Low Tide with The Sea Forager

I talk a decent amount of shit.  There's a fine line between healthy skepticism and straight up hating, and I frequently walk it.  Some of my more recent posts have encouraged civil discourse and respectful discussions rather than passing judgment and these "I'm right - you're wrong" proclamations.  I do believe and stand by that.  We'd all be better off with candid yet considerate conversation.  But still, I talk shit, throw shade, sip water (any Beanie Sigel fans?).  My friend even recently told me I "bleed cynicism."  We're all hypocrites from time to time, or at least I certainly am.

It is pretty easy to sit back and be a critic.  There are a number of sayings out there in one form or another.  "Any fool can criticize, and most fools do" or "be a creator, not critic."  And "Those who can, do.  Those who can't, criticize....or teach gym."  Something like that.  Sorry, Mrs. Horsey.  High school gym class was the absolute best.  Just jokes.  But it's good to always be aware of this.  I too often find myself critiquing meals, movies, football matches, and so on.  And nobody wants to be that guy, right?  The Skip Baylesses and Colin Cowherds of the world are about as helpful as social distancing in a submarine.  I try to counterbalance my petty caviling by getting out of my comfort zone and doing things that are new, unfamiliar, or even that I'm genuinely bad at.  A nice hearty dose of humility does everyone some good.  

So, back in the fall of 2019, pre-apocalypse 2020, some friends and I decided we'd try "sea foraging," something none of us were particularly familiar or comfortable with.  There were decades of culinary, restaurant, and even fishing experience between us, but nobody could poke-pole for a sculpin or confidently pick out the edible seaweeds of the coastline.  I'd always thought I had a decent grasp on many things seafood.  I've shucked hundreds of thousands of oysters and clams, butchered more varieties of fish than I can remember, and even regularly messed around with exotics like percebes or making my own bottarga.  But ask me to go and pull a razor clam from the sand a short 25 minute drive from my house, I'd embarrassingly have little to no success.

Half Moon Bay at low tide 

While we were definitely out of our comfort zone in attempting this, we weren't stupid enough (at least anymore) to dive into it blindly.  Picking up stuff off the beach and eating it, after all, isn't like casually trying your hand at water colors or giving tennis a go.  Wrong kelp, wrong time, wrong clam, wrong tide - any one can quickly equal a trip to right the emergency room.  We were fortunate enough to enlist a pro's help.

Enter Kirk Lombard, a.k.a. the Sea Forager.  He's a Bay Area icon who I've been following for a bit now.  His biography on the website summarizes it better than I can, but he's basically all things NorCal fisheries.  Education, sustainability, research, commerce, preservation, recreation, and more.  If it's akin to the ocean, it's akin to Kirk.  He's got an informative and wit-filled book, provides guided classes, and even offers a weekly sea-to-table delivery service for at home cooks.  So, on a brisk but sunny day in November, we all met up in Half Moon Bay during a mega low tide in search of all the forageable, scrumptious sea creatures it had to offer.   

Fried whole smelt, or "fries with eyes," at
Hog Island in San Francisco's Ferry Building

As herring season was near, we started off with a tutorial in cast netting.  Not that herring were in Half Moon Bay, but the goal was to teach us as many sea foraging techniques as we could cram into one day.  Pretty straight forward in theory, but rather difficult to execute.  It's simply a circular net with weights on the edge that's attached to a handline.  You throw it out into the water, the weights drop, and with a quick pull of the line, anything beneath the net is caught.  The hard part is actually getting the net to spread out on the throw.  Takes a lot of practice, but it's great for catching large hauls (I've been told) of surf smelt.  It's also impressive as a fishing method that dates back millennia and is still employed daily from San Francisco to Shanghai and everywhere in between. Careful, though, as regulations vary by area and season.  Cast netting is something I'm nowhere even close to proficient at, but I'm keen to be as freshly caught fries with eyes are damn delicious.

After about twenty minutes of what can be best described as cast net fails by all of us, save Kirk, we were on to the main task at hand: clammin' - horseneck clammin' specifically.  I wasn't very familiar with horseneck clams until I heard we'd be targeting them.  They're a gaper clam and basically like a mini geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck).  If you've had mirugai sushi, that's geoduck.  It's also the comedically massive and phallic clam that's always elicited wry smiles and audible chuckles at every restaurant I've ever worked.  Yes, people do call it the penis clam and every other clever variation you can think of.  Clamming in general is just too easy for sexual innuendo and double entendre. I'll do my best to refrain. 

