ferment skate is one of the most pop food in South Korea , as well as one of the stinkiest . The dish , call “ hongeo , ” is described even by its fan as smell clearly of outhouse . Joe McPherson , American founder of the Korean food blogZenKimchi , has compare its using up to “ licking a urinal . ”
A brief aside , for context : skate are , to put it mildly , unusual animals . Like their look - alikes , rays , they belong to a subclass of rubbery Pisces the Fishes know aselasmobranchs . Sharks are elasmobranch , too , so maritime biologists sometimes refer to skate dearly as “ stepped on shark . ” In 2011 , researchers discovered that skates are some of the only vertebrate on Earth missing a chunk of genetic code , once thought to be indispensable , calledthe HoxC gene cluster . They have eversible jaws , and their undersides take care likefunny little faces . When they pose their fertilize eggs , they do so in a gruelling case cite to as a “ mermaid ’s purse , ” which seem like this :
So yeah . Weird fish , those skate . Which we suppose makes it a little less surprising to learn that , when ferment and served as sashimi , they taste and smell pretty much on the button like an out-of-door toilet .
The dish ’s putrid tang can be traced to the ammonium hydroxide that skate exude from their flesh . These exhaust are so substantial , Choe Sang - Hun reports in The New York Times , they ’re known for causing masses ’s mouths to peel . This minor detail has not preclude the Pisces from amassing a considerable followers throughout South Korea ’s southerly islands . occupier of Heuksan Island , where hongeo trade has long been crucial to the local economy , tell Sang - Hun that the dish ’s success can be impute in orotund part to – surprisal ! – the skate ’s aggressively unusual biota :
In the years before refrigeration , the fishermen ’s forbear learned that hongeo was the only fish they could ship from to the mainland 60 miles away without salting . The hongeo lacks a bladder and excretes uric acid through its tegument . As it ferments , it oozes ammonia water that keep it from going bad .
“ Hongeo ca n’t pee , and that ’s where the miracle get down , ” said Kim Young - chang , 77 , the proprietor of a hongeo eating house [ on Heuksan Island ] .
More on this “ marvellous ” delicacyat the NYT .
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