I was sent one of the two videos below. Many have perhaps seen fried starfish on a stick in various Asian seafood marketplace pictures, such as this one:
Okay, first. Yuck.
Taxonomy: From the video and from various pictures floating around on the internet, the species looks like Asterias amurensis, the North Pacific species of the well-known asteriid Asterias, which includes your well-known experimental lab rat Asterias rubens, etc.
Details: In addition to the video and pictures floating around on the internet, I have encountered two anecdotal accounts including:
*I have two packages of a starfish soup mix from Asia that apparently use the starfish as a component you add to dried fungus and boiling water.
*There were rumors when I visited New Zealand that people were using tube feet as part of clam dip.
Good Reasons why I would AVOID eating starfish:
* There's no meat. Mostly calcite. (Interestingly though, a note in one of the Youtube videos suggests that one eats the gonads or soft parts.)
* Body walls, of many, if not all asteroids are laden with toxic biochemicals, from saponins to tetrodotoxins. Many accounts report that feeding starfish to dogs or cats results in vomiting and the subsequent death of those animals.
* Some accounts-especially from Asia, such as this one, show that that some species which digest bivalves (e.g., Asterias amurensis, Astropecten scoparius, Asterina pectinifera) can actually convey paralytic shellfish poisoning.
*And finally.. Eww...
