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GOOSE BARNACLE
Like a small, semi-fossilized marine tree. Or like the black sock of an oceanic elf with a pointed stone instead of a foot. The goose barnacle is a shellfish with a Martian appearance and a marine flavor, condensing the entire Atlantic in its ductile flesh in a brief two-bite wave. A salty and warm wave; tasty, concise, and singular. Its prehistoric appearance generates in the novice diner a wide-eyed and questioning approach. "How do you hold this?" "Which part is edible?" And, above all: "how do you get to it?" The trick is to pull the nail and peduncle in opposite directions, simultaneously drawing an arc downwards, as if opening a shell and pouring an egg. And why so complicated, if one only wants to strip the goose barnacle's flesh from its marine membrane? Wouldn't just pulling be enough? Pulling is enough, but the marine splash produced by opening the goose barnacle will be superlative. Aiming the shot towards the plate will prevent the sea and all its juices from ending up, in addition to the palate, in the hair.
The goose barnacle is expensive, complicated, and small. Is it worth so much trouble? Undoubtedly. Because its flavor contains the warmth of a kitchen and the cold of the ocean; the smell of low tide, the touch of foam, the degraded color of sunset, and the intensity of battered rock. Goose barnacles taste of sea storms, of the warmth of the fire in a stone house. Regarding the price, the goose barnacle is expensive because it must be: harvesting them is a way of life that faces death every day. Every goose barnacle on a table has been extracted by the wet, cold, and brave hands of a percebeiro or percebeira: a sea tightrope walker, a water escapist, a rock surgeon who, watching the lurking sea behind them out of the corner of their eye and with a keen ear, extracts each piece by hand in the impasse of time that the ocean lends them between waves. Goose barnacles are expensive because it would be unthinkable if they weren't.
The goose barnacle should be boiled in salted water for a couple of minutes with a dancing bay leaf and, very importantly, it should always be eaten hot. A goose barnacle, like a bride, is never kept waiting. It is always waited for.
SPIDER CRAB AND VELVET CRAB
Eating spider crab or velvet crabs is to enjoy with the palate and have fun with your hands. It is having permission to play a strategic battle at the table against mythological hairy and prickly crabs, with large claws and bulging eyes. It is using tools and bites to overcome their labyrinth of shells and cuticles and thus conquer their tasty white meat. It is licking your fingers in public, with pleasure and without shame.
Due to their size, spider crabs are more imposing, and usually arrive at the table with the battle half-started. The body, opened in two parts: the upper, placed upside down like a bowl with the broths inside. The lower, cut in half or in quarters. Beside it, the two claws and the eight legs –provided it hasn't lost any in a skirmish– previously mashed to facilitate the work. Although the order of the factors does not alter the product, one usually starts with the legs, continues with the abdomen, and ends up enjoying the intense flavors of the broths in relaxed spoonfuls, like a late-night snack at the end of a party. With the velvet crab, the game is similar, more meticulous and brief due to its size, only that often it is the player himself who must open it to start the game.
Spider crab tastes like fresh fumet and marine meat. The pulp of its legs and abdomen is intense and easily shreds, unlike the more elastic and rubbery texture of its disadvantaged cousin, the brown crab. The broths reserved in its shell, salty and lumpy, are reminiscent of sea urchin and are like a soup of marine adventures with a memory of waves, lobsters, algae, and neighboring mollusks. The velvet crab is somewhat softer on the palate because fewer adventures fit in its small body. Perhaps for this reason, eating it can be a good introduction to the subtleties of flavor of decapod shellfish.
When choosing specimens, gender counts, but so does origin. There are male and female spider crabs, and, as in the case of velvet crabs, females are traditionally preferred on the plate. Galician ones are better than foreign ones: fresher, tastier, and more intense on the palate. And, although they can also be more expensive, for once that they are eaten, it is worth choosing well. At first glance, they can be differentiated by their fresh color (much browner and darker than that of foreign ones) and by the surface of their shell (which is hairier and darker and usually has algae adhered). But, above all, because they cannot be bought all year round since the capture of Galician seafood is regulated by closed seasons. Galician velvet crabs are fished from July to December, and spider crabs, from November to June.
All enter the pot being brownish and come out saffron-colored. All are bathed in boiling water with salt and bay leaf and, after resting on ice, are brought cold to the table, so there is no need to fight against time to taste them at their best. All are eaten alone, with no more company than a good wine. Why hide what shines on its own?
SCALLOP AND QUEEN SCALLOP
In Galicia, the scallop is much more than seafood. It is the symbol of the Way of St. James, the bowl with which the walker drinks from the streams, the mark that guides pilgrims to the Obradoiro. The scallop is even the percussion instrument with which traditional Galician music makes its own "trá, trá", although in its musical facet it receives the artistic name of cuncha.
On the plate, the scallop is served with onions and bits of ham and au gratin in the oven with breadcrumbs. It is the only seafood that should not be bought fresh, but frozen or packaged, because its hepatopancreas and soft tissues accumulate a toxin that must be correctly extracted for its consumption to be safe.
The queen scallop, on the other hand, is best enjoyed grilled. Intense in flavor and tender in texture, it almost melts in the mouth like cotton candy. While the scallop, with more elastic flesh, enjoys a party in the kitchen, the queen scallop likes to be disturbed as little as possible: a drizzle of oil, a pinch of salt, a very hot griddle, a few minutes and ready. Hot, tasty, cheerful and maritime, the queen scallop looks equally good in terrace appetizers as in fine dining. It makes the Mediterranean in the Atlantic and never, never disappoints.