Thread: Sea urchin questions

The northern California coast's otters are doing their best to control the urchin population.
Not that the otters understand urchins help destroy kelp which the otters use as their sea anchors and protection from sharks.

The sea urchin industry in southern California, especially the San Diego area, is huge and the fishermen would prefer the otters stick to the north coast.

Red tides, when they happen, kill off abalone and urchins among other crustaceans.

We don't see to much of this stuff in Illinois. It's a luxury item that I get once in a while when my sushi restaurant has it on special. We've got some good stuff but not this.

A little update:

Finally went diving a couple weeks ago. I'm questioning myself regarding not taking urchins when diving! My god, the experience with uni in a restaurant vs straight out of the ocean is incomparable. My buddy and I grabbed 18 or so red and purple urchins. Splitting them open was a cinch just a couple large spoons back to back and that was it. We ate most of them some friends about 2 hours after taking them from the water. What a wonderfully salty and slightly sweet flavor. My wife and a few of her friends were down at the river so we kept a half dozen whole and on ice for when they got back. In just that short amount of time though they started going fishy, much more akin to the flavor I was expecting from my restaurant experiences. They were still pretty lively but regardless it seemed to make all the difference between 2 and 5 hours.

Anyways if any of you have the chance to eat them straight out of the ocean it is well worth it!