Hacker News Reader

Comment by ropiwqefjnpoa | Hacker News Reader

These things sound delicious.

They are really tough and you need to pound the crap out of it. There are Asian restaurants where you can give a wink or secret handshake and get native abalone. Mostly Chinese IIRC. The Asian poachers were busted on a wildlife show I’ve watched and they are contributing to the problem. I heard about the Chinese restaurants in California from food blogs and other shows.

I saw a Chinese guy getting busted in NorCal he had hidden the abalone in the hub caps of his car tires. Think old Chevy ones that were like a big bowl.

This is the tragedy of the common resource, people always cheat. There will be no more fish in the sea. See the Canadian maritime fishing industry for exhibit A. They Take all the fish until there are no more and then try to find something new to do maybe, or maybe just do nothing.

Yea I’ve seen Chinese fisherman in Florida taking anything they catch. I mean anything their net or pole catches. Fish, not fish, invertebrate, even oyster toadfish. I wanted to see how they cook it all but some of the stuff was not legal.

Similar problem in Australia - lots of Chinese in Western Australia leads to overfishing of native Abalone stock: https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/the-ch...

Restrictions on fishing are getting tighter every season since more and more people go in

When I visited New Zealand's Stewart Island in 2005 to stay with my brother's in-laws (who run a sea food business there) I had the pleasure of a home cooked dinner of locally dive caught abalone and my own line caught blue cod. The abalone was cooked in garlic butter and was utterly delicious. I'm not really a huge fan of things that live in shells in the sea, but I could certainly get used to abalone.

Afterwards I was told that the (fairly sizeable) portion of abalone I'd consumed would have cost US$150+ in a US restaurant. I nearly fell off of my chair.

teh_klev says". The abalone was cooked in garlic butter and was utterly delicious. I'm not really a huge fan of things that live in shells in the sea, but I could certainly get used to abalone."

But anything cooked in garlic butter is utterly delicious! The abalone is merely a carrier for the hot garlic butter.

Well, yes I admit this is true. But the abalone had a nice texture, like nicely cooked mushrooms I guess. Having thought about it, it was actually like eating a really nice plate of foraged-in-the-wood mushrooms cooked in garlic butter but with a background taste that I couldn't properly identify (maybe the sea), but it wasn't unpleasant.

There's a red abalone farm just a couple of miles away from my house. I've never had white abalone though.

I don't think there's any saltwater invertebrate that isn't delicious when breaded and deep fried.

Wholly agree. Although I may take a pass on these guys if the opportunity presented itself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_isopod

::shudders::

Edit: Update... Well somebody went there:

https://soranews24.com/2014/03/12/dinner-is-served-get-your-...

Is it really that different from a crab or a langoustine?

It does look alarmingly like a woodlouse/pillbug, but I'd guess the meat is quite similar.

They are. Abalone hoe is awesome

They are fantastic. If you ever get a chance, try it!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com