Harvested on the west coast of Washington state and British Columbia, mainly for the Asian Market – Geoduck clams (象拔蚌 elephant trunk clams in Chinese), are one of the delicacies on show at Shanghai´s Tongchuan market (do check it out if you´re in Shanghai) that I could never bring myself to try. Burying themselves in the sand to feed on plankton, the geoducks take quite some digging out, and this may be one reason why they will survive. They live to be over 100 years old, strange to think of something 100 years old getting used up as part of China´s new consumption frenzy.
While I was at the market, a salesman picked one of the geoducks up out of its tank. It was quite sizable as you can see above. Water squirted from the foot long siphon, disgusting. At least it didn´t squirm – the trunk looks like it could be a ball of tight muscle, but it seems no, like all clams it´s a rather inert member of God´s kingdom...but one with physiological benefits like shark fin soup or bear gall bladders, lets not move on to those topics.
Tongchuan market
And for some preparation tips:
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