Giant Jellyfish Cookies

I learned to dive in Japan. As at the time I didn’t speak very much Japanese, getting trained in Japan added degrees of difficulty to the task. But the difficulties soon paid off with a wealth of beautiful dives.

On my first open-ocean dive, we anchored to the ocean floor and observed a school of hammerhead sharks feeding in the current. Later, we swam amongst a jam of jellyfish; each of which delivered an almost un-noticeable sting. But they were small jellyfish and nothing like the monsters infesting Japan this autumn.

Paraphrased from the Mainichi Shimbun and Yomiri Shimbun, local Japanese newspapers:

"Each year, in an annual rite of autumn, giant jellyfish (echizen kurage: Nomura’s jellyfish) invade the seas around Japan, damaging nets, interrupting fishing operations and reducing the overall quality and quantity of catches. The giant jellyfish can grow up to 2 meters wide and weigh up to 200 kilograms (450 lbs) each."

What to do? Eat them!

"This year the residents of Fukui prefecture have a new strategy to combat the giant jellyfish — they plan to eat them.

Three years ago, students from Obama Fisheries High School in Fukui prefecture developed a method for turning the invading jellyfish into powder. A Fukui-area company followed up with a cookie recipe that includes the powdered jellyfish as an ingredient. The jellyfish treats, called “Ekura-chan saku-saku cookies result in a cookie with a superbly textured sweetness nicely complemented by the bitter, salty flavor of jellyfish."