This scary-looking sea centipede may actually be tastier than the shrimp monster itself!

Recently, a magical food has become popular - shrimp monster.

This magical creature with a large shell on its back and crab-like claws is actually the familiar hermit crab. However, our protagonist today is not the hermit crab, but another small insect that you can always encounter when eating shrimp monsters - sandworms.

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Stores selling shrimp monsters will remind you when selling them: there are often symbiotic sandworms in the shells of shrimp monsters, so remember to clean them out before eating. Even with such a reminder, people who see sandworms for the first time can't help but dance in fear - these densely packed legs and long bodies are just like a marine version of a centipede.

But don’t be too scared! This scary-looking sea centipede may actually be tastier than the shrimp itself!

Sandworms, commonly known as sea centipedes, sea worms, and sea leeches, usually refer to species under the families Nereididae, Nereididae, and Nereididae of the phylum Annelida, class Polychaeta, and order Peripoda. Without exception, they all have a terrifying appearance that makes people lose their sanity.

When we talk about annelids, the first thing that comes to our mind is often earthworms. In fact, the leeches and earthworms we are familiar with, as well as the sandworms we are going to learn about today, are all annelids, and their characteristics are that they have a bilaterally symmetrical, isomorphic schizocoelom.

Polychaetes are a relatively primitive and diverse group of annelids, with more than 10,000 species recorded so far. The characteristic of Polychaetes is that they have densely packed paired bristles, coupled with a slender and wriggling body, which is simply terrifying.

However, although sandworms look like they are not easy to mess with, they are no match for greedy humans - not only are sandworms invited to the dining table, but various ways of eating them have also been developed.

The warty-lipped sandworm is one of the most eaten sandworms.

The adult body of the warty-mouthed sandworm is usually 4-8 cm long. The front and back of the body are dark green, and the back is slightly red. The contrasting colors and unique appearance make the visual effect very amazing. The body of the warty-mouthed sandworm is composed of more than 60 segments, and each segment has a pair of paddle-shaped warty feet on both sides, with bristles extending from the end, which can help the warty-mouthed sandworm walk on the sand on the seabed.

Because the warty-mouthed sandworm spends a long period of its life in the mud of estuaries and rice fields, it is called the rice worm. The rice worm will gnaw the roots of rice and is an agricultural pest, so people along the coast naturally put them on the table without any psychological pressure.

In Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang and other places in my country, as well as northeastern Vietnam, rice worms are a common delicacy. Fuzhou even gave it an elegant name, calling it Fuzhou's "cordyceps sinensis".

In addition to eating it fresh, Fuzhou people also make it into dried crabs and give it as gifts to relatives and friends. Many Fuzhou people living abroad even pay a high price to buy dried crabs just to taste the taste of their hometown. Liang Zhangju, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, wrote in "Jing'er Ji Dried Crabs": "Few people know the flavor of crabs, and rice is the best in the soil. I dream of my hometown in the middle of June, when the tide recedes and the rain comes."

Fuzhou people not only love to eat rice worms, but also pay attention to various eating habits. For example, they also pay attention to the "first water goods" of river crabs. In early July, there are often high tides, and river crabs can't stand the pressure of the big water flow, so they come out in droves. This is a good time to catch them. Some people can catch hundreds of kilograms in one night, and the river crabs at this time are also the fattest and tenderest.

There is an ancient poem called "Zhuzhici", which describes the bumper harvest when "Liu Xie Bei": "Summer clouds gather rain and the evening sky clouds, nets are set up to take advantage of the evening breeze; morning snakes bury themselves in the streets to compete for profits, and the whole city carries poles to sell rice worms." Of course, now the lump crabs cannot wait to be sold on the streets, as they have been booked out in advance.

There are many ways to cook crabs, and the most delicious way is to fry them. Fry the crabs in hot oil until they are crispy and put them in a jar. They can be stored for a long time, and the longer they are stored, the more delicious they are, allowing people to enjoy the deliciousness of crabs all year round. In addition, steaming, scrambling with eggs, steaming with eggs, steaming with wine, etc. all have their own merits. Even if you are afraid of the appearance of crabs, you will definitely be captured by their deliciousness if you close your eyes and taste them.

In fact, in addition to sandworms, there are many other delicious foods in the ocean - they look terrifying in appearance, but they taste delicious.

The square star worm, commonly known as sandworm, is also a well-known one in the food of the country. The square star worm is a creature of the phylum Sicipiozoa, and its shape is very similar to intestines, so it is also called sea intestines and sand intestines. The scientific name of the sicipiozoa, Sipuncula, originally means "small siphon", which describes their unique shape and habit of living on the seabed.

Although sandworms look very small, they are actually a real delicacy. Sandworms are delicious and crispy. When eating, you only need to remove the internal organs and simply steam them to have a full sweet taste, which is better than sea cucumbers and shark fins.

This is because there are a lot of free flavor amino acids in sandworms, among which glutamic acid has the highest content. During the cooking process, the glutamic acid molecules in the sandworms will react with sodium chloride to form monosodium glutamate, which is the main component of MSG. Therefore, sandworms are extremely sweet and are even called "natural MSG".

Sandworms also have a distant relative, the delicious star worm, which is the raw material for the famous southern Fujian snack, earthworm jelly.

The edible leather starworm is also called earthworm and sea ding. It looks very similar to sandworm, but it is shorter and thinner than sandworm, and its body surface is gray-black or earthy yellow, without obvious mesh. In simple terms, sandworm is a long and thin strip, while earthworm is a short and thick strip.

However, compared to sandworms, which are served whole, earthworms are usually made into earthworm jelly. Because earthworms are rich in collagen, they are often stewed for a long time to become a pot of thick gelatin, and then cooled, cut, and topped with sauce to become the famous earthworm jelly in southern Fujian. The earthworm jelly looks crystal clear and elastic, and has a chewy and tender texture with excellent flavor.

On our table, there is also a larger delicacy from the Ke family - sea cucumbers. They are monochaete insects of the order Cercopithecidae, and are equally sweet and delicious.

Have you ever eaten the above-mentioned delicious food?

The article is produced by Science Popularization China-Creation Cultivation Program. Please indicate the source when reprinting.

Author: Hydra Science Author

Reviewer: Huang Chengming, Professor of Hainan University