  

Half Moon Bay Horseneck Clam

   Horseneck clam harvesting on the Pacific coast goes back centuries with archaeological excavations unearthing shells at several coastal sites.  Native Americans would use both the meat as food and the shells for tools or jewelry.  How they did this without modern day means is beyond me as digging for these clams is a fairly tall order.  It starts pretty leisurely with a simple stroll down the beach at low tide.  You're looking for small, but not too small (quarter-sized or so) holes in the sand.  After spotting one, stomp a few times in close proximity.  If a spout of water squirts out, it just may be a clam.  This spout is from the clam being startled, sharply retracting it's siphon, and expelling the water it held.  It can be tricky as many of the holes are misleading and often just ghost shrimp, crabs, or other aquatic critters.  You want to be as close to positive as possible it's a clam, too, cause the tall order I mentioned starts here.

Digging up our first clam

Unlike the casual clamming of the East coast I was familiar with, digging for horseneck clams is an arduous endeavor as they can be buried deep, up to three or four feet sometimes.  Just to procure a single clam requires jamming a 3' x 18" PVC tube several feet into the ground, shoveling out heaps of wet, heavy sand, and siphoning out seawater that's constantly rushing in to fill the hole.  Then, you've got to get face down in the muck, probing around with a small trowel to locate the clam.  And once you've found it, you have to gingerly extract it with a gentle touch as to not crush the shell or tear the siphon.  As I said, a tall order.  Oh, and I forgot to mention, on that leisurely stroll down the beach, you're lugging around all this equipment the whole time. 

However, I must admit the labor is worth it.  Surfacing with that first gaper clam after a thirty minute physically draining battle was quite the reward.  "No pain, no gain."  Well, Kirk's pain and our gain.  I won't lie.  He did most of the work while the rest of us, let's say, supervised.  We ended up with two medium sized clams and discovered all sorts of interesting sea life along the way, ranging from adorable to appalling.  Innkeeper worms, sea lettuce, purple urchin, Turkish washcloth.  The most thrilling and incredibly rare find, though, was the Lewis's moon snail.

Half Moon Bay Moon Snail 

 You could immediately tell we'd found something special with Kirk's giddy, kid-on-Christmas-morning reaction.  First, they're massive.  About the size of a large dinner plate with a bulky weight to match.   Second, the expression "happy as a clam" wouldn't exist if moon snail predatory behavior were more commonly known.  The full phrase is "happy as a clam at high tide," presuming a clam would be happy as people can only dig them at low tide.  Safe equals happy.  However, moon snails go around chomping down clams all day every day.  As Kirk says, "they're the lions of mudflats" and "if clams dream, moon snails are their stuff of nightmares."  They are edible, but apparently require a jackhammer to tenderize and make palatable.  The size is also misleading as it's mostly water weight and they don't yield much meat.  Lastly, as they prey on other mollusks, they're more susceptible to dangerous toxins through biogmagnification.  Given the rarity, esteem, and culinary considerations, we decided to place this guy back in the sand, much to the dismay of many a clam I'm sure. 

For the last leg of our tour, we headed outside the Half Moon Bay jetty onto the rocks of Maverick's Beach.  With the mega low tide, there were scores of people scooping up bag limits (and probably beyond) of whatever they could find, mainly mussels.  Kirk had a few choice words on preservation, sustainability, and responsible harvests, given what we were witnessing.  It's certainly an important topic and warrants further discussion, but that's a whole separate post.  The main point: please forage responsibly, keeping in mind we want these valuable sea resources to stay around for generations to come.  That being said, grab all the purple sea urchin you can.  Climate change, warmer waters, disappearing predators and other factors have created a breeding boom for these urchin and they're laying waste to many California coastal ecosystems.  Perhaps a marketing catchphrase for purple sea urchin hunting is needed, like "stay calm and eat uni" or "munch an urchin just for the halibut."  

Poke-poling for pricklebacks

Anyway, we were there to focus on a method and a fish: poke-poling and monkeyface eel.  Poke-poling is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.   Just like cast netting is casting a net, poke-poling is poking a pole, more specifically into tidal pools.  It consists of a long rod (sturdy fishing rod, bamboo, or even a broomstick would do), a flexible but strong wire tied to it (coat hanger seems to be standard), and a few inches of fishing line with a hook at the end.  Squid, surf clam, mussels, or any other manner of bait is placed on the hook and poked around into the holes and crevices in the rocks, basically anywhere that looks like an eel would comfortably call home.  The fish bites, the hook is set, and out comes the catch.  It's a great way to nab monkeyface eels and even a clunker cabezon occasionally.   

