# Coralled scallops



## Gerardo G.

I'm reading about the variation of scallops, their behavior, and human consumption of shellfish. I actually don't understand much about the topic. The reading differentiates coralled scallops from scallops that aren't coralled. What does coralled mean in this context? Here is a quote: "according to the convictions of the fishermen, the consumers prefer coralled scallops to those which are not". Callon, M. (1986).

Thank you in advance.


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## owlman5

Hello, Gerardo. "Coralled scallops" sounds very odd.  It seems to mean something to Callon, however.  Perhaps it refers to scallops that have been affected by coral in some way.  Who knows?

"Corralled scallops" might possibly refer to scallops that have been deliberately raised in some sort of enclosure.


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## heypresto

Or, it could mean that they've had their corals removed. The coral is the orange bit of a scallop:


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## owlman5

Thank you, heypresto.  This seems much more likely than "affected by coral" did.

Gerardo, unless you plan to work on a scallop trawler or something like that, you would do well to avoid "coral" as an adjective or a verb.


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## Gerardo G.

So it isn't just me, it is in fact an odd adjective. Thank you .

@heypresto , do you know something about the orange part? Do the shellfish use it for something in particular? Do people tend to like or dislike the particular taste of the scallop's coral? Have you heard of a particular species of scallops that grow without it?

I'm trying to have better idea about what Callon meant through the answers to does questions. That's why I ask.


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## owlman5

I suppose that some or many people dislike the taste of the "coral".  When I buy frozen scallops at the local supermarket, this part has already been removed.  I'd be quite content to use "cleaned" to talk about the act of removing corals from scallops.  "Cleaned" suffices to express "removing the entrails of some animal".  I don't need to use "gutted" to express the same idea although that word is quite a bit more common than "coralled" will ever be.


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## PaulQ

I understand 'coralled' scallop as a scallop with a shell that has coral on it.


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## Gerardo G.

Thank you both.

I didn't know that was possible @PaulQ and I didn't expect consumers to prefer their scallops like that, even if was during the mid 80s.


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## owlman5

As far as I know, I've never eaten scallops that haven't already had the "coral" removed during cleaning and preparation for the market, Gerardo.  I still eat them occasionally today, so I'm not sure that it does any good to think about the 80s.


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## heypresto

I confess I know very little about scallops, but here is a brief article about the ins and outs of eating the coral: Why scallops with roe on taste better than roe off - Mountain Harvest Foods

You can no doubt find a lot more about the subject with the help of Señorita Google.


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## london calling

I have just had a look at the original, written by a Frenchman in good but not native-level English.


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## velisarius

I have been disappointed several times by being served scallops without the roes. I read in an American article that the coral is more perishable than the white part, and are removed so that the scallops can be stored longer, whether fresh or frozen.

When I was growing up in England, scallops were very cheap, and we always bought them in the shell, complete with coral. I never heard them referred to as "coralled" though. I think they corall corral horses, don't they?


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## suzi br

PaulQ said:


> I understand 'coralled' scallop as a scallop with a shell that has coral on it.
> 
> ​



Surely a mistake, it's definitely denoting the orange bit on food, not the shell.


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## suzi br

Gerardo G. said:


> Thank you both.
> 
> I didn't know that was possible @PaulQ and I didn't expect consumers to prefer their scallops like that, even if was during the mid 80s.


I think he might be joking  .. or just wrong!


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## heypresto

They shoot horse, don't they?


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## owlman5

suzi br said:


> I think he might be joking  .. or just wrong!


I think there was a little humor and a little truth in what Paul had to say, Suzi.  I must confess that a similar image popped into my mind as I tried to figure out what "coralling" might possibly be.  Heypresto rescued me from darkness with that picture he posted.


