Fruits de Mer Français

Toy Sailboats in Luxembourg Gardens

My wife and I recently braved a transatlantic flight to France with our two toddlers.  While I wouldn't recommend it from a travel perspective - apparently even Bluey and Paw Patrol have their limits on an eight hour plane ride - the trip itself was incredible.  The old world beauty and glamour of Paris paired perfectly with the raucous joy and energy of Euro Disney, all bookended with a quick stint in dynamically charming Marseille.   The trip didn't want for much as we made several memories that will last a lifetime.  And while it was largely, and appropriately, family focused with park hikes, trolley rides, playground visits, even some McDonald's nuggets, you know I had to squeeze in a few stellar meals.  French McDonald's is way better than in the States, by the way.  

But where to begin?  French food, to say the least, is daunting.  It's world-renowned by many as the pinnacle of cuisine.  Things are certainly changing with new dining establishments drawing inspiration from various international foodways.  Even then, a lot of the foundations are still French techniques.  During the trip I had some internal difficulty truly defining French food.  Sure, there are several easily identifiable French classics like beef bourguignon, coq au vin, and cassoulet.  At most restaurants, though, I thought, "huh, is this really French? Just seems like a normal dish to me."  I soon realized yes, that is French, because a lot of what I think of as standard cuisine is in fact French based.  Sous-vide - French.  Sautéed - French.  Poached - French.  Puréed - French.  Proteins simply and well-prepared paired with flavorful sauces and sides - largely French.  Undeniably, similar cooking styles have been practiced around the world for centuries.  But the French, with notable 19th century chefs like Carême and Escoffier, codified and propagated these methods and disciplines.  Very little of what we contemporarily eat, especially when dining out, doesn't have some French fingerprints or DNA, somewhere.

French Oyster Vending Machine - via GrubStreet

Even when narrowing to seafood only, it remained a formidable exploration.  There's an ardent affinity for seafood in France dating back centuries.  King Louis XIV, known for his voracious appetite and opulent royal court dinners, demanded fresh fish, mollusks, and crustaceans be carted in daily from both French coasts.  Balzac, the French novelist, often ate 100 oysters before a meal.  Preserving food by canning was invented in the early 1800s in France to feed traveling armies; one of the very first canned foods was sardines, reportedly a favorite of Napoleon that he saw most fit for his soldiers.  April Fools' Day in France is known as poisson d'avril, or April Fish.  Bouillabaisse, Coquilles Saint-Jacques, Moules Marinières, and Tuna Niçoise are all world-renowned French seafood dishes with long histories that are celebrated to this day.  Shit, there's even a literal oyster vending machine in Normandy.  Suffice it to say that France really likes its fruits de mer. 

This was all too much for too brief a trip.  So, in short, I said "tant pis, let's see what happens."  The following is a recount of my best effort exploration of French seafood between late nights with jetlagged toddlers and exhaustingly long waits in Euro Disney theme park lines.  Allons-y!

Le Dôme Café

Le Dôme's Opulent Entrance

First stop had to be a classic French, seafood-focused brasserie, and no place better embodies that than Le Dôme Café.  Opened in 1898 in the swanky Montparnasse neighborhood, it has a long history of regularly serving many of history's intellectual elites.  Hemingway, Lenin, Picasso, Gauguin, Henry Miller.  All gathered here to gossip and exchange opinions on art, philosophy, world affairs, literature, and so on.  They even came to be known as the Dômiers.  Le Dôme is also the kind of place that comes to mind when you imagine vintage Parisian dining, almost Ratatouille-esque.  Decadent decor, professionally attired staff, proper etiquette, Château wines, escargot, pan-seared foie gras.  Candidly, it was not my most anticipated stop, as it screams tourist trap.  But it was a box that had to be checked.  And hey, I've been wrong about touristy places before.

I arrived at the height of the lunch rush on a busy Sunday afternoon hoping for a modest table for one.  Le Dôme also has a fresh fish retailer next door I would have loved to visit, but fermé le dimanche.  I passed by their raw bar, nicely displayed on the sidewalk, and entered a restaurant full of raucous diners and bustling staff.  I waited to be greeted for 2 minutes.  Then 4 minutes.  Then 6 minutes.  I thought, "holy shit, is this the 'ignore the stupid American in his street jeans and H&M hoodie' cliché you so frequently hear about Paris dining."  Turns out, no.  I was the asshole who walked in through the exit, not the entrance.  A staff member eventually saw my confusion and kindly directed me to the host stand, after which I was promptly, and welcomingly, seated at my own table.  Apologies to Le Dôme for my presumption.

