Geo duck siphon3/8/2023 ![]() Once you can touch the shell, excavate around the clam to free it from its vacuum-sealed lair. Once one is spotted, I like to dig nearby, shoveling down and then across to the clam’s burrow-like a bank robber tunneling into a vault. They betray their whereabouts with a yard-long, double-barreled siphon that sometimes protrudes from the hole. Geoduck larvae will bury themselves 3 feet beneath the substrate soon after hatching and then remain entombed for the rest of their lives, which can be 100 years or longer. Its strange name derives from the Nisqually word gweduk, meaning “dig deep.” Pioneers sometimes called them “horsenecks,” or worse. It’s hard to say which is more difficult-locating the clam’s home or digging it out. If you haven’t tried unearthing a geoduck before, this will be your last best chance of the year. The first week in July will see a few in the negative 3-foot range. Although a few of the big clams live as far south as Baja California, Puget Sound is a stronghold of abundance, and it is here where the art of geoduck clamming has been perfected. The belly has a mild taste and is usually served pan fried, steamed or stewed. Additionally the school’s teams are all named the geoducks and they actually have a guy dressed up like a giant filter feeding clam to root for them.Like climbing Mount Rainier, fishing for steelhead or performing a microbrew pub crawl across Seattle, digging for the wily geoduck is an exercise in regional identity. Frozen geoduck meat has the same flavor and qualities as a live whole geoduck, the neck or siphon has a deliciously sweet taste and the crisp texture of a cucumber is excellent served sashimi style. Although the school’s official seal features a conifer tree, the unofficial coat of arms features a geoduck rampant d’or on a rondel azure (or however you say that in heraldry speak). The Evergreen State College of Olympia, Washington has adopted the remarkable burrowing clam as a mascot. Coastal land development involves bulkheaded beachfronts, deforested land, and nitrogen waste from gardens and septic systems-all of which are inimical to successful geoduck beds.Īs the conflict rages on, some people (figuratively!) embrace the geoduck and its strange appearance for non-financial reasons. ![]() Not only do developers object to the unaesthetic appearance of PVC pipes used as nurseries for juvenile geoducks, but the interests of both parties are entirely opposite. Such use of the tidelands causes consternation to real estate developers. In order to cash in on this bonanza, aquaculturists are attempting to stake out larger and larger swaths of coastline as geoduck farms. Price has shot upwards as China’s economy has grown. Chinese diners believe that the geoduck’s…manly shape indicates that the unpreposessing mollusk will act as an aphrodisiac for those who consume its flesh. Although Anglo-Saxon settlers to the Pacific Northwest found the suggestive sight of the clams to be unbearable, the mollusks are hugely popular in China and Asia, where price can exceed US$168/lb (US$370/kg). Lately however, the geoducks, which dwell in giant cold-water colonies beneath Puget Sound, are being gobbled up en masse by humankind. If left undisturbed, the bivalves can live to the fabulous age of a century-and-a-half. Geoducks of Wasshington and British Colombia do not have many natural enemies (although apparently in Alaskan waters they are preyed on by sea otters and dogfish). It means “dig deep” although the Chinese name for the clams “xiàngbábàng” (which means “elephant-trunk clams”) seems equally apt. Geoduck (which is apparently pronounced “gooey duck”) is a word from the Lushootseed language, a tongue spoken by the Nisqually tribe. Thanks to these long necks, geoducks can bury themselves deep in the coastal sands while still filtering huge amounts of plankton rich water through their digestive system. Although the clams’ shells can grow quite large–sometimes exceeding 20 cm (8 inches) in length–the outstanding features of geoducks are their obscene siphons/necks which regularly reach 1 metre (3.3 ft) long (and can reputedly grow to twice that length). Specimens weighing up to three pounds (0.5–1.5 kg) are widely known and 15 kilogram monsters are alleged to exist. Geoducks are the largest burrowing clams in the world.
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