Yup. That's a sea cucumber alright. As gross as it looks, it's considered a delicacy in asia. I only eat beef and chicken when it comes to meat but my taste in seafood ranges pretty wide, including sea cucumber (but not sea urchin which looks like cat's tongue and tastes like milk).

You can go to pretty much any good chinese restaurant and order a plate of cooked sea cucumbers in a variety of sauce. Those dishes are made out of dried sea cucumbers and the art of putting moisture back into the dried sea cucumber is precious trade secret. Frankly, I don't like them cooked because, once cooked, only thing that remains is the texture which is…meh. Let's just say I've had more fun with linguini.

The best way to enjoy sea cucumber is raw: cleaned, chopped into little morsels squirming to grasp purpose out of thin air, dipped in spicy red-pepper sauce, and eaten with a bottle of cold soju or sake. YEAHHHH! Not only is it crunchy, sea cucumbers are much better mannered than rebellious raw octopussy and squid which often require a bit of wrestling while you eat.  And sea cucumber is considered 'stamina' food like oyster and abalone are. ;-)

Now, where was I? Ah, apparently there are talks going on right now to decide whether to put sea cucumbers on the endangered species list. Sorry, no articles to link to cuz I can't find any except this one in Korean. Koreans are not worried about missiles but they are worried about sea cucumbers. Go figure.

Come on now. Give me a great big EWWW. LOL.