Although pronounced the same, abalone and a baloney – as in “a baloney sandwich” – are completely different foods: far from being a congealed paste of ground-up livestock, an abalone is an edible mollusc found off the coast of California.
English borrowed the name of this mollusc in the mid nineteenth century from Spanish Americans, who in turn had previously take the word from the Monterey Indian language.
The scientific name for this mollusc is Haliotis, a Greek compound meaning sea-ear, so named because the abalone shell is shaped like the human ear; ear-shell, in fact, is a common, alternative name for abalone.Perhaps the most romantic shellfish in Japan is the abalone. It caught by diving onto deep cold waters. Early on in prehistory it was discovered that women have much more stamina for this work than men, and thus were born women deep sea divers.
It was not only their almost superhuman lung capacity that enabled them to stay underwater longer than men but the fact that they practiced their craft almost in the nude that contributed to their awesome reputation among the straight-laced European writing about them in the nineteenth century.
Abalone is very popular in Japanese cuisine. The Japanese have consumed abalone since prehistoric times, as evidenced by innumerable shell mounds on the coasts.
Since the earliest poetry, dating back to anthology of Japanese verse Man'yoshu, their unique iridescent shells have been likened to unrequited love by drawing symbolic parallel between one sided love and the abalone’s single shell.
For this reason, in the folklore of cuisine, abalone cannot be served at wedding banquets, although other bivalve shellfish are often eaten.
Folklore also says that abalone is helpful for arthritis and other joints disorders, muscle problems, the heart and digestion.
Abalone
