually takes like a couple years. It
(12:55):
can be about five years from birth before a sea
urchin is considered large enough to be marketable or hatching.
I should say they don't really, they're not really. It's
not a burst kind of kind of animal, partially because
of all of this, they can be pricey, though they
are so like rich and flavorful that a little bit
(13:16):
goes a long way, Like you're probably not looking to
consume more than a few pieces, even when you are
cooking with them. Speaking of yes, a sea urchin is
very popular in Japan as a sushi item, whereupon it
is known as uni and usually eaten raw, either by
itself or maybe with some sushi rice, maybe a little
bit of garnish on there. Other seaside cultures also eat
(13:37):
them simply raw. You can also use them themselves as
a kind of garnish on worn dishes like risotto or eggs,
or spread on toast. Maybe they can also add a
complex zing to like creamy bright pasta sauces, either blended
or whole, adding them at the end of cooking and
like just heating them through. Yeah yeah, sound so good.
(14:00):
I've only added in sushi, so yeah, yeah, I was
reading as per the usual. Jkeng Lopez Alt writing for
Serious Eats has like a really good basic guide to
see yourchin pasta sauces, so I recommend looking that up.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Okay, definitely, all right, Well, what about the.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Nutrition by themselves. Searchin is pretty good for you, like
a nice punch of protein and good fats, smattering and micronutrients,
eat a vegetable.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yes, always, Well, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
We do because se yourchin can be expensive. It's typically
like five to ten bucks per ounce, which is not cheap,
but can be like two bucks per gram, which is
like three hundredths of an ounce, like zero point zeros
(14:56):
zero two pounds for two dollars.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I hate converting these things. I have to say.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I'm the one in the grocery store that's like, I
don't know why this isn't court, this is not this
is now.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Anyway, I feel like it's expensive. Yeah, it's expensive.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
According to one source that I found, eighty percent of
sea urchin consumption takes place in Japan.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
That was as of twenty seventeen, so that might have
shifted a tiny bit, but I suspect it's still pretty
much that thing. Yeah. There is a sea urchin festival
in the south of France every March, for which some
twenty thousand sea urchins are harvested, and apparently for like
five euro you can get like a glass of white
(15:48):
wine and a plate of raw sea urchin with bag
at and butter. Sounds pretty good to me, right, yes,
oh heck yeah. There's also a sea urchin festival in
June that I think just started last year in California.
Yeah yeah, listeners, let us know. There is also a
(16:09):
sea urchin Science Center and gallery in Australia in the
Lower Blue Mountains, not at all.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Near the sea.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's run by the world's pre eminent sea urchin taxonomist
and opened in twenty eighteen. He sounds like a fascinating dude,
like he got invited out to the research center in
Antarctica to study the sea urchins there. I yeah, and
this is just his personal collection. He was like, this
is cool. Do you guys think it's cool? Do you
want to see? Did you do you want to see
(16:37):
my sea urchin collection?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Cool? Yes? Oh my gosh. Should I want to know
more about that?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Oh yeah, and one last number for you. Some species
like the red sea urchin which we eat, can live
over fifty years and research has found specimens that were
over too hundred years old. Dang, yeah, all right sea urchins.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, well they are quite old as a species.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Oh yes, and.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
We will get into the history. After a quick break
for a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
And we're back.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay, So yes, if
you are talking about the family that sea urchins are
a part of the fossil record indicates they go back
a stunningly long time, like impossible to comprehend for my brain.
Long sea urchins probably evolved four hundred and fifty million
(17:50):
years ago, so a long time.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So a minute. Yeah, the ones, the species that we
know today evolved from that older group a little more recently,
like sometime in the Triassic period, you know, just just
only two hundred to two hundred and fifty million years ago.