The monkeyface eel, or monkeyface prickleback, can be found all over coastal California and Oregon in abundance.  There's no size limit on a keeper, and they have same bag limit as rockfish at ten a day.  That's a lot of monkeyface meat in twenty four hours.  But as they're not exactly blessed with the best looks or reputation, they haven't been the focus of many commercial fisheries and are sparsely prized by local anglers.  As of late, however, more and more restaurants in the Bay Area have begun to recognize their value as a sustainable seafood.  The most curious thing is that monkeyface eels are omnivorous, eating mostly crustaceans and plankton while young and switching to primarily seaweeds and algae as adults, as if to grow some sort of ethical culinary conscience.  Lucky for us, though, the adults still can't resist a bit of squid being dangled right in front of them.  

Larger of the two Monkeyface Eels we kept

We each tried, but Kirk did most of the poke-poling and ended up bagging two respectably sized eels while losing a few and releasing some of the smaller ones.  They're slippery little buggers, don't always take the full bait, and can seemingly loose the hook with ease.  You basically have to pop them out of their holes and grab them by hand before they flop back into the water.  Or, if you're wise, just have a small mesh landing net on hand.  The amazement of onlooking mussel harvesters was probably the funniest bit of the whole poke-poling tutorial.  That, or getting to say "poke-poling" over and over again.  Seeing Kirk pull out eel after eel like reverse whack-a-mole drew quite the crowd.  The crowd's amazement then soon shifted to mild alarm as they realized such gnarly creatures had been lurking mere inches from their bare toes as they navigated the tide pools.  Some in the crowd even recognized Kirk, as we overheard "dude, that's the Sea Forager" a few times.  Must be cool to be a poke-poling celebrity. 

With a day's worth of invaluable mudflat lessons done and a modest but healthy haul of pricklebacks and clams in hand, we said our thanks to Kirk for the great experience and headed back to my buddy's house to cook our spoils.  But how was the big question.

Trudging back through the low tide beds of seaweed

Preparing a horseneck clam isn't like your standard littleneck or manila.  You can't just drop them in a pot and cook (that would be one awfully big steamer).  They require some butchering and cleaning.  This video by another Bay Area foraging legend, Hank Shaw, is one of the best instructional demonstrations I've seen.  First, just like oyster liquor, all that valuable juice that pours out of the clam while shucking is cooking liquid gold.  Be sure to save as much as you can.  Next, in breaking down the clam, most of the meat is in the siphon, which needs to be blanched, skinned, split, and rinsed of sand and particulate.  It can either be tenderized and used in chowders, stews, sauces, etc. or thinly sliced and eaten raw.  The body of the clam has to be thoroughly cleaned of its guts, basically any of the goopy dark stuff.  After this, you're left with a tasty foot, belly, and adductors.  These parts can be chowdered, but are best prepared seasoned and fried.  Also, aquacultured geoduck can fetch upwards of $30 dollars a pound commercially, often double or even triple that in parts of Asia.  To me, these gaper clams were just smaller versions of geoduck, so keep that in mind while savoring every last bit. 

Half Moon Bay Sea Lettuce

The monkeyface eel was just as, well, interesting.  I'll try to phrase this as delicately as possible.  After the eels had been dispatched, their resilient nervous systems pressed on.  While rinsing them off in the sink to prep, one even to managed wriggle its way down into the sink's drain, requiring pliers to remove.  No joke.  Like I said, they're slippery little guys.  And not to be crass, but all food comes from living things that shuffle their mortal coils to become nourishment for us.  I don't want to delve into the whole sentience and physical pain debate of our dietary choices, but I do believe the closer we are to our food, in all aspects, the better.  Distancing ourselves is what created the factory-farmed horrors of plastic-wrapped boneless, skinless chicken breasts and ecosystem devastating salmon steaks.  "Out of sight out of mind" shouldn't apply to our food.  If you want to eat the sausage, you should be comfortable seeing how it's made.  Humane is respecting all living things while understanding some must pass on for us to eat, from peas to pigs and everything in between.  

