Most people of the time thought the almost perfectly spherical scallops sold in grocery stores or fish markets were “punched-out shark meat,” he adds. “If you could open them and see the heart and the muscle and all the inner workings, you wouldn’t want to eat them,” says longtime Cape May scallop fisherman Wayne Whalen. In the 1960s, they sold for as little as 20 cents per pound compare that to today’s prices, which can reach the $14 per pound range.Īt the time, scallops suffered from an image problem. Though it’s hard to believe today, over the years, scallops have waxed and waned in popularity as a food source. Is the comeback kid of the seafood platter. Eat your heart out, Paul Newman.īut the delicacy we know and love didn’t always have such star quality. That’s right: rows and rows of protruding, bright blue eyes-up to 100-that help them sense light and darkness.
Perhaps most surprisingly, they have blue eyes. They’re often long-lived, withĪ lifespan of up to 20 years, though they’re usually harvested at two to three years of age. They can be hermaphroditic, with both male and female sex characteristics. Yes, scallops are fascinating in many ways. No wonder there are so many YouTube videos of this phenomenon. The effect is cartoonlike-think of flapping, disembodied jaws, zipping along in herky-jerky fashion, sometimes shooting both water and sand out of their The water to shoot out the back of the shells. Scallops propel themselves forward by opening their shells wide, sucking in water, then clamping shut, forcing Motivated scallops can make tracks, too, covering as many as 12 miles a day.
If they don’t like something about their neighborhood-the current, the water quality, the available plankton, the potential for danger-they pick up and move, and take all their buddies along. Tucked just beneath the sand, where they burrow for safety, scallops are virtually invisible at first glance.īut these plucky little creatures aren’t content to let life just pass them by. The deceptively simple organisms live in vast beds along the ocean floor. For brainless, primitive bivalve mollusks, Atlantic sea scallops lead pretty interesting lives.
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