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## suzi br

owlman5 said:


> I suppose that some or many people dislike the taste of the "coral".  When I buy frozen scallops at the local supermarket, this part has already been removed.  I'd be quite content to use "cleaned" to talk about the act of removing corals from scallops.  "Cleaned" suffices to express "removing the entrails of some animal".  I don't need to use "gutted" to express the same idea although that word is quite a bit more common than "coralled" will ever be.



Interesting - you are taking it to mean with the coral removed.  Which I didn't think when I first read it, simply because my idea from general reading about food is that keen foodies LIKE the coral on a scallop.  So the fisherman's idea contradicts my own reading if coralled means "the coral is cleaned off".  I bet you are right though.


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## london calling

This is a direct translation from the French (coquilles Saint-Jacques coraillées). It doesn't mean to remove the coral (the female sexual organs).

For those of you who read French: grelinettecassolettes.com.


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## owlman5

So it's a direct translation of some French adjective that means "possessing corals"?  That sounds like something that Andrew Zimmern might use in an episode of "Bizarre Foods".  I suppose the author's French origin explains his use of the word back in the 80s, when food appreciation wasn't such a hot topic here in the U.S.


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## suzi br

london calling said:


> This is a direct translation from the French (coquilles Saint-Jacques coraillées). It doesn't mean to remove the coral (the female sexual organs).
> 
> For those of you who read French: grelinettecassolettes.com.



I couldn't see the article.  Still, do you think the fisherman means WITH coral still on?


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## london calling

Link corrected, sorry. Yes, that's exactly what I think, suzi and owlman. It means a scallop with its coral intact in French.


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## suzi br

london calling said:


> Link corrected, sorry. Yes, that's exactly what I think, suzi and owlman. It means a scallop with its coral intact in French.


Ah - that was my initial thought.  Who knew this would be so complicated!


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## london calling

It's complicated because the writer is not a native speaker of English and his mistake is, I think, only really obvious either to experts on scallops  or to people who speak French and realise what he really meant.


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## owlman5

"Scallops with roe" would be a useful thing to write on a menu for English-speakers who don't know any French.  That might not sound fancy enough to please some foodies, though.


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## london calling

Also because it isn't roe...


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## owlman5

Well, the food writer whose source I just checked thought it was. You can find the definition in the fourth paragraph: Cook's info/scallops  It's hard to know who to believe in a world full of experts who don't agree...


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## london calling

A very common mistake, I gather. From Wikipedia:


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## owlman5

I would definitely choose "roe" for my sign.  "Roe" refers to a mass of sperm or eggs, which isn't a particularly appealing thing to think about either.  I just don't think "gonads" would attract any new customers. The distinction between the eggs or sperm and the organs that produced them doesn't seem worth making.

If I were really on a mission to foster the use of "coralled" and "corals" at the local seafood counter, I'd use "corals", hope my customers made the connection between the word and the color of the organs, and prepare myself for many discussions with puzzled customers about what the word meant.


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## velisarius

Scallop Roe: From Europe, It's a Delicacy

Are you saying that the coral isn't roe, lc?


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## Gerardo G.

Wow... I didn't expect all this discussion. I feel flattered with all your help!

But I'm sorry, I must confess I wasn't able to follow the conversation. I got lost . So what is a coralled scallop and what is a scallop that isn't coralled?


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## owlman5

The writer's French origin suggests that he used "coralled scallop" to mean a scallop that still contains its roe/gonads.  If those parts have been cleaned from the scallop, it is no longer "coralled."


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## Gerardo G.

Thank you owlman5 .


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## Gerardo G.

I read a bit more. I'm suspicious about that definition regarding my reading. Here are some other quotes:

"There are several different species of scallops. Certain ones, as in Brest, are coralled all year round. However, at St. Brieuc the scallops lose their coral during spring and summer". Callon, M. (1986).

"During the whole of the 1970s specialists disagreed – without ever undertaking any experiments – about whether scallops with temporary coral would conserve this feature if they were transplanted to areas where scallops have permanent coral". Callon, M. (1986).

What do you guys think?