So so yeah, mere babes in the woods. That Aristotle
(18:14):
described sea urchins in the fourth century BCE, which is
where we got the term Aristotle's lantern for its mouthbits. However, interestingly,
research in Greece from like the twenty oughts showed that
he was probably referring when he said lantern. He was
probably referring to the entire skeleton or test, you know,
(18:37):
not just the mouthbits, because they found they totally had
similarly perforated lamps around that time.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
So yeah, yeah, Aristotle's lantern is such a cool name
that is at or.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Something like, oh, I mean now it is okay.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Coastal areas like Peru, create Greece, and Italy have a
long history of fishing and harvesting sea urchins.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
And I would like to come.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Back to this because we've actually talked about this a
couple of times. But yeah, for centuries, women scuba divers,
they actually free dive in Korea, trained to yes, free
dive and harvest these creatures with knives, which is not easy,
can be dangerous.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
It's usually older women. Really interesting history.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Sure, because it's based on breath support and really developing
the musculature that the training to do that kind of
breath support is wild. Yeah, yes, yeah. Et homology note, okay,
the word urchin in English comes from the French, which
comes from a Latin word for hedgehog, which itself comes
(19:49):
from an old pie a proto Indo European route, meaning
to bristle, from which we also get the word horror,
as in bristle with fear.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Okay, but okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
In English, the term urchin was applied to all sorts
of bristly beings during the fifteen hundreds, including goblins, people hunchedbacks,
grubby looking kids in general, and bad girls in particular.
Oh yeah, the sea urchin for the animal entered the
written record in the fifteen nineties, so around the same time,
(20:28):
indicating that that English speakers were familiar with them around then.
And it was around the time of this urchin expansion
that English speakers seemed to agree to call hedgehogs hedgehogs
instead of urchins. I don't know what the transfer was, yeah,
although I should also note, because of course I looked
(20:50):
into it, street urchin was not popularized. Although it had
come about during this time, it wasn't popularized until like
Victorian England.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Oh, I was wondering about that. I was like, that's
my experience with that term, and I wonder.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, or like like a little bit before, like like
the seventeen nineties ish, I think, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Also urch and expansion again sounds like a card game
where you're buying the expansion pack.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I want the urchin expansion.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yes, I bet it's hard. Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So basically from what I read, I couldn't find a
lot of specifics. But again, coastal areas where sea urchins
were available, people were probably yep, eating them.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Found it harvest them.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Some sources I read suggest that for a while sea
urchins were largely used as bait in Japan until about
the nineteenth century, when sushi chef started using it after
they realized it was a great compliment to sushi rice.
At first, only select regions in the country offered it,
and it was considered a local specialty. When Japanese cuisine
(22:01):
started to really take hold globally in the mid nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Uni sushi got more popularity worldwide.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
It did take time depending on the area, but that
was when it started to be.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Like okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
During the eighteen hundreds, some Japanese Americans living in California
formed fishing villages, especially near Monterey, and they foraged for
sea urchins off the coast.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yes. Yeah. They were also apparently harvested in Newfoundland in
the eighteen hundreds, where they further apparently had the nicknames
eggs oh my, yep, yep. So many animalogy nets in
this one. You're well, I love it, thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
When Sicilian immigrants arrived in New York in the early
twentieth century, they started to demand for sea urchin, which
led to the harvesting of sea urchins in Maine that
were then shipped to New York.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
A little bit more on that later.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Salvador Dali was a big fan of them, so much
so that he started in a nineteen thirty short film
or he explained how to eat them. I had to
look this up because I was like, wait, what what Yeah,
you can still watch it?
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Cool yep.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
And in his book Fifty Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, he wrote,
to begin with, you will eat three dozen sea urchins
gathered on one of the last two days that precede
the full moon, choosing only those who star is coral red,
and discarding the yellow ones, which have, according to him,
quote sedative and narcotic virtues so special and so proprietous
(23:44):
to your approaching slumber, so basically make you nap.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
And you don't want that if you're trying to make.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Something, No, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. The star that
he's referring to is okay. Usually when you crack open
a sea urchin to consume it, you often use either
a knife or like a special kind of kind of
pinchy scissor thing that that just cuts off the top
(24:12):
of the sea urchin where the gonads are attached to
that top of the of the skeletal system and then
just kind of kind of open it up like a
like a like a skull, like a human skull, you know.
