Elwood 5566

The first time I ate midoedeok (미더덕) it was hidden in a bowl of soup and probably bobbling under a slice of kimchi, either way, I didn’t see it.  After wedging it between my teeth I crushed it and was shocked when it spat out a horrid sort of detergent. I almost threw up! I’ve never eaten midoedoek since and if I get any strange soup I dredge the bottom of my bowl looking for it. Don’t accuse me of being politically incorrect, I know plenty of Koreans who hate it.

Animal, vegetable, alien?

For years, I had no idea if it was animal, vegetable, or possibly alien, most likely from the Klingon home world! For a while I believed it may have been some sort of testicle and its texture confirmed this, a hard exterior, smooth and slippy with some dubious inner core, but there was an absence of any tubing and because it resembled a mammalian testicle, I was bewildered because, being not much bigger than an acorn, I couldn’t think what animal owned such a nut. Rams’ bollocks are huge, a pair being as large an weighty as a coconut, and there aren’t many cats in Korea and those silly little handbag dogs Koreans are into, the sort that are too flimsy to walk against the mildest breeze, their balls can’t be much bigger a peanut. So it must come from the sea, I thought. Do fish have bollocks? Or perhaps they belong to the octopus but balls are usually carried in a bag and I’ve never seen an octopus with a knacker sack! Well, my Korean friends seemed to have no idea what they were and were equally as mystified.

Related to the sea squirt (멍개)

Then I discovered, they are related to the sea squirt and that monster of a tumour, the mongke (멍개), which also tastes of detergent. You can see midoedoek in the street markets and supermarkets and you either love them or hate them – a bit like olives really, which is interesting as they are the same shape and size. Unfortunately, they don’t have a common English name so,  should you want to order them from your local fish market back home, you will have to ask for styela clava. Mmmm! Sounds as delicious as it looks which is why they are usually hidden in the bottom of your bowl of seafood soup….

Midoedok (미더덕), Styela Clavca get erect when hungry and look like this!

Fondling them obviously causes arousal. A particularly long styela clava. Why are so many Korean foods phallic?

© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.