A huge Mantarya was caught in Peru, ~2200lbs



1000kg Manta-ray caught in Peru by small fishing vessel

Is that Travis?

Looks like a float from Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Yes! I hear many rays do indeed have a scallop flavor. Some day I will spend the coin, sit down, and consume scallops until I throw up. Wish they were not so damned expensive.

I guess I never thought of eating them,

Many "scallops" that you buy are indeed, cut from rays. Real scallops usually have a small tough piece on the side where the muscle is cut from the shell.

Me, I'm willing to be fooled, as long as it tastes the same. Love 'em.

If you have a Costco around, they sell them fresh at times and they're very good.

If you find some, be careful not to overcook them.

I had heard this all my life...so...one day I took a cast net and caught the biggest sting ray I could find. I took him home, took my fillet knife and cut him up enough so I could see that there was nothing in his wings or body that looked like a scallop. I even cooked some of the meat and it was ok but not scallops. Maybe other rays are used but I can tell you, nothing in a sting ray is a scallop.

I've love scallops and I've tried a few different types of rays cooked a few different ways. There is ZERO similarity between the two! The rays were edible at best..
I think 99% of talk about scallops being punched out of ray wings is urban myth and BS..Not saying it's never happened but I just don't buy it...

Winner winner scallop dinner.













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Them folks don't look to be starving.......
Which is good.

Now Those look great, kamo

Leighton, if I ever make it within your time zone I am going to break my bank eating and drinking.
If any of that stuff taste half as good as it looks, I will be buying new clothes for the trip home.

I would tend to listen to Kamo about seafood than someone from WV.

Kamo your a seafood killin sumbitch!!

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Note the bay scallops. Here we get bay and sea scallops. I have buds who dive for them, and a friend who dredges for them commercially. Bays are often sweeter, but on average 1/3 to 1/5 the size of seas, well, I prefer the seas every time. But then I'm a shameless glutton at times--most of the time when it comes to killer seafood. I'm mortal and have faults; what can I say? No reasonable excuse.

Bay scallop shells are corrugated/scalloped, and seas are smooth, BTW.

Gari, That's some serious of the good stuff!

Leighton, you are making me hungry! Your photos are always superb. Thanks for posting!

I have fond memories of meeting my friends at the dock when they got in from dragging all day. Six pack of budweiser and a pound or two of freshly shucked scallops. Most of the time they never made it home, eat them right there on the spot. I was picky though and would only get them from fellas I knew or trusted (still am). Some guys used their buckets they shucked into for other uses that were less than sanitary.

In the early days of the Kodiak scallop fishery there were so many monster scallops it was hard to believe. And the monsters ate every bit as good as the dinks. Seared for just the briefest of times or eaten raw made little difference. It was not uncommon to eat more than a pound per person at a sitting.

But man were they expensive... $5 a pound!!!!!!!

Ah, sweet, delicate bay scallops!

When I was in college (back east) friends and I would snorkel and pick up a lot off the bay bottom. We would have a group scallop shucking at the dorm. Only about half of those little darlins made it to the bowl.

Nice cold November water too. By the time we went home at Thanksgiving we each had a gallon or more.

scallops punched out of stingray is vastly over stated.

There used to be a sweet, plump little French lady that had a cooking show on Maryland Public TV.

She did a show on crabcakes where she mixed up a batch made with lump backfin and pureed scallops for binder. I always wanted to try it, but never had the nerve. If it wasn't good, I'd be inconsolable over the waste.

What I've always heard is that they are punched out of skate wings, not stingray, but the next time I'm over in St. Michaels I'll ask the seafood dealer I know.

I hate you. Really, really hate you.

Need to buy some of these soon. Usually every few months we get them but it has been probably 9.

I checked Wiki and Snopes with no luck. I made an inquiry on Snopes, so maybe they'll come up with something.

Yahoo Answers came up with mixed results. Possibly the ones sold as "Ocean" scallops, the large ones with no little gristly part on the side are indeed, cut from the wings of skates, not stingrays. Bay scallops are the real deal.

Wiki notes that diver-harvested scallops are superior to dredged ones because there is less grit and they get to market more quickly.

No offense, but your getting your info from Wiki on scallops is a little silly. 'Get to market quicker'? Ummm, OK. I suppose one could argue that's true. If the guys I know that dive for them don't stop for a 12 pack and drive quicker to the wholesale buyer than the guys that dredge for them (most seafood buyers don't much care how the products come in, assuming it was legal).

Don't care if they are skate wings or stingray. If they are then they are one of my favorites, makes no difference to the taste buds.

Well yeah, I get what you're saying, but would you be happy paying $18.99 a pound for skate wings? Somehow, I think not...

