While we are still engrossed in culinary conchology, let me ask a question I
have always wondered about.  In the "clam" tribe and the "mussel" tribe, we
eat everything but the shell.  Yet in the many species of the "scallop"
tribe that are used as human food, only one small piece, the adductor muscle
that holds the two shell valves together, is eaten.  This seems like an
awful waste.  Why is this so?  Is it simply (as someone mentioned earlier)
that the rest of a scallop just doesn't taste good?
Paul M.