The other night I was watching a rerun of an episode of Chopped where they had amateur home cooks competing on the show. In the first round, the contestants were given amongst other ingredients scallops in a shell. One of the contestants was unfamiliar with how to deal with scallops in a shell. To be honest, most of the time when I get scallops they have already been cleaned and shelled. So, had I not taken the time to learn about this I may not have even known that they come in shell, but they do. While they are not as difficult to open as other shelled mollusks, they do need to be opened and cleaned before preparation. Besides having the sand and grit washed off them, the various organs such as the liver, abductor muscle, and sex organs need to be removed. Then and only then they can be baked, broiled, fried, or prepared in some other way.

Scallops are one of those foods that are not only healthy to eat, but they are powerful spiritually. Eating scallops is like any information that life presents us. There are some things that need to be removed and some things which need to be washed off before we can even consider ingesting them and making them part of our internal belief system.