briny-sweet, buttery meat — the shape and texture of little orange tongues. Bailey cracks one open for me and pulls out the uni. It glistens on a spoon. I’ve had uni before, served in a little bed of seaweed-wrapped rice, with a raw quail egg quivering on top. At the time, the combination of slimy textures overpowered the flavor for me. But this time it’s surprisingly perfect, rich in umami and fresh, like an oyster but more buttery and substantial. I love it — and apparently, the one I’m sampling is still not ready for market. They’ll get even better. Last year OoNee sold about 10,000 pounds of sea urchin to restaurants and markets, mostly for sushi and raw bars. Diners were excited to see it — especially straight from Oregon. Typically, uni is flown in from Japan. You can’t freeze sea urchins, so you know the uni is fresh. But keeping it fresh from Japan takes a lot of energy and makes for a pretty unsustainable plate. When uni comes from Oregon’s waters, diners have the pleasure of a delicious, premium seafood that definitely hasn’t been frozen and didn’t travel far. There’s also the unique satisfaction of eating something that’s damaging an entire ecosystem. Sea urchins aren’t invasive, but kelp forests can’t survive their current numbers. Getting them out of the water and onto a plate is one step toward restoration. For chefs like Maylin Chavez, owner of Nácar Oysters Pop-Up & Catering, serving and eating uni is the embodiment of a culinary ethos that aligns and supports the bounty of local ecosystems. “Working with ingredients that give back rather than take away is at the forefront of my culinary stewardship,” she says. Chavez calls uni a “magical ingredient” that can be served as the centerpiece on the half-shell or more subtly included in pastas, soups and butter. Since many diners are unfamiliar with the menu item, Chavez says it’s up to chefs to present it in a beautiful way and share the story that’s on their plate. “We’re seeing a growing number of restaurants that are embracing local seafood. Uni has a special place in that,” she says. Chavez emphasizes how important it is for chefs to have close relationships with their suppliers when they’re serving local items like sea urchins, which are seasonable and variable in availability. Sea urchin season really gets going in November. That’s when Bailey and his team are out on the water about twice a week, long days on choppy, Pacific swells. “It throws you around like a washing machine,” Bailey says. Despite the harsh conditions, Bailey loves it. “Diving, you’re all by yourself down there—it’s a whole ’nother world,” he says. “It’s really fun and beautiful.” Unfortunately, the diving season is short. By January or February, the water is just too rough for diving over the shallow reefs. This year rough waters made it difficult to harvest in late October, too, and delayed the arrival of OoNee’s uni on restaurant menus. Bailey’s intimate knowledge of the ocean is valuable to this project. It’s a type of knowledge that’s fading, just as it’s becoming so urgently important. As ecosystems like this one tip out of balance, people like Bailey are the ones who notice first. The collapse of kelp forests is already severely impacting marine species and coastal communities. And it’s getting worse. Abalone — large sea snails that feed on kelp — have drastically reduced in numbers, to the point that recreational harvest of red abalone has closed indefinitely and flat abalone are at risk of extinction. Kelp is critical habitat for zooplankton, tiny organisms that whales rely on for food, and as such, gray whales are spending less time foraging in Oregon’s near-shore waters. In 2019 the concerns raised by sea urchin divers prompted the creation of the Oregon Kelp Alliance (ORKA), to assess kelp conditions. Throughout 2023 it collected data through scuba surveys and combined that with plane-based and satellite surveys to better understand the state of Oregon’s kelp forests. Before this kelp forests in Oregon were significantly understudied. And it’s just hard to get the general population—those who don’t spend their days on boats or underwater—to pay attention to this kind of thing. “We can’t see the forest fire that’s happening underwater,” Bailey says. ORKA released its findings in October of 2024, and its conclusions are troubling: From 2010 to 2022, Oregon’s kelp forests declined by as much as 73%, a loss they estimate — based on the value of kelp forests in other systems — is costing the state between $23 million and $53 million each year. “The major problem is the sea urchins,” says Dr. Sarah Gravem, a co-author of the 2024 Oregon Kelp Forest Status Report. Taking urchins out of the water is a necessary step in rehabilitating kelp forests and preventing further damage up and down the Oregon Coast. In 2025 and 2026, ORKA will use funding from a NOAA grant to carry out restoration and protection work that includes harvesting and culling purple sea urchins. The other two pillars are kelp seeding and sea star recovery work. When it comes to urchin harvesting, no matter how many restaurants and sushi fans get on board with locally harvested uni, there are too many urchins out there for Huang, Bailey and their team to make much of a dent. But even a small dent in urchin numbers could have rippling effects. “There are places where it’s not all doom and gloom,” says Gravem, “and we’re trying to learn what is going on in those places.” The California Ocean Protection Council found the most effective way to address the urchin problem is not going into the urchin barrens, those carpets of urchins where no kelp has survived. Divers can’t possibly gather enough of them in those barrens to make a difference. Instead, researchers PHOTOS BY JASON E. KAPLAN The edible portion of the spiny urchin are its gonads, called uni. 28
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