And and then on the inside those those five gonads
form a little star on the inside of that cap.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
So that's that's what.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
He's referring to. Okay, I got you. Wow, Well, there
is a lot of horror imagery in this one. I'm
gonna say. Well. In nineteen sixty seven, Dolly finished a
painting called sea Urchin Yes So Cool, Big Fan. In
(24:53):
the nineteen seventies, Japanese seafood traders reached out to those
in the US that might help them supplement there's a
in Japan. They're basically like, we would like more of these,
can you get them? Divers in California and Maine who
were willing to take the risks, including shark attacks, could
make a lot of money. At one point in the
nineteen nineties, they could earn up to two thousand, five
(25:14):
hundred dollars of sea urchins in a week. Yes, and
the sea urchin harvest in Maine saw a massive rise.
From about nineteen eighty seven to nineteen ninety two. The
value of their the market went from about fifty thousand
dollars to fifteen million dollars in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, yeah wow, or by nineteen ninety yeah, from like yeah,
over the course of just a couple of years, because
they had been previously producing this relatively small amount for
these local markets like Sicilian immigrants to the New Yorkish area.
So they've been they've been harvesting maybe like forty five
metric tons a year, and then that jumped in the
(25:54):
same short period to over fifteen thousand metric tons, which
unfortunately led to a marked decrease in the sea urchin population,
like a ninety percent decrease. And so that is where
you get these sustainability efforts happening to try to protect
the young population until it can help repopulate the area.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Rights.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Also, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to three
scientists in two thousand and one quote for their discoveries
of key regulators of the cell cycle. And that's from
the Nobel Prize website that they came to by observing
sea urchins.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yes, I very briefly, right before we started recording, tried
to figure out what that means. And I don't know
so made so so maybe science episode science many in
those sature Yeah, yeah, we'll find out, because I do
know that sea urchins are pretty widely used to study stuff.
(26:56):
I don't remember why, So there you go. What I
do know about is the Internet.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
So okay.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Sea urchin hit another spike of more like mainstream popularity
around twenty sixteen, which I strongly suspect is due to
what researches of the future shall surely call the Instagram effect.
You know, they look real pretty and weird, and so
there you go. And that was combined with a surge
of interest in like new foods, although of course people
(27:25):
had been eating them forever, right, And speaking of Internet influence,
I do have to put in here because of this
thing that happened like early pandemic. Yes, many sea urchins
enjoy wearing hats, or at the very least, we'll put
(27:46):
on a hat if you give them one. Okay. A
lot of sea urchin species have this natural behavior of
grabbing up shells or rocks or like branches of seaweed
with there were weird little suction arms, and then wearing
them around as like a sort of camouflage to avoid
(28:07):
predation and possibly in areas in like tidepools that are
nearer to the surface, maybe to avoid sunburn. So if you,
for example, three D print a tiny sinkable cowboy hat
and you leave it in a seaarch and habitat, there's
(28:30):
a decent chance it's going to pick it up and
put it on its little searearch and dome.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I need this my life.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
I didn't know I needed it so badly until you've
said it.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
It's very cute. I highly recommend googling seaarchin hats.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Can you imagine if you'd like printed out a bunch
of hats and then we have like a search and
party hat party.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
This is pretty much occurred. I again, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I thank you, Lauren. You've done me a great service today.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I have like never wanted a marine a saltwater aquarium
as much as I did when when all of this
started coming out on the internet.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
New character for donut guard to that is so good.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Oh gosh, trying to prevent someburn. They're just being smart,
they are and don't get sburn. Yeah, come on, that
fashionable had perfect perfect all right? Well, future research for
me I did see a lot of stories that started
(29:50):
circulating in twenty twenty three about the quote moral imperative
to eat sea urchin in certain places since they are
invasive there. For example, one story reported that off the
coast of California, the sea urchin had devoured ninety percent
of the bull kelp there, which is important to the
local ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah. Yeah, as opposed to the overfishing that we've seen
in some areas like Maine and many parts of Japan.