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## Loob

london calling said:


> Also because it isn't roe...


From the OED entry for *roe*_ (my highlighting):_

a. The mass of eggs contained in the ovaries of a female fish or shellfish, esp. when ripe; the full ovaries themselves.
Also as a count noun: an individual egg. More fully _ hard roe_.​
b. In full_ soft roe_. The milt or sperm of a male fish; the mature testes containing this.
​_.......
Cross-posted with Gerardo's supplementary question._


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## owlman5

When I read "temporary coral" and "permanent coral", I assume that scallops in some areas are ready for sexual reproduction, Gerardo.  Those would be the scallops "with coral".

Apparently, some areas contain scallops that are reproducing or ready to reproduce nearly all the time.  In other areas, the scallops reach this stage only occasionally.  Those scallops wouldn't have "coral" when they were not ready to reproduce.

If you need a better, more reliable explanation than this, Gerardo, you'll probably have to ask another question in a biology forum.


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## Gerardo G.

Oh, that makes sense. The text also has to do with the reproduction and conservation of the species.

Thank you owlman5. I just didn't get it before .


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## london calling

velisarius said:


> Scallop Roe: From Europe, It's a Delicacy
> 
> Are you saying that the coral isn't roe, lc?


Yes. The coral is the female gonads  (post 27) but many people call it roe. In any case I gather that not all scallops have coral all the time: it appears to be something that some scallops develop only during the reproductive season.

I don't know how much of an expert Jamie Oliver is, but this is what he says (and I read this somewhere else as well, I just can't remember where):

_The coral, commonly and incorrectly referred to as the roe, also consists of two parts. The reason why ‘roe’ is incorrect is it’s a descriptive term for the female reproductive organ; this is opposed to the ‘milt’ which is the male reproductive organ. The scallop, being a permanent hermaphrodite, has both. 
_
Here's another one (Mountain Harvest Foods):

_The roe of the scallop, as it is commonly referred to as, is actually the reproductive organ of the scallop. When shucked, it is the coral (or off-white) coloured stuff that you see attached to the muscle itself. Generally speaking, the roe is removed or taken off during the shucking process – this might happen out at sea, at the shucker-packer facility or before the boat gets to shore. However, some boats bring in their scallops live and thus offer consumers the delicacy of the scallop with the roe on_.

I therefore maintain that coral isn't technically roe, although that's what it's mostly called.
_


_


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## velisarius

Thank you, l.c. Our local fishermen used to talk about hard and soft roes, (female and male organs respectively) in fish.


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## PaulQ

Gerardo G. said:


> So what is a coralled scallop and what is a scallop that isn't coralled?


The coral is the red bit in the picture at #3.
Coralled = with the red bit


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## london calling

PaulQ said:


> Coralled = with the red bit


Yes, we had said that. Gerardo obviously didn't pick it up.


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## PaulQ

I wouldn't pick it up either - it looks all slimey!


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## Rover_KE

Seeing that stoned plums/prunes and pitted cherries have had their stones/pits removed, I'd expect coralled scallops to have had their corals removed.


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## suzi br

Rover_KE said:


> Seeing that stoned plums/prunes and pitted cherries have had their stones/pits removed, I'd expect coralled scallops to have had their corals removed.


Aye but somewhere above (#18)  it’s established that the term is adapted from French and it means “with coral” in this context.


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## london calling

Rover_KE said:


> Seeing that stoned plums/prunes and pitted cherries have had their stones/pits removed, I'd expect coralled scallops to have had their corals removed.


That's the whole point of this thread : it doesn't mean that. The confusion is understandable because we read 'coralled scallops' as an English term, while in actual fact this piece was written by a Frenchman and 'coralled scallops' is a literal translation from the French and means 'scallops with corals'.


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## heypresto

That was what I was thinking in post #3, but it seems that the opposite is true.


Crossed, and in reply to Rover_KE's #42.


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