Geoduck for State Bird
Special to Seattlest by Canlis sous chef Ryan Tateishi
The Evergreen State College takes great pride in the geoduck. The school has so much admiration for the animal that they made it their mascot and the school's motto, Omnia Extares, (Latin for "let it all hang out") is at least partially intended as a reference to the creature's phallic appearance. Even the school’s alma mater sings the geoduck’s praises.
As we drove past Olympia, on our way to a shellfish farm tour, we saw the exit sign for Sleater-Kinney road and remembered that two of the band members went to Evergreen. One of the band’s albums, Dig Me Out, would’ve made for a great geoduck song. NOFX sang about clams, so a shellfish song doesn’t seem entirely ridiculous.
While most clams are designed to live within a shell, the geoduck’s body is too big for it’s shell and so it must live below the surface for protection. Geoducks are so well buried that they’re immobilized. Their only access to the surface is through a siphon through which they feed and procreate. The three-foot-long siphon makes up the bulk of the clam’s total weight, which can be up to 15 pounds.
A geoduck’s market price ranges from $10 to $16 per pound. In Hong Kong restaurants, geoduck platters are sold for $100. The clam’s popularity in China could be due to its phallic appearance, high fertility, and long life span. Geoducks are among the oldest animals on the planet, with lives spanning over 100 years. Some Chinese believe that by consuming something with such enviable traits, its qualities will be passed on.
Geoducks were a particularly important food source to the Nisqually tribe because the clams could be dried and stored for consumption over winter and used in trade. The Nisqually and other coastal northwest tribes were probably the first people to harvest geoduck. In fact, the word geoduck comes from the Nisqually tribe word "gweduc," meaning, "dig deep" and refers to the fact that the clams live three feet underground.
Geoducks are most easily harvested in intertidal zones but can live at depths of over 300 feet. In the 1960s, the discovery of sub tidal geoduck beds revealed that there are approximately 600 million pounds of geoducks living in the Puget Sound. This means that there is a greater mass of geoducks in the Sound than any other animal, including salmon.
Only 163 million pounds of the total weight is available for commercial harvest and in an effort to ensure a constant supply of geoducks, only 2.7 percent, or 4 million pounds per year is actually harvested. Over the last 10 years, the geoduck program has generated $60 million and has become Washington’s most valuable fishery.
Although we were disappointed that Taylor Shellfish (see previous Seattlest coverage) had sold all their geoduck by the time we got to the U-District farmer's market on Saturday, we were encouraged that people are eating them. They’re severely underappreciated for being such a great local food. And besides, geoduck jokes never get old.