Just reporting what the article said.

The part about the grit makes sense, anyway.

No, it doesn't. Grit is found in both hard shell as well as soft shell clams, mussels sometimes and very occasionally in oysters, and hell, in most any bivalve that sits at the bottom in a sandy, muddy or silty environment. But a gritty scallop? Nope. Not unless you're buying your scallops whole, which you're not. There should NEVER be any grit in scallops, ever. Why is that? Because in this country 99.99% of the time the damned things are already shucked when the end buyer gets them, and have been washed.

I've eaten scallops for 40 years plus, have shucked way more than my share of bivalves too and I don't recall ever having a 'gritty' scallop. It'd be a trick to even get a gritty scallop, save for one some clumsy shucker dropped in the sand before sending to market.

Not hating on you, just spreading the knowledge. Trust me on this.

The muscle composing the scallop isn't a part of the digestive tract, so there's no way ingested "grit" could be a factor.

How do you know when you've pissed off the bartender?

There's a string hangin out of your bloody mary.

How do you know when you've pissed off the itame-san?

There's grit in your fresh scallop.

Same as with recycled chew gum..

lol

That's 'itamae', demo wakatta tomodachi.

No, it's itame, whenudonnowhadafukurtalkinabout.

Lol

Ya, called the adductor muscles. That which holds the halves together.













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I went back to Wiki and checked the reference for the grit thing. The footnote referred to an article written about the Tasmanian fishery. Apparently outside of the U.S. scallops are often sold whole as the roe, known as coral, is also eaten. Here of course, only the adductor muscle is ordinarily consumed, so the scallops are shucked and as you stated, rinsed.

China and Japan both farm scallops, with China at least raising mostly Atlantic bay scallops. Whodathunkit.

Dirty rotten mother shuckers.

Yep, had them in Brazil one time when there on business - they had a orange'ish colored "appendage". I tried one with it and didn't care for it, so cut it off the rest before finishing.

Also, someone mentioned Costco, they also sell a bag of frozen ones that are pretty good - take some up to my mom every time I visit her in Arkansas.

That was me. The Costco scallops are very good. I buy them and eat on 'em until they're gone.

Sprinkle them with a little s&p, Old Bay, and then shake them in a bag of flour to just lightly coat them. Fry in hot oil witha little butter added until they are just warm through and brown.

Like shrimp, you've got to be careful not to overcook.

If I'm ever on Death Row, for my last meal I want a fried seafood platter from Chesapeake Landing in Talbot County, Maryland. Lump crabcake, shrimp, oysters, fish, and scallops. If oysters aren't in season you get more shrimp and scallops, or sometimes a softshell crab.

Ha! Spongebob is the man.

In the northeast coastal areas it is advisable not to eat more of the sea scallop than the abductor mussel. There is a president for this in the literature. I copied this for what it is worth:

Among bivalves, scallops are classified as species capable of protracted retention of PSP toxins, particularly in the digestive gland and mantle, which can remain toxic
year-round in natural populations (Bourne, 1965; Prakash et al., 1971; Ogata et al.,1982; Shumway et al., 1988). It was especially noteworthy that toxin concentration in all scallop tissues from the Gulf of Maine was higher when sampling was resumed in the spring, than the declining levels found during late fall ‘of the previous year, when sampling was terminated. For gonadal tissue the difference was particularly remarkable,
indicating the greater capacity for maturing gonads to sequester PSP toxin.

I have eaten the mantle [locally rims]from sea scallops and found them bitter tasting. Tried them once and never desired to eat then again. All before I learned it

Scallops are shucked on board the catch boat as they are caught. Scallops can be found on muddy and rocky bottom. I have dived for, shucked and eaten my share of sea scallops in my younger days and do not have any memory on grit ever being a nuisance.

You all need to know that fresh scallop meats harvested in the coastal waters are flaccid and faintly multi-colored fresh out of the shell. When a buyer gets them they will be soaked for some period of time in fresh water. The meats take in the fresh water plumping them up and this increases their weight something like 20%. They leave the dealer to market firm and white. A lot of the scallop flavor can be lost in the soaking process. As an aside, Maine shrimp are treated the same way before the meats are picked from the tail shell. Shucked oysters are placed in a commercial size kettle that has a perforated plate on its bottom that allows pressurized air to bubble up through cold fresh water. In the case with shucked oysters this is necessary to separate out the broken shell pieces. But again, good flavor is lost.

In my opinion the best scallop flavor is developed when scallops are "roasted" with butter in a high heat oven until the juices have evaporated, the butter has browned and the scallops are well caramelized on their edges. Oysters respond well to this method too.

When boiling lobsters, fresh whole shrimp and crabs there is a recipe I have favored that does well in retaining flavor. the boiling water has 1/2 cup table salt, two tablespoons real sugar, and a tablespoon of white vinegar in each 6 quarts. In 6qts water only cook 1 pound of shrimp for 28-30 seconds or until they start to float. A vegetable rinse basket works well for shrimp. Tie cotton string to it to have something to pull it up out of the water with. Dump the cooked shrimp into a large bowl or tray to let them to cool and stop cooking.

Lobsters do well boiled for 15 minutes [ size dependent] in this water-salt-sugar solution.

Fresh crabs are boiled for 20 minutes, 5-6 at a time but not above the water level. Have a sink standing by 1/2 full of cold water that has about the same salt content as the boiling water. When the crabs are done, immediately place them in the cold water and allow them to cool through. This shrinks the meat away from the shell and makes it easy to pick-suck out the meat. Store extra crabs, lobster, shrimp in an air tight container in the refrigerator for grazing on over the next few days.

Oh......all this seafood makes your favorite beer taste soooooooo good. :o)

samchap

Oysters also respond well to being broiled on the half shell with a dollop of backfin, crumbled bacon, and a little cheese. Might not be traditional, rugged, or manly, but they are so good.

I went to a buffet on Tilghman Island, MD that was serving those and ate about thirty of 'em.

Interesting. All the shots I posted of whole scallops being cooked and eaten were from Japan. I'm certain they were of the Asian variety, but from exactly where I'm unsure. I'm certain northern Japan (Hokkaido) produces large amounts of scallops, and I'd not be the least bit surprised if they were almost all farmed, which may explain why the Japanese serve scallops whole (shellfish are in controlled environments, rather than open ocean and subject to toxins therein, those regularly occurring and otherwise).

I ate the entire contents of two, just to try, and some parts were quite tasty, others downright bad. The pink stuff was pretty good, but the black gooey stuff in particular was not something I'll ever try again. Big surprise that the black stuff wasn't very good, right?

I have to disagree with you slightly on cooking method. The addition of any sugar in the cooking of bugs is something I've heard of, but fail to see the point of, and I won't ever do it. There's enough added sugar in so many things these days, I'll be damned if I'll ever add any to a simple boiled seafood meal. I choose to steam, rather than boil much of my seafood anyway--in natural salt water when I can-- and definitely with lobsters and softshell clams. Thanks for the additional insight though.

A couple buddies pictured. A lot of the ones we got that day were the teacup saucer size. You're right about the taste of fresh being different, and better. But hey, not everyone has the chance to eat fresh off the boat seafood...

They were served that way in Australia as well. I did not care for it.

You referring to scallops cooked whole or the lobsters with sugar thing? Come on man, you're retired now, and can afford the time to type an extra few words these days!

Scallops are known to produce pearls which are found in the filmy outer tissue. These might be mistaken for grit but are not found in the muscle.

If you boil any any muscle tissue there is a soluble fraction in the meat that seeps out into the water because of osmotic pressure. The salt is added to make the water a bit more saline than the saline content in the seafood being boiled. The same goes for the sugar. If you are boiling in seawater add only one tablespoon salt to it.

I do understand the variability in what individuals deem flavorful and delicious. Sometimes food taste experiences in early life lend to what an individual may think is delicious to them.

I posted pictures of scallop pearls I found while shucking a couple years back, actually. Agree about individual tastes and preferences. As far as the osmosis stuff, well, OK. Diffusion of a few lobster-based molecules crossing through a semi-permeable membrane, those moving from a greater to a lesser concentration? Well, as stated I think, I steam mine, generally. I like throwing my molecules a curve ball. You should see the bugs scratching their heads as they turn red, trying to figure the chemistry out and whatnot...



Cheers, samchap.

I heard some scallops come from shark meat. Is that true?

Boldly speaking generally for discerning and seafood-conscious folks in New England only, if a consumer can't tell the difference between a sea scallop and a supposed apple corer punched out plug of shark meat (of which three species are commercially viable as well as being edible [mako, porbeagle and thresher]), well...

The other thing is, any fish dealer caught (ha, ha) selling 'fake' seafood in these parts is gambling with financial ruin. Being that we have such a wealth of marine produce available, one would have to be in business suicide mode to ever try to pass off a counterfeit product.

But then, spiny dogfish are sold commercially and exported and sold as 'fish 'n' chips' fodder in the UK and elsewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiny_dogfish

The reality is, particularly if you know someone who knows a thing or two about a thing or two, one can gorge oneself on ocean delicacies full-time for a week, easy, without even coming within rifle distance of breaking the bank. I dare you.