The New “It” Food
Sea urchins are the new It Food. According to Wired Science, this tantalizing tidbit comes from no less buzzworthy a source than a trendspotter at Converse. Meanwhile, two of the chefs picked to provision the New Yorker Stories From the Near Future conference were effusive in their praise for the prickly little echinoids.
“The sweetness … the saltiness!” gushed the otherwise-reserved Daniel Humm, executive chef at Eleven Madison Park.
“It has a certain creaminess,” said Momofuku‘s David Chang. “A strong flavor you can combine with anything.”
They convinced me to override my natural disinclination — and Chang’s sea urchin cappuccino was everything they promised it would be. But that made me wonder whether sea urchins might, like nearly every other ocean creature we’ve developed a taste for, run out.
A quick Googling returned a few interesting results. Their populations have benefited from a human-produced drop in predators, but sea urchins aren’t endless.
And if we overfish — overurchin? — them, that would be scary. The other day a friend told me that the oceans are reverting to prehistoric form, with primitive creatures like jellyfish and urchins thriving in warming, polluted and overtaxed waters. If human appetites are too voracious for even these survivors, we’ll be reduced to eating sea slime.
Next week I’ll ask some sea urchin experts about their prospects. More to come….[via link
