Scallops, Part 2

I was quizzing Daughter Number Three-Point-One today on how much she knows about scallops. After all, she grew up watching Sponge Bob Square Pants, which was created by a marine biologist.

It turned out she knew most of the facts I never knew that I relayed in my recent post.

Given that their eyes are arrayed around and just under the edge of the shell, I wanted to know what part of the scallop is harvested and served as food. It's certainly not anything near the eyes. I even thought maybe there was more than one of those parts per shell, because there are small bay scallops and larger sea scallops. 

That turned out not to be the case: there's one animal per shell, the shells and animals within are just different sizes.

Neither of us was prepared for the physiology of the scallop:

The part of the scallop that is generally sold as food is that whitish adductor muscle near the center. It's the part that makes it possible for scallops to move. The orange gonad at lower center (in this case, orange indicates it's a female) is where its roe is stored. Males also have roe, which is white. The roe is also sold as food, though I've never heard of that, so maybe it's not done in the U.S. 

I don't know what happens to the rest of the animals parts when it is processed food. 

The whole Wikipedia page is one fact I didn't know after another. There's a very cool close-up image of how the eyes connect, particularly, and lots more about how scallops move.

As a bonus, we found out that scallops are considered a "cosmopolitan family" of oysters, which led us to look up the meaning of cosmopolitan. (It think I've heard this before somewhere, but had forgotten it.) It means "citizen of the world." They are highly adaptable to many climatic and environmental conditions. I have had a misimpression of that word for a very long time.

Scallops: They're open to new experiences! Or at least new places.

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Scallop illustration by Gilman Arthur Drew, The Habits Anatomy, and Embryology of the Giant Scallop, from Google Books, 1906.