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5. Gooseneck Barnacle
You’ve probably never seen gooseneck barnacles on a menu in the States, but it’s only a matter of time. Besides being a popular Christmastime appetizer in Spain and Portugal (where it’s known as percebes), it’s gaining ground in America and being harvested off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. But harvesting this rock-dwelling crustacean is no simple matter. Barnacle fishers typically tie themselves to the rocks in a surge zone along the ocean and pry the creatures off between waves. To do this, they have to use a crowbar to break the animals’ self-adhesive, which is so resistant to tampering that scientists were long mystified by its chemical makeup. In other words, removing a barnacle takes lots of traction, which, given the waves, can be tricky. A poorly maintained tether, or a harvester too impatient to tie in, can easily end with a call to the Coast Guard. Of those brave enough to harvest gooseneck barnacles, one Coast Guard official said, “The best we can do is retrieve the bodies.”
Editor’s Note: Christa Weil is the author of Fierce Food: The Intrepid Diner’s Guide to the Unusual, Exotic, and Downright Bizarre (Plume, 2006), available in bookstores nationwide.
Hi Christa!
As a Portuguese I always feel kind of proud to see my country associated to cool and quirky things rather than the normal “bottom of the european union in anything relevant”. And today I saw it twice in your blog, (the Pena Palace in Miss Celania’s “9 castles to visit”). Yay!
“Percebes” are a popular all year round appetizer in Portugal, and not just a christmas thing. In fact it’s in summer that you bet the “percebes” are great. Eaten through the afternoon, by the beach, whith Sangria and good friends. Not much is that good. (if you think of trying it for real send me an email.)
but what I wanted to say is, and forgive me if you already mentioned them, aren’t you forgeting those Special Crabs that cost at least a fisherman per boat every time they go out to get them? they have a show about them on tv.
posted by xixita on 12-26-2007 at 5:50 am
Israeli settlers burning olive branches… how interesting.
posted by Katie on 12-26-2007 at 4:36 pm
And not a word about Palestinians threatening Israeli settlers during the harvest season. Uh huh.
Also, “scope rifles”? Suuure. I live here and at worst the only damage is vandalism and NOT life threatening.
posted by Mac on 1-10-2008 at 1:58 am
Mac,
It happens, happened to a friend of mine, a Zionist Jewish friend. Next season maybe you should help out your fellow humans in the modern version of the Warsaw ghetto.
posted by Zervas on 1-17-2008 at 12:23 am
Its actually a documented fact that the IDF has uprooted thousands of olive trees (some are hundreds of years old)from the West Bank and Gaza to either make way for new illegal settlements, or to ‘prevent attacks’
… go figure!
posted by Dan on 1-21-2008 at 5:48 am