Abalone

Abalone
The meat from a large mollusc that lives off the coasts off of California. There are eight species that inhabit the Pacific waters: red (the largest, and the most import commercial abalone), green, black, flat (small in sole and most prize), white (found in depths up to 150 feet and commercial included with the pink abalone) and the three least common species - threaded, pink and pinto.

All the varieties offer meat that is extremely sweet and tasty, but it is usually tough and rubbery and requires tenderizing with mallet prior to cooking.

Today, the abalone industry is highly regulated, as the mollusc continue to be favorite food or sea otters and are scarce.

Since the earliest poetry, dating back to anthology of Japanese verse Man'yoshu, their unique iridescent shells have been likened to unrequited love by drawing symbolic parallel between one sided love and the abalone’s single shell.

For this reason, in the folklore of cuisine, abalone cannot be served at wedding banquets, although other bivalve shellfish are often eaten.

Folklore also says that abalone is helpful for arthritis and other joints disorders, muscle problems, the heart and digestion.

Abalones are known to have existed as long as the Upper Cretaceous age. They now occur in the Mediterranean, and even on the coats of England, but it is only in the Pacific that they attain great size, most being found off California, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.
Abalone