Stepping off my soap box and getting back to the point, we now had four nice monkeyface eel loins and two cleaned and prepped horseneck clams.  I'll be honest, having spent hours trudging around the beach, digging for clams, lugging equipment, and scaling tidal rocks, we were flat out exhausted.  And hungry.  Sea foraging works up an appetite.  There was no way in hell we were expending more time and energy to make a hearty seafood stew or fancy sauces to go with pan roasted fish.  We wanted instant gratification, so out came the deep fryer.  The clam bellies and eel fillets were lightly seasoned and in they went.  No pomp.  No circumstance.  No ceremony.  Just salt, citrus, and hot oil.  We breaded some too, just for contrast.  Surprisingly, the naked fry versions won out.  Either way, clam bellies are always delicious deep fried.  The eel was also great and reminded me a lot of catfish, both in taste and texture.  I've heard it criticized for being too muddy or astringent tasting.  I found it rather pleasant and could see it cooked or prepared in any number of ways, just like any other firm, white fish.  The skin crisped up nicely too when fried and would make some delectable chips.  As for the clam siphon, sashimi style was definitely the way to go.  Thinly sliced on the bias and dipped in a soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and jalapeno mixture made for quite the treat.  It was very toothsome, but incredibly sweet, briny and almost nutty in flavor.  Clamming and poke-poling might just become a regular hobby of mine as the bounty was so delightful. 

          

Filleting the Monkeyface Eel

Deep fried Monkeyface Eel

Our entire sea foraging day was incredible.  There were so many nuances and intricacies of the mudflats I'd never imagined, and still so much to learn.  From cast net fails and poke-poling misses to the deep fried delicacies, it was truly a new and somewhat intimidating, but eye-opening and amazing experience.  Hopefully you too, despite all the recent craziness, have the chance to try out something a bit different, new, or even scary.  Or at least, in the words of Kendrick Lamar, you can sit down, be humble....and eat some monkeyface eel. 

Special thanks to my buddies Dana for the photography and Rizzi for the cooking.

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd

Manhattan Clam Chowder

I grew up going to my Aunt Pauline's beach house in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey every summer as a kid in the early 90's, but hadn't been back in years.  I was lucky enough to fly back East for a similar summer trip to the Jersey Shore, recently.  South Jersey Shore, to be exact.  Water Ice, not Italian Ice.  Hoagies, not Subs.  Phillies, not Yankees.  And definitely no Snooki and no The Situation.  Despite the more-than-a-decade long hiatus, it felt as it always had.  A lot of my greatest memories came flooding back.  Sure, some things had changed.  It's not a Colonial Williamsburg-esque time warp type of place.  iPhone X's replaced Morotorla Razrs, Fireball shots instead of Cuervo, and Migos blaring at the bars instead of 50 Cent.  But the staples...aromas of salt water taffy mixed with low tide, trite Treasure Island themed mini golf courses, and mom'n'pop stores that seem to never quite be open, despite it being 1pm on a Tuesday...were all just the same.

That being said, of all the boogie-boarding and monopoly games to be had, there was one thing in particular I had my mind set on. My Aunt Pauline, the now 83 year old matriarch of the family, was spending the whole summer with her daughter and grandkids at the shore in Avalon.  The house we rented was only a few blocks away, so I knew this would be the perfect time to learn one of our most cherished family recipes, Manhattan Clam Chowder, from the original gangster herself.

Ok, but first, dare I ask, what is a chowder?  After all, there are hundreds of types of chowder.  New England, being the most famous, is clam and dairy based.  Then there's Manhattan, Rhode Island, Hatteras, Chesapeake, New Jersey, Minorcan, all of which are clam-centric, but vary in their base and viscosity.  Next you've got Bermuda Fish Chowder, Corn Chowder, Southern Illinois Beef Chowder, Potato Chowder, and these are just dishes that carry the name.  All very different.  Some firmly believe chowder has to be thick and milk based.  Are Lobster Bisque, She-Crab Soup, and even Broccoli Cheddar then chowders?  Others say potatoes, onions, and some form of pork are the minimal requirements.  What about countless vegetable soups that meet those criteria?  Are they too chowders?  Just have to be seafood focused? Then are Maryland Crab Soup, Cioppino, and Gumbo all not chowders?  What about non-domestic seafood soups that are often coconut milk based like Creole Caribbean Rondón, Guatemalan Tapado, and Thai Tom Yum Goong?  Are they technically chowders?  Does true chili have beans or not? Is a hot dog a sandwich?  Why do I need I.D., to get I.D.?  If I had I.D. I wouldn't need I.D.  Hope there are a few Common fans out there.  Anyway, get the point?

