Seafood has become synonymous with luxury and expensive dishes at a fancy restaurant – how much are you prepared to pay for a plate of your favourite salty sea delights?
We’re here to whet your appetite for trying something new with six of the most expensive seafoods around the globe:
•Coming in at number one is Japanese toro bluefin tuna – in 2019 a 278-kg bluefin tuna sold for an astounding $3 million off the dock. Coveted for its beef-like richness and unique combination of firmness, fattiness and flavour, bluefin is highly valued and in Japan is auctioned directly from the docks to local markets and upscale sushi establishments.
•Baby eels are so valuable to Asian companies that Maine fishermen in the US get more than $1000 a kg for them. Called elvers, they are raised to maturity so they can be used in Japanese food, some of which is sold in the States in unagi dishes at sushi restaurants. The price is driven up by their scarcity due to overfishing and natural disasters.
•Cucumbers usually cost around $3 per kg, but if you are talking sea cucumbers add another three zeros to that price! This spiky sea creatures share the same shape as the vegetable, however are many times more expensive due to their promised health benefits. Historically a delicacy in Aisa, their popularity has recently exploded as they have been used to treat everything from arthritis and blood clots to certain cancers.
•There are close to 1000 species of sea urchin globally, however only 18 of those are edible; resembling a Christmas ornament, these colourful, spiky balls are harvested and cracked open in a very laborious process, driving up the price to around $200 a kg for fresh red sea urchin.
•Giant Alaskan King crabs are delicious – wild-caught and often cooked and blast frozen at sea within minutes of the catch – these are the largest and most impressive of all crabs caught around the globe. Unmatched in flavour, quality and texture, King crab legs can cost up to $150 per kg, dangerous fishing conditions in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska and a limited supply combine to drive up the price.
•Incredibly strange-looking percebes – gooseneck barnacles – join baby eels as sea delicacies you’ve probably never heard of. Sometimes referred to as dinosaur or dragon toes because of what they look like, these barnacles are challenging to harvest as fishermen have to wait for opportunities that open up with the tide. Customers in Spain and Portugal will pay up to 200 Euros per kilo for these rare barnacles, whose edible part is the stem which has a taste similar to oysters and molluscs.
