On the gastrophysics of jellyfish preparation

Abstract

Eating jellyfish is a delicacy in some parts of Asia. Jellyfish are preserved through a month long step-wise saltning process with a mixture of sodium chloride and alum. During this process the jellyfish texture undergoes a transformation from a gel-like substance to a rubber-like texture. However, this transformation is only poorly understood. Experiments presented in this paper indicate a tanning analogy to the jellyfish preservation technique, and we show that jellyfish can be preserved with other tanning salts than alum. We further suggest a new method to preserve jellyfish without any metal salts based on polyelectrolyte theory that describes ionic gel collapse in a poor solvent. Specifically, we find that jellyfish mesoglea collapses in ethanol, and that the final crispy product could be of gastronomic interest.