Manhattan Clam Chowder in a Sourdough Bread Bowl at Chowders on Pier 39 in San Francisco

Even the etymology of chowder is hotly contested.  A History of Chowder by Robert S. Cox and Jacob Walker details how we really don't know whether the name chowder came from an old Cornish word, jowter, for fish peddler, or chaudiere, an old Northern French word for cauldron or stew pot.  It seems agreed that North America's versions originated from 1600's French or British seafaring folk, probably fishermen.  They would alternatingly layer salt pork, hardtack, and whatever seafood or vegetables were available in a pot, cover with water and simmer for hours.  This appears to be the original chowder.  Preserved pork, biscuits for thickening, and whatever edible items were around, boiled. Other variations took hold as Portuguese, Italian, Irish, and other immigrants started adding their twists in the 1800's.  

However, all this still doesn't answer: what is a chowder?  After a lot reading and research, debate and discussion, I could only come to one conclusion: fuck if I know.  Seriously.  It's one of those culinary concepts that takes so many forms it's difficult to define.  Nor do I really want to.  Chowder is much more to people beyond just a bowl of soup.  Case in point, my inclusion of the tomato-based Manhattan Clam Chowder as an actual chowder will draw ire from many a New Englander and label me as a heretic.  Few things stir up such intense feelings as food.  It's fiercely defining for someone's culture, ideology, and overall identity.  Whether it's paying homage to your heritage with a traditional holiday meal or making a statement by boycotting or excluding certain foods from your table, what and how we eat is a major part of who we are.  So no, I definitely do not want to challenge what chowder is to anyone, but rather celebrate what it has come to be for me and my family.  

Family recipes mean a lot to me.  Some like old jewelry, others scrapbooks or photo albums.  I like family cookbooks. There is some indescribable feeling that overtakes me while flipping through my mom's old ones, all peppered with hand-written tweaks and twists.  A generation's worth of culinary how-to at your fingertips, all tried-and-tested, gained from the humble purpose of feeding people.  It's even better reading recipes from family members who've passed.  Just seeing their writing makes me feel closer to them, let alone making the dishes they spent years perfecting.  Biting into my Mom-Mom's banana chocolate cake instantly takes me back to my early birthdays, sitting on her lap, and blowing out the candles.

Top - My Aunt Pauline's Manhattan Clam Chowder Recipe
Bottom - My Grandma's Deviled Crabs Recipe

It also makes me want to thank the American education system for doing away with cursive in classrooms, cause for god's sake that shit is barely legible.  

I think family recipes are slowly disappearing, or at least our appreciation of them.  It could be that tv-streaming tablets are replacing connections to family dinners, or the emergence of meal prep and delivery services like Sun Basket and Hello Fresh.  Even worse, Caviar, Uber Eats, and Postmates.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not an anti-iPad luddite or don't enjoy the convenience of app-ordered Chinese food.  Trust me, I've had the demoralizing experience more than once of looking the DoorDash guy in the eye as he hands over McDonald's breakfast to my hungover ass.  People do seem to be more and more interested in their food, where it's from, how it's sourced, and so on, and I don't want to take that away from anyone or deny it.  But I don't hear much appreciation for the tupperware generation and the mayonnaise-based salads or cream of mushroom casseroles that helped get us here.

50 Count Topneck Chowder Clams

So, making Manhattan Clam Chowder with my Aunt was a true chance to experience the full joy and appreciation of family recipes.  Start to finish, it encompassed every detail I could have hoped.  Sitting there, prepping, tasting, listening to stories.  Flipping through my Aunt's old cookbooks and seeing all the tomato sauce or red wine stains, wondering how and when they got there.  Shucking clams and sauteeing onions, learning how my Aunt had to plead just to stand behind her mother, Big Aunt Pauline, and write down every detail of the chowdering process to memorialize the receipe. Getting educated on the right amount of bacon fat to keep in the pot while laughing about old family Scrabble battles. I heard how my then underage mom would drive carafes of Manhattan cocktails, at the behest of Big Aunt Pauline, to the local fishmonger in exchange for shucked clams.  And I now know my long passed grandfather's nickname for the chowder, "Callahann's Crowded Soup," as it has basically everything but the "kitchen sink" in it.  You can't get that from the Food Network or Blue Apron.

Manhattan Clam Chowder Prep

   It was just as good to share the end product of all our "hard work" at a nice, tv-free, family dinner.  Warm bites of briny and savory goodness eliciting everyone's nostalgic memories of past trips to the Jersey Shore. Most importantly, witnessing my nieces and nephew's first taste of Manhattan Clam Chowder.  I hope they too will appreciate and carry on our culinary traditions for generations to come.  For me, nothing evokes more emotion than food, my family's recipes, the stories behind them, and the chance to pass them along.  That, and of course fighting with my brother over who gets to eat the last helping.

