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Comment by pvaldes | Hacker News Reader

Deep sea cephalopods accumulate ammonia in their body as a buoyant device. This way, they don't need to spend so much energy swimming. Ammonia is fairly toxic, so they would taste either like pee, or like poison. I had touched some of this animals and the smell of rancid fat and urine last for days in your hands

Also if you put this animals at the surface they will literally burst from inside and turn into a mushy mess. I had explained this yet a few times before, but for some reason this particular Muusoctopus nursery is a recurrent history on HN.

Octopuses are benthic, so they could store a different amount of ammonia, but my bet would be that such partially disintegrated octopus product would look and taste awful. None of the other species of deep sea octopuses are fished commercially.

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Joke's on you, we're into that:

Hongeo-hoe is a type of fermented fish dish from Korea's Jeolla province. Hongeo-hoe is made from skate and emits a very strong, characteristic ammonia-like odor

Skates (hongeo) are cartilaginous fish that excrete uric acid through the skin, rather than by urinating as other animals do. As they ferment, ammonia is produced, which helps preserve the flesh and gives the fish its distinctive, powerful odor.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongeo-hoe

I know that some sharks and rays had a more or less strong pee taste. I personally dislike it. Skate is the only dish that I would classify as dog food grade. The line between tasty and nasty is very thin in those fishes and requires a skilled chef.

But I'm perfectly fine with the idea of some people loving the pee taste, or eating rotten shark meat, or urinating in other people's mouths while eating carp croquettes. As long as those people is not me, good for them. I'll pass. Thank you.

Feel free to eat this new discovered octopus before any other human and tell us about your experience. My bet is that will be memorable for all the wrong reasons

In any case, skate meat should be forbidden by conservation issues. Their populations are very fragile and on a sharp decline, and to eat this animals is very irresponsible.

I just wanted to say I thoroughly appreciate your contribution to this thread. Equal parts intellectually interesting and belly-laugh worthy

Wait, that can't be right, you must be talking about some particular species, they're everywhere in Briti-- oh. Common Skate is critically endangered.

It's also about £8.50 for 500g.

ffs. We are, collectively, utter morons aren't we?

The ammonia content of Greenland Shark doesn't prevent them from being a treat:

The traditional method begins with gutting and beheading a shark and placing it in a shallow hole dug in gravelly sand, with the cleaned cavity resting on a small mound of sand. The shark is then covered with sand and gravel, and stones are placed on top of the sand in order to press the fluids out of the body. The shark ferments in this fashion for six to twelve weeks, depending on the season. Following this curing period, the shark is cut into strips and hung to dry for several months. During this drying period, a brown crust will develop, which is removed prior to cutting the shark into small pieces and serving.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl

From your link:

> Those new to it [Hákarl] may gag involuntarily at the first attempt to eat it because of the high ammonia content.

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