Cleaning conch and making a horn

Conch is a staple in the Bahamas, much like blue crabs are in the Chesapeake Bay, our home waters. Served fried, as in cracked conch ala Didgie, wow! or Susan Cope's yummy ceviche...
We can clean a mean crab in short order but cleaning conch is a first, so our good friends Captains Bob & Didgie were on hand to walk us through the process.


There are really two ways to clean a conch depending on what you want to do with the shell afterwards. One uses a hammer  to break a hole in the top spiral large enough to get a knife in to cut the ligament holding the meat to the shell.

There were three that we we are cleaning this way. You can see the shell on the right:  the first hole was a bit high and the second did the trick.

Reaching in and pulling the meat out and preparing to clean it. Thanks Didgie!

Tonight we will have a freshly prepared conch ceviche.

The other way to clean these is to freeze them overnight and once frozen, place them in a warm bucket of water allowing them to partially thaw. Your can then pull out the meat and leave the shell intact. We wanted one to make a conch horn, a right of passage I guess.

A bit of soaking and cleaning followed by cutting and working the end hole smooth and voila a conch horn.

Still a bit of cleaning to do including letting it dry for a few days in the sunshine.

While new to blowing a conch horn, I make a sound like a Moose in heat which has me laughing so hard that I have a hard time getting a good seal for the next try.....

I guess we can take this off our bucket list!