Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
Barrel jellyfish
Dreamy, and plainly elsewhere.
- Desalted then shredded into a salad with sesame and vinegar
- In a Chinese salad with cucumber
- Blanched very briefly and served cold
- In French
- Méduse barile
- Scientific name
- Rhizostoma pulmo
- In the water
- Coastal waters of the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, from the surface to 50 metres.
- Season & buying
- Summer and early autumn, when it moves inshore.
- Common length
- ~40 cm
- How to identify it
- Massive domed bell, almost opaque
Frilled margin of small lobes
Violet band running right around the bell
On the plate
Crisp, almost neutral texture that takes on whatever dresses it.
Avoid: Cooking it fresh. It is eaten salted and dried, never as it comes.
It is ninety-five percent water. Salting shrinks it to a fraction of its volume, and that is exactly what gives it its crisp cartilage bite.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
