Tag Archives: mollusk

Clam

Clam: (n) a marine bivalve mollusk with shells of equal size.

I guess any decent mollusk would consider it a home invasion. After all, you have this perfectly wonderful shell, which should be impenetrable.

So someone comes along, boils your ass, insults you by throwing in spices because you have no flavor of your own, and then takes a knife to crack you open to
steal your life force.

Pretty much of a horror story if you live in the ocean.

I have eaten clams many times. Perhaps I should apologize. I’ve even taken one of those pointy objects they offer you to crack them open, making me feel like I’m some sort of “sea-farin’ man.”

I have two opinions on clams:

  1. They’re too small
  2. They have no flavor unless you dip them in a sauce.

So would I get the same sensation if I took a piece of bread and dipped it into an excellent cocktail sauce as if I dunked a clam in the same sauce?

I think so.

So let me review: for some reason we decide to invade the privacy of a reclusive creature who has clammed up, boil it to death, break open its shell and eat it, even though we know it’s not particularly satisfying.

Vindictive sons-of-a-bitches.

 

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Abalone

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abalone: n. an edible mollusk of warm seas that has a shallow ear-shaped shell lined with mother-of-pearl and pierced with respiratory holes. Also called EAR SHELL.

He was unnaturally attached to his daughter.

I’m talking about creepy stuff. So much so that he decided to kill her husband so he could have her all to himself. Since the father was a chef and the husband was also one, the weapon of choice was to poison some seafood with chicken salmonella and give it to this hapless young man as a gift to serve in his restaurant.

When the young chef served this particular delicacy, it made everybody sick, creating a secondary motive for someone to kill him other than the father who wanted to be wacky with the daughter. Do you follow?

I bring this up because the seafood selected to poison was abalone.

Now, it is a long drive (or swim, in this case) for me to find a connection to this mollusk, but I also learned, from listening to Goren investigate on Criminal Intent, that abalone is illegal to procure because it’s rare, and therefore extraordinarily forbidden–and for those who actually do acquire it–expensive.

I realize this doesn’t shed a lot of light on the life and times of this most uncommon mollusk, but it does explain why sometimes the only reference we have to certain words and ideas is through our own experience–or lack thereof.

So when I saw “abalone,” it made me think of Goren on Law and Order and the creepy dad who wanted to get too close to his daughter and killed her husband, emulsifying his body and bones in a meat grinder in the kitchen of his restaurant.

I’m sorry. It was the best I could do.