Jellyfish chips

MANY Asians enjoy jellyfish as an appetizer or delicacy. But no one has ever made it into crunchy chips, until Mathias P. Clausen, a postdoctoral fellow at University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark, introduced a method. 

“Tasting jellyfish myself, I wanted to understand the transformation from a soft gel to this crunchy thing you eat,” Clausen said.

Traditionally, the bell or body of a jellyfish is marinated in salt and potassium alum for several weeks to produce a crunchy, picklelike texture. The Danish research team including Clausen developed a new technique that produces the same results in only a few days.

“Using ethanol, we have created jellyfish chips that have a crispy texture and could be of potential gastronomic interest,” Clausen said.

Jellyfish chip (Credit: Mie T. Pedersen)

The team used their knowledge of biophysics and biochemistry to gain a better understanding of how food preparation affects jellyfish from the inside out. They further investigated how the long fibrous filaments in the gelatinous jellyfish bell are transformed during the curing process to produce the crunchy texture. “Little is known about the molecular anatomy of the jellyfish,” Clausen said. “We are still not completely sure which structures we are visualising.”

The team is studying the structures within the jellyfish bell and what eating them would feel like inside your mouth. This new scientific approach may affect future commercial viability of jellyfish, as well as other foods not commonly found on the dinner plate.

Jellyfish chips could be the ideal alternative to popular snacks. For one, there’s an abundance of jellyfish in the oceans. Second, they’re rich in vitamin B12 magnesium, phosphorus, iron and selenium.

“As this is pioneering work, I think using tools available to us to tackle the science of good eating can open peoples’ eyes for a completely new scientific field,” Clausen said.

The method was presented at the 62nd Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, held 17-21 February 2018 in San Francisco, California. 

Source:  Biophysical Society. "Fancy a jellyfish chip? Researchers have developed a new method to rapidly transform the soft umbrella-shaped jellyfish body into a crunchy treat." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180220083921.htm (accessed February 25, 2018).