and the protrusion you suspect of being an abalone. If it is, it 

 won't come off. Also, it will drool or even spit out the portholes 

 in its shell. This is your signal to keep after it pry, pry again. An 

 abalone is a working model for the perfect rubber suction cup. 



About this time you may find yourself wishing that you had 

 taken up that other form of abalone hunting: namely, putting 

 on bathing trunks, flippers, and goggles, and going at it under 

 water. That way you can be erect, or horizontal at least, but you 

 might also be competing with a shark, octopus, or a giant clam. 

 Better stay dry-shod. 



When you get your five big ones, the fun begins. Arch the 

 blade of a stiff butcher knife from the edge to the center of the 

 shell under the abalone. Your knife will be stopped by the aba- 

 lone's neck his only attachment to his shell. Push your blade 

 under the neck and with a quick twist of the wrist, out comes 

 your meat. The shell may be pastel lined with mother-of-pearl. 

 The abalone you will find neatly constructed as to viscera. The 

 line for cutting off waste is all but perforated. What you have 

 left looks and feels like a horse's hoof. 



Peel this with a sharp knife as if you were dressing a scalloped 

 squash. Peel the flat top and bottom, slice off the neck, and trim 

 the ruffles around the edge until you have a flat white (or some- 

 times greenish and just as good) disk. Slice this once or twice, 

 about y to 1/2 inch thick. Next, with the rounded bottom of a 

 milk bottle or a wooden mallet or a plain hammer padded with 

 cloth, pommel each slice until it gives up not hard enough to 

 mutilate it but until it is limp and limber all over. When a slice 

 goes down for the count, it is ready to salt, dip in beaten egg and 

 coarse cracker crumbs, brown in hot fat one minute on each side, 

 sprinkle with lemon juice, and cut with your fork. 



This is not all. Once you have tasted abalone, you will be sub- 

 ject to spells. You will wake up in the middle of some sweltering 

 night in San Antonio or Dearborn or Pawtucket. You will 

 remember the impossible tenderness of abalone steak, the flavor 

 delicately blended from both animal and vegetable kingdoms, 

 and the fun of upside-down fishing among wave-sculptured 

 rocks. Don't say we didn't warn you. 



118 



