Riccio di Mare

Holidaymakers in the Mediterranean sometimes have the misfortune to tread on a sea-urchin, whose fragile spines break at exactly the point where they enter the flesh, delivering a painful poison.

Sea-urchins are common around the whole Italian coast, but mostly come from Puglia, Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia, four areas where the water is particularly clean. As well as being enjoyed by the local population, the sea-urchins are distributed to towns and cities all over Italy. There are many varieties of sea-urchin and the roe of most is edible. The roe is the sea-urchin’s egg sac, which reaches maturity in the spring and early autumn. Two varieties of sea-urchin are particularly good, those with violet-to-dark-green spikes and those with shorter spikes of violet with a white spot at the end.