Me and My Aunt Pauline with the
Manhattan Clam Chowder

Final version of the 
Manhattan Clam Chowder

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd

Oyster Chicharrones

I've always felt seafood doesn't get its due place on the American dinner table.  Think about your weekly dinner regiment.  Not to be presumptuous, but I imagine most are composed of something like chicken and rice, a hearty soup, taco Tuesday, some sort of pasta, an entree salad (cause we all want to feel healthy), pizza (to counteract that healthy salad), and maybe, if feeling bold, a piece of salmon.  Seeing how healthy and delicious seafood is, it's a shame it doesn't make it to our home dinner plates more often.  It's also a shame that when it occasionally does, it's usually just shrimp or salmon.  Reading Paul Greenberg's American Catch and Four Fish really makes you realize what an amazing abundance and diversity of seafood is off American shores.  Then, sadly, we limit ourselves to ecosystem-devastating farmed shrimp and unsustainably-caught and overfished tuna.  I know I'm teetering on the edge of sanctimony (I fuckin' love shrimp, love it!), but for the health of our oceans and the health of ourselves, our dietary choices really need to start supporting more sustainable aquaculture products like clams and mussels and responsible fisheries like sardines and ling cod.  Check out Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch for some guidance.  They have a wallet size guide you can always carry with you.

But back to the point of why seafood doesn't show up on our plates more often.  There are tons reasons for sure from availability to personal taste, but three main ones that I most often see.  First, and the most obvious, is that it's damn expensive.  Standing at the butcher and fishmonger at your local market, it's pretty easy to opt for the $2.99 a pound bone-in chicken thighs over the $34.99 a pound dungeness crab meat.  Sure, seafood is often seen as a luxury item only bought and cooked for special occasions.  However, when considering the season and the items, it can be pretty easy to make seafood an economical staple in your diet.  Things like mussels, clams, and squid rarely exceed $5.99.  Rockfish is usually available year-round at $9.99 a pound as is farmed rainbow trout.  Fish like salmon and halibut fluctuate in price throughout their seasons, so keep a sharp eye out for a drop in price.  Or, even better, befriend your local fishmongers.  Trust me, if they like you, they'll always "hook" you up.  Hackneyed puns are the best.

Second, and by no means do I intend to insult, but most people are intimidated by cooking seafood at home.  Maybe intimidated is a bit strong, but certainly unfamiliar.  Fact of the matter is that most of us grow up on pot roast, burgers, and spaghetti.  Seafood was something you ate when you went out to dinner.  So, as an adult, these are the familiar items you know and cook or can easily call your mom for the recipes.  A lot of people also really fear spoiled seafood.  For some reason stories of having a bad oyster are much more popular than bad chicken.  Therefore, we often avoid seafood because of the looming fear of it being off.  However, proportionally, contaminated salad greens and poultry make far more people sick than seafood.  Nowadays though, both of these issues are easily overcome.  As previously mentioned, I can't stress enough how valuable it is to become friends with your local fishmongers.  Chat with them, get to know them, hell even tip them or bring them beer as a holiday present.  They will not only guide you to the freshest items available that day, but can also provide a number of fun ways to prepare them.  If you don't have this luxury, farmers' markets will often have a quality seafood vendor that's worth the trip or, admittedly not economical, there are a number of online services that will ship fresh seafood to you.  Several oyster farms like Hog Island and Island Creek will Fedex oysters directly to your doorstep less than 24 hours out of the water.  And when it comes to preparation, come on, we've all got Google.  Be adventurous.

Lastly, and much in the same vein as my last point, seafood is simply foreign to many people.  Not only in cooking as previously discussed, but in flavor and style.  Outside of a few classics like chowder or lobster rolls, when you see most seafood preparations in the States, they are either one of two things: asian or fried.  This is certainly not a bad thing and is definitely changing with time.  Omakase nigiri is my absolute jam as is chili-garlic crab.  My last blog post was even about deep fried oysters.  Unfortunately, this limits our consumption of seafood as nobody wants to only eat fried food or asian-fusion every single night for dinner (if you do...don't stop...stay beautiful).  In every single seafood restaurant I've worked the chefs were always hyperconscious about not having too many fried items or asian-influenced items on the menu.  They all pushed for creative and new presentations.  I love the idea of "Americanizing" seafood.  No, not putting it through extreme-vetting or delusionally "making it great again."  Rather taking some typical and traditional American cuisines and making them with seafood.  Smoked trout hot dogs, octopus pepperoni, catfish chili, black cod bratwurst, salmon pastrami, buffalo oysters, smoked sturgeon club sandwiches.  Chef Doug Bernstein at Fish Restaurant in Sausalito is someone who I admire greatly and is creating a lot of these exact types of dishes.  So, I decided to try my hand at one of his very own:  Oyster Chicharrones (or Oyster Pork Rinds)

The concept is basically making shrimp chips, but with oysters. Shrimp chips, or Krupuk, are of Indonesian origin and an extremely popular snack throughout Southeast Asia.  If you've never had them, I highly recommend trying them.  They can be found in pretty much any Asian grocers and often in the ethnic foods isle at Safeway or Giant.  I am also aware chicharrones are a Latino and not an "American classic," but living in San Francisco, believe me, they have been completely adopted and identified as local cuisine.  See what great things welcoming diversity into our country can bring?  #notmypresident

The process is pretty simple in labor, though takes a few days of waiting.  In a food processor, blend the oysters into a paste with seasonings to taste.  In this instance, I used Pico de Mariscos (a Mexican Old Bay-esque seasoning) and some guallijo chiles.  Mix the paste with an equal part in weight of tapioca starch.  This will come to the consistency of a kneadable dough.  Knead a few more times on a floured cutting board and form into the shape of a one 2-3 inch wide log (or however large you'd like your chips to be).  Then steam the log for 45 minutes to an hour and place immediately in the fridge to rest overnight.  The next day, slice the log into thin chips.  Dry these chips out on a baking rack on a cookie sheet over night. 

From this point, the chips last in a zip-lock bag in the fridge for ages, ready to fry-to-order.  Of course, I couldn't wait any longer.  350 degree canola oil and in went the chips, just a few at time.  You know right when they are finished as they puff up just like a chicharron and float to the top.  It's hard to describe how cool it looks, so here is a link to a video demonstrating.  I wish I had taken a video, but I was solo and safety first.  Plus I didn't want accidentally deep fry my phone (libations were had).  However, I can share an image of the end product, which was amazing.

They were crunchy but fluffy and mild but with a oystery ocean brine pop.  Just like I'd hoped, an oyster chicharron.  I threw a little hot sauce on, more Pico de Mariscos seasoning, and served with fresh lime.  I then proceeded to sit down with a 22oz Tecate, the Giants game, and the entire bowl to myself.  Believe me, they did not last long.  I wish I had shared them with someone, but a big part of me is glad that I did not.  I really look forward to trying my hand at some other seafood dishes like this and I hope you may now too.

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd

Cannery Row

I recently spent a wonderful couple days with my family down in Pebble Beach.  Ironically, none of us golf.  However, that doesn't mean there weren't plenty of things to do, namely a visit to Cannery Row.  Briefly, Cannery Row in Monterey was a massive sardine fishing and canning industry back in the 1940's and 1950's.  At its peak during WWII, companies were canning 250,000 tons of sardines a season, and at its collapse in the mid 1950's a mere 1,000.  Reasons for the collapse are debated, causes being both overfishing and the natural fluctuation of sardine populations.  However, it would be undeniably foolhardy to say humans had nothing to do with it.  Nowadays, Cannery Row is a major tourist destination for its restaurants, Steinbeck history, and most especially, The Monterey Bay Aquarium.

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I especially enjoy the 'juxtaposition' of the vintage canning sign with the high-performance muscle car.  Feel free to mentally punch me for having said that.

Visiting the aquarium was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had.  Endless exhibits of psychedelic jellyfish, humbly terrifying sharks, and whimsical sea otters.  Tidal pools where you can pet sting rays. Dolphin shows. Model set ups of Edward Rickett's laboratory famed by Steinbeck's namesake novel.  Puffins, star fish, tuna, anemones.  Seeing everything in one day is impossible.

 Turns out taking pictures of moving fish with an iPhone is quite the challenge.  This was the best I got, a small school of anchovies.  Sorry everyone.  Photography is not my specialty.

However, while wandering through the Open Sea exhibit, I couldn't help but over hear a conversation to my right.  I was enjoying massive schools of sardines shoot by, only to be followed by enormous Hammerhead sharks and Pacific Bluefin Tuna.  All of the sudden I hear, "Man, I'd love to eat that."  Here we are, not only looking at this majestic two-decade-old bluefin tuna, but surrounded by demonstrable depletion of fisheries in the Cannery Row history, and all this dick can think is "mmm, Kuro Maguro."  I didn't say anything, seeing as how it would have ruined both mine and his day, but I would have loved to.  It certainly got me thinking, though.    

Our culture is full of all these buzzwords nowadays.  Locavore, grass-fed, free-range, sustainably-grown, and the completely exhausted organic.  No, I’m not going to delve into the entire Michael Pollan industrial food complex discussion, but there is something endemic to our dietary culture that's not good.  It both pains and excites me to see so many inquisitive diners these days (at least in my current hometown of San Francisco…enter reader eye-roll).  “Excuse me, miss.  Is this beef local and grass-fed?  Is this chicken cage-free raised?  Is this gluten-free?  I don’t have celiac’s disease, but Anderson Cooper told me gluten is bad so I don’t want it.  Do you think the chicken had friends?”  Maybe the last one’s a bit Portlandia-esque and unfair.

Yet, I've witnessed these very same customers become giddy as hell when they see Hamachi, Monkfish, or King Crab on a menu.  Put Black Rhino on your menu and people will lose their shit.  "How dare you serve an endangered species."  But put Bluefin Tuna on your menu and people will go ape shit with excitement.  In reality, Black Rhino might be the more responsible choice, given how few breeding Bluefins there are left in the world.  Why does everyone care so much about gavaged ducks, so much that it's banned in California, but nobody seems to care about the ever-dwindling populations of the sea?  People have wholeheartedly fought for legistlation against foie gras production, in which there are still questions of adverse effects on the animal to be debated, yet don't blink twice for entire species of fish being decimated beyond recovery.

It's the panda effect.  If it's cuddly or seems to have a personality, it's worth saving.  Furry means friend, fish means food.  But does veal really deserve our attention so much more than the diseased, concentrated salmon in farms off the Chilean coast?  What if I were to say that octopuses are highly intelligent?  They problem solve, have discernable long-term memories, and have even been observed "playing."  Would you still be comfortable eating your poulpe provencal?  It's a personal choice that each individual has to decide on his or her own.  But it doesn't detract from the point that our oceans are being heavily overfished.

Take the Grand Banks off of Newfoundland and its cod fishery collapse, for example.  In 1968, the total cod catch was 800,000 tons.  By 1975, it was down to 35,000.  The reason for this enormous change was more effective means of fishing leading to larger catches.  With these large catches, no of-age cod were being left in the sea to breed.  In 1992, the Canadian government put a moratorium on cod fishing in the Grand Banks and the cod population has yet to recover.  Many scientists argue that it never will.  Too many fish have been pulled out of the gene pool for it to recover to what it once was.  This same tragedy is happening world wide.  Thousands of boats are pulling 10-times the amount of fish they're allowed by their quota daily out of the sea.  Entire schools of pollock, meaning entire genetic stocks, are being pulled out of the Bering Strait to make those Filet'o'Fish sandwiches.  20 pounds of bycatch (undesirable fish, coral, sea turtles, etc) are caught in shrimp trawlers for every single pound of shrimp.

So why not just eat farmed fish?  Unfortunately, this is not the answer either.  There are many reputable fish farms out there, and particularly Oyster farms that are environmentally friendly and sustainable.  However, many farmed fish such as salmon require a 4 to 1 ratio of feed.  Every pound of salmon that is grown requires 4 pounds of sardines, anchovies, or other fish to be caught and fed to them.  Not exactly sustainable.  Entire regions of mangroves are being destroyed by Malaysian shrimp farming, just so we can have those easy-peel 21-25 IQF prawns.  They dump waste into one area just to move on to the next once it's reached capacity.  The transgressions are endless.

Whatever your moral dietary choices be, there is an undeniable atrocity happening in our oceans.  The ocean is not inexhaustable or ever abundant.  No matter what ethical eating choice you make, there won't be a choice left when it comes to seafood if we keep on pace.  There is a ceiling to what we can take from the sea, and it seems that we're dangerously close to that proverbial point of no return.

So please, choose your seafood responsibly and sustainably.  Nobody's perfect.  I have some Indonesian shrimp in my freezer right now.  But so long as you stay educated, spread the word, and practice what you preach as much as you can, things should get better.  Follow the The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watchlist for your area.  Eat sardines, local fish, and farmed Oysters.  Follow seasonal guidelines for fish like those provided by TwoXSea.  Frequent and support transparent establishments that provide you with all pertinent seafood information.  Be that asshole who questions where and how your seafood was sourced!   It's the only way to make things change.  Plus, I'd like my little niece and nephew to be able to enjoy the bounty of the sea just as we have.

 

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd