Geoduck

[Ian_Lee]

Geoduck is also known as mirugai and better known as elephant trunk clam in the Chinese community.

It is now very popular in HK as well as Japan and southern Chinese cities.

But it is a new item on the dining table. It only has a short history for about 20 years.

When the first wave of HK immigrants arrived in British Columbia in early '80s, they discovered this delicacy and started to devour it. By that time, I heard it was just C$2 or 3 per pound, but now over here it is sold for US$13 per pound.

And interestingly in 1999, it was the biggest item that British Columbia exported to HK.

Geoduck is only found in the Pacific Northwest. First it was caught but now it is extensively farmed on the seabed.

In fact, many of these geoduck farms in Washington and Oregon are owned by Native Indians. Many of them earn 6-figure income due to the booming business.

So Chinese gourmets are directly alleviating the Native Indians out of poverty!

But the shape of Geoduck is really ugly. It looks exactly like the male genital part.

For sashimi, the freshness of its meat beats premium grade toro!

[Ian_Lee]

Read some interesting information from Canada's Geoduck website:

http://www.geoduck.org/index_2.html

Its video is illustrated in English, Mandarin and Cantonese. You can imagine how big the market is in China/Taiwan/HK!

[wiz_oz]

On a trip to Sabah, I was passing thro Semporna which is the gateway to Pulau Sipadan. While there I saw a Chinese man loading crates of clams onto a lorry. Those clams look just like geoduck, only they were about 80mm long (excluding the trunk). The name translate to "elephant trunk clam". He gave me a few but when they were cooked, they were very chewy but quite tasty.

BTW Sabah is in Borneo.

[skylee]

(虫聖)子?

[wiz_oz]

Sorry. No read Chinese.