In terms of the menu, Le Dôme has all the French seafood standards like roasted turbot in bearnaise and lobster flambéed in cognac.  I was pleasantly surprised by some less-than-classic preparations like monkfish tandoori and salmon sashimi.  The establishment is most famous for its sole meunière, a classic French dish consisting of lightly floured flat fish pan-fried and covered in a lemon and brown butter sauce.  A la meunière translates to "in the style of the miller's wife," hence the light coating of milled flour.  Seeing as how Le Dôme's version traditionally serves two and costs close to $95, I couldn't justify the order.  Luckily, another menu staple there is aile de jeune raie meunière, or skate wing meunière.  I love skate wings, and absolutely had to try Le Dôme's meunière.  Un, s'il vous plait!

Aile de jeune raie meunière

After a few minutes of waiting, watching scurrying staff, and listening to all the global dialects of fellow diners, my aile de jeune raie meunière finally arrived.  A large, beautifully pan-seared "bone-in" skate wing topped with fresh parsley, brined caper buds, and scallions, all covered in a brown butter and lemon sauce.  The sauce was delightful.  Bright and piquant with sharp lemon notes, balanced out by a deep and nutty, brown butter flavor.  A+.  The skate wing, unfortunately, was a bit overcooked.  Don't get me wrong, I've had and cooked skate wings dozens of times.  I'm aware it's a much softer textured fish than most due to high levels of collagen in its cartilage.  This cut, however, had little to no grain or tooth left whatsoever and was basically mush.  In hindsight, I should have gone for the sole meunière.  Next time, perhaps.  I can say that Le Dôme, as an experience, was a rather insightful and pleasant first step into the vibrant dining scene of Paris.  The people watching alone is worth the visit.  I even stuck around for un café after my meal just to take it all in.    

Huitrerie Régis

Huitrerie Régis' Modest Entrance

Next stop, of course, an oyster bar.  There's an unparalleled appreciation of oysters in France.  Most seafood aficionados I've encountered of any demographic hold oysters in special regard, but the French doubly so.  Every market, bistro, or brasserie you pass in Paris has an oyster selection, bar, or station prominently displayed.  There's even a French restaurant position known as écailler, an oyster master and seafood specialist whose job is exclusively chilled seafood platters or plateaus des fruits de mer.  Oysters aren't just reserved for fine dining, either.  France has a robust home-shucking culture.  Case in point, oyster vending machines.  Oysters accompany everything from casual Sunday dinners to opulent holiday celebrations.  The latter are particularly oyster centric as the French are hyper-sensitive to seasonality, consuming 50% of their annual oysters at peak quality in the winter months.  

Huitrerie Régis' French Oyster Menu
(Yes, in English.  I don't speak French.)

I could go on and on about the purity, nuance, and just all-around joy of French and Parisian oyster history and culture.  There are several books dedicated to the subject.  However, my favorite thing about French oyster culture is its codification.  In the States, oysters are pretty much marketed by name, and name only.  As long as purveyors disclose where and when their oysters were harvested, they can call them whatever they please.  Unfortunately, this has essentially condoned legal fraud through the exploitation of famous oyster names like Blue Point, Miyagi, Belon, and others.  Vendors know they'll sell more oysters if they have notable names, so many random oysters end up being re-labeled as such.  The only things protecting quality for a consumer in the US oyster market are honest purveyors and trademarked names.  When ordering a Blue Point, you don't truly know what you're going to get.  Small, large, fat, lean, fresh, poor, wild, farmed, hailing from Maine down to North Carolina.  I can't stand Jim Gaffigan, but his schtick on seafood does make a bit more sense with this in mind.     

Gillardeau Oyster Engraving

The French, on the other hand, have strict regulations and classifications for much of their food and beverage, and their oysters are no different.  First, oysters are sized n°0 - n°5, zero being the largest and five being the smallest.  Next, they're always detailed by farmer, location, and species (huître creuse or huître plate).  Finally, specific oyster names denote regulated grow-out methods and standards.  For example, a fine de claire is an oyster that's required to spend no less than 28 days in a specialized salt pond.  A speciale de claire spends two to three months in these ponds, and a pousse en claire four months-plus.  Each name also carries limitations on the number of oysters that can be grown in the ponds at once, allowing for better feeding and filtering conditions.  The result, in ascending order, is a meatier, richer, more deeply flavored oyster (and more expensive, of course).  Beyond that, you've got Belons, which require grow-out in a particular river; vertes, that feed on specific blue-green algae; perles, the equivalent of vintners select; farms like Gillardeau who literally engrave their oysters for brand protection, and more.  While certainly intricate, and seemingly overcomplicated, these practices developed over the last 120 years equate to assurances of caliber and quality for us, the consumer.

So, how could all of these considerations be embodied in one oyster bar visit?  Simple - I went to Huitrerie Régis, a humble 12-seat shop in Paris' Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood that takes its oysters very seriously.  If you're looking for a broader French seafood dining experience, look elsewhere.  But if you're out for just oysters and wines, Huitrerie Régis is your spot.  It's literally all they serve.  Oysters, French wines, some chilled prawns, clams, sea urchin, and maybe an apple tart if the owner is feeling up for it that day.  While seemingly limiting at first glance, Régis' truncated menu translates to no less than the highest quality raw bar in all of Paris.  Even one of the previously mentioned books is almost entirely focused on Huitrerie Régis.

Huitrerie Régis oyster fork

At Huitrerie Régis, they do not separate the bottom adductor muscles from oysters, providing a special fork for you to do so on your own.  This is actually standard in almost all of France too.  From my understanding, there are two rationales behind it.  First, oysters are to be consumed at peak freshness, and keeping them intact as much as possible right up to consumption achieves this.  Great, if you'd like to believe that.  Second, much more interestingly and logically, this prevents a lot of aforementioned fraud.  As certain oysters grew in popularity throughout the 20th century, less scrupulous vendors would take lower quality oysters and place them in recognizable shells, selling them as Belons or claires.  Keeping the adductor attached demonstrates no funny business has transpired.  This is more of a best practice than regulation, but it seems to be widely observed by the French and I can appreciate that.

Mixed Dozen huîtres creuses with two huîtres plates and crevettes de Madagascar

  As for my meal at Huitrerie Régis, I enjoyed a mix of fines de claires and speciales de claires Yves Papin from France's oyster basket, the Marennes-Oléron basin, along with speciales perles noires  and plates Cadoret from the famed Riec-sur-Bélon region.  All were perfectly shucked and presented, something that's surprisingly hard to find when dining out for oysters anywhere in the world.  As for the quality, I hope not to offend here, but the claire oysters reminded me a lot of Irish oysters the few times I've had them.  I mean that in the best ways.  The fines were firmly textured and salt forward, with a sweet seaweed finish.  The speciales were similar, just fuller bodied with a richer mouthfeel.  The plates, or proper Belon flat oysters, were much more mild than the variety we grow stateside.  They certainly had that familiar coppery metallic flavor, but I got much more of a luscious, sweet cream finish from them.  Very tasty.  But, far and away, the perles noires were my favorite.  Quite briny up front with a toothsome crunch, almost like a raw clam, and a super clean, crisp finish.  I fully understand the hype around Belon River oysters after tasting these gems, as well as the hype around Huitrerie Régis.  I couldn't have imagined a better Parisian oyster experience.  

La Cagouille

La Cagouille's Unassuming Entrance

My third stop was completely based on real time, in-person, Parisian recommendations.  I'd done a bit of research to pick out Le Dôme and Huitrerie Régis, as well as Clamato, which I was unfortunately unable to visit.  But, with any trip, I like to leave room for local and industry insights.  I've talked about it before, but online forums like Yelp or TripAdvisor rarely get things right, and established media like Eater or The Infatuation often leave out several quality places.  So, I started asking around.  My wife's good friend and our host gave me a few recommendations.  A local butcher down the street, who happened to speak immaculate English, provided a few more.  Then, my server at Huitrerie Régis rounded the list out with some additions.  Clamato was mentioned a few times, as was Le Duc.  I'd previously identified both in my own research as potential stops.  However, there was one restaurant on all the lists that somehow had escaped my Google deep dives on Parisian seafood, and that was La Cagouille. 

La Cagouille Menu

Demurely cloaked behind some greenery at the base of a Montparnasse apartment complex, La Cagouille was opened in 1981 with a simple credo - Poissons, Vins et Cognacs or Fish, Wine, and Cognac.  And the menu, written out daily on white boards, reflects this approach.  While the interior channels Mediterranean yacht from the Eighties with captain's wheels and sail pulleys all over the walls, the menu couldn't be more straightforward.  Fresh ingredients prepared simply and paired with flavorful sauces.  Quintessentially French.  Also, based on the clientele, I was confident the recommendations were spot on.  Whereas Le Dôme was an eclectic mix of Americans, Japanese, Swedish, etc., La Cagouille was 100% French, elder French at that.  Pretty sure I was the only diner under 50.  Decades of experienced French palates all in one place for lunch was promising.

As it was abundantly obvious I was American, the owner was kind enough to come over and translate the majority of the menu for me as best he could.  We both filled in the rest with some quick Google translate.  Oysters, crudos, scallop tartare, grilled octopus, fried smelt.  It all sounded delicious.  I ordered couteaux beurre citronné (razor clams citrus butter) and st-pierre grillé beurre et cerfeuil (grilled john dory with butter and chervil).  

Couteaux beurre citronné and St-pierre grillé beurre et cerfeuil

Honestly, there's not much to say about La Cