How to clean sea urchins

One of the most singular seafoods in both shape and flavour is the sea urchin, very common above all in the Mediterranean, and particularly along the coasts of Sicily and Puglia. The edible part consists of the tiny eggs contained inside, arranged in a star shape and coral in colour. Fishing for sea urchins is a very ancient practice; the most widely used tool was the grambodd, a Apulian word for the ingenious large fork tied to a long pole with which the most skilled fishermen would catch sea urchins by eye from the boat, without even getting their hands wet. Rich in the aroma of the seabed, in the Salento peninsula the flesh of the urchins is eaten raw, scooped out with a teaspoon and perhaps accompanied by bread and taralli. Tradition has it that they are eaten straight from the shell, once opened, without cutlery but using a piece of fresh bread. In Sicily too they are eaten raw, but far more often they go into pasta dishes, and there are those who put urchin on a pizza once it has been baked. Sea urchins are very versatile: they can be enjoyed raw on a slice of bread or used cooked to bring out dishes with intense flavours. However you want to use them, you first have to open them, and to do that an urchin cutter is essential for a clean cut, although with very sharp scissors you may also manage to break the shell if you take great care …Inside a shell covered in spines are the eggs, which the animal produces in varying quantities depending on the season and the lunar cycle. You will remember the saying «seafood should be eaten in months with an R in them». Well. Even though the phrase dates back to a time when refrigerators did not yet exist, and was meant to restrict eating these foods to the winter months (and to avoid unpleasant stomach aches), the saying is still very apt: sea urchins are empty only in summer and full for almost all the rest of the year, peaking in spring.