Asturian-American Migration Forum

oriciu: pronounced oh-REE-thee-oo. Sustantivu (noun), plural form is oricios. Sea urchin, a spiny crustacean of the class Echinoidea that feeds mostly on algae. The earliest specimens date back to the Ordovician period, 450 million years ago.

Oricios move with the tides using hundreds of adhesive tube feet. Their main predators include sea otters, wolf eels and the Asturian, as well as Russian and Korean gourmet. They come in all colors, although deep purple is common along the Asturian/Galician coast.

In Asturias, Paracentrotus lividus is the most common species. The oricios are considered a delicacy to be eaten with cider (sidra). They are typically dislodged from nooks on rocks with a curved knife and hammered open with a mallet.

The word is also used to refer to chestnut husks when they fall from the trees and can be collected for animal consumption. In that case, they are known as ‘oricios de prau’ (field urchins). Asturian variants of the word include eiriciu/ourizu/ariciu.

Galician: ourizo do mar, Breton: teureuged , French: oursin de mer, Russian: morskoi iozh, German: Seeigel

Usage examples:

Mari, garra esos oricios antes que suba la marea. [Mari, grab those sea urchins before the tide comes in]
A cuanto tan los oricios? Tan a 10 euros la docena. [How much are the sea urchins? They cost 10 euros the dozen]
A Nolo presta-y dir pelos chigres de Xixon na epoca d’oricios. [Nolo likes to go cider tavern hopping in Xixon during the season for sea urchins]
Les castañes son castañes, los oricios son oricios. [Chestnuts are chestnuts and sea urchins are sea urchins]

My grandfather loved sea urchins. Once when visiting his childhood home in Asturias (right on the beach at Salinas) was accompanied by one of his sons, he excitedly scooped up some of the sea urchins, broke them open, and ate them (the roe), encouraging his son to do the same.

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Trans. Is

A mio guelu prestaben-y los oricios pola vida. Una vez, de la que tuviera visitando la casa onde se criara n'Asturies (cerca del sablon de Salinas) con un de los sos fios, baxo a garrar dellos oricios. Abriolos y comio la guevara diciendo-y al fiu que fixera lo mesmo.

Yep, I've seen people do that in the pedreru, the intertidal area of the rocky coast where you can easily find oricios, llampares (limpets) and bigaros (winkles or sea snails).

My father had a doctor friend from Xixon who ate the limpets raw, I don't remember if it was the zinc content he was after. I also remember how, as a child, people feasted on the oricios at Casa El Polainu on La Nora beach (Quintueles). The whole place was full of people breaking them open on tables and drinking cider. They are an acquired taste, it must be said. Especially if instead of eating the roe, you eat the wrong part of the oriciu...

Btw, Bob, I posted this after watching a report on Russian public television on Kamchatka, the peninsula in Russia's Far East (East Siberia) where people also eat sea urchins. I had no idea Russians also eat them...and they eat them raw.

Is wrote:...The word is also used to refer to chestnut husks when they fall from the trees and can be collected for animal consumption. In that case, they are known as ‘oricios de prau’ (field urchins). ...

Is, That's surprising. Aren't they really prickly? Which animals eat them?

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trans. Art

Is wrote:... La palabra también se utiliza para referirse a las cáscaras de castañas cuando caen de los árboles y pueden ser recogidos para el consumo por animales. En ese caso, son conocidos como 'oricios de Prau' (erizos de campo). ...

Is, eso me sorprende. ¿No son muy espinosos? ¿Cuál animales les comen?

Art wrote:Is, That's surprising. Aren't they really prickly? Which animals eat them? Is, eso me sorprende. ¿No son muy espinosos? ¿Cuál animales les comen?

In the old days, it was people who ate the chestnuts. Each place had its own maguestu, amaguestu or magosto in the fall--chestnut-roasting festivals accompanied by unfermented cider (sidra del duernu).

But chestnuts are mostly collected for hogs these days. Pigs will eat anything, but they're crazy about chestnuts. I've never seen a cow eat a chestnut (although I'm sure sheep might try), nor have I seen chickens peck on them in the prau.

In the early years after the Spanish Civil War, when people in Asturias were impoverished, people resorted to eating chestnuts, even in their fabes (Asturian stew). Some old folks developed conditioned taste aversion from having to eat so many as children...just ask around.

Art, you first need to STEP on the husk to liberate the chestnut. Once it's freed, you can put it in your paxu or goxa (baskets).

Oh, I get it now. You were saying that once the husk (and nut) fall to the ground and open, the animals eat the nuts, not the husks. Here I am making it complicated!

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Ah, ya entiendo. Estabas diciendo que una vez que la cáscara (y nuez) caen a la tierra y abren, los animales comen los los nueces (o sea las castañas), no las cáscaras. ¡Estoy haciéndolo todo complicado!