Love-me-knots

It took me a while to become comfortable with the idea of eating lukót. Here was a case of a little knowledge working to my detriment — or, to be apt, discouragement. If you don’t know it yet, lukót, despite appearances, is not a seaweed or some kind of marine plant. It is, in fact, the secretion of donsol (sea hare, a species of sea slug).

Animal secretion, you say? If it’s on the solid side, it could only be… ahem, y’know? Heck, let’s come right out and say it: poop. (Happy Valentine’s, by the way.) I only mention this misperception because it is so widespread, and for the longest time that was what held me back from trying lukót. Sea pasta, my ass.

What can I say? I was misinformed. Lukót are actually eggs in their casings, which makes the act of eating them more genocide than coprophagy; as it turns out, a single sea hare* can lay millions of eggs in one sitting, nearly a billion in a single season. Does that make me feel better? Once I dared try lukót, there was no going back. In soup or simply dunked in spiced vinegar, this shit’s good. See? I can even joke about it now.

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* I had initially confused sea hare (a mollusk) with b’at (sea cucumber), which is a whole ’nother creature more closely related to starfish and sea urchin, but more distinctively does not produce lukót. «