The problem in California is that when the natural predators
that usually keep sea urchins in check, when they decline
in population, like like otters and sea stars, which are
(30:32):
cousins of sea urchins, those urchins will overpopulate and just
totally take over. It's you know, like you probably learned
an elementary school, whenever there's an imbalance in the food chain,
everything gets messed up.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
So yeah, yeah, yep, that's I know. I've mentioned this
game before, but I loved this Magic school Bus game.
I played Elementary School and it had this whole we've
got to keep the ecosys them and check and kelp
was a big part of it.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
I had to make manage the kelp.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, yeah, I had it was an important job. No,
it was fun. It was actually really fun game.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
But it's just it was funny that I was like,
oh yeah, school us. Yeah, thanks, yes, absolutely, well, for sure,
there is a plethora of things we could come back
to you with this one. Oh yeah, right yeah, but
I think that's what we have to say for now.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I think it is. We We do have some listener
mill 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 3 (31:50):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
And we're back with Spikey on the outside. It's off
on the inside.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Oh yeah, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Okay, I love this. A couple of people have written
in about this.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Okay, okay, okay, I'm gonna leave you in suspense. Melissa wrote,
just listened to the latest episode of muld Wine and
the aside about the Muppets Christmas Carol reminded me of
a tweet that was recently circulating. Disney owns the rights
to the Muppets, so why aren't they making Muppet versions
of their classics instead of all these live action remakes?
(32:31):
We need Muppets, Beauty and the Beast, Muppet Pinocchio, all
of it. I wish I could find the original tweets
so I could credit the writer. However, the more a
titchen this idea gets, the more likely it is for
someone at Disney to see the wisdom and create these
obvious masterpieces.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Oh right, I mean especially right, especially Disney films where
you have this interaction between humans and very read other characters. Yes,
I mean, I'm not saying that Cinderella herself could not
be a muppet, but like human Cinderella with a bunch
of muppets would be pretty aces.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yes, all, while the Muppet Christmas Carol we have Michael
Kane playing it so seriously. Yeah, around these muppets, it's
just a fun dynamic. There's a lot of fun to
be had there. Oh my goodness, I think this is
a great idea. We could have more classics on our hand,
like the Christmas care Rol.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Oh beautiful, beautiful herd degree, Heidi wrote, first, I want
to say thank you for all the enjoyment and knowledge
you have brought to my life from the beginning of Savor.
I'm currently a little behind on episodes, but always get
excited when a new episode drops and I get to
see what's coming my way. On the recent episode about Zelee,
(33:55):
you asked for more information about cookie tables. Oh, yes, okay.
As someone born and raised in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania,
I had never heard about cookie tables nor seen one
at a wedding until I got engaged while living in Pittsburgh.
The greater number of Scandinavians over German, Polish, Italian, and
Greek immigrants where I grew up only two and a
(34:15):
half hours north of Pittsburgh, meant the cookie table didn't
develop into a thing. It was one thing my now
spouse insisted on having had our wedding, even though we
got married in northwest Pennsylvania. My family was a little
surprised by the table, but loved the table and the
to go bags, which all good cookie tables must include.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
That seems to be a consensus. I'll say, oh, yes,
that is beautiful. Love this because we've said before it's
so fun when we learn about like very localized things.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
But I love that you were like only.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Two and a half hours away and it would still
be on your can. Yeah, that's so great, wonderful, right, Yes,
and we have several more messages coming up about this
that is it's fantastic and pictures that look like.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Like banquet hauls, I mean just of cookies. It's amazing.
So thank you all for answering when we were like, let.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Us know more about it.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yes, yes, so much. Yes, yeah, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
And and if you and if you have anything, if
if you have anything to say about sea urchins?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yes, have you have you been diving for sea urchins?
Do do you have a do you have a recipe
that we should have?
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Did you make one a hat?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Did have you made one a hat?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
We have to know, we have to let us know
we do.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Please, yes, please, Thanks to both of these listeners for
writing in. If you would like to write to us
with answer these very important questions, you can our email
is hello at saverpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio four more
podcasts from my heart Radio. You can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
(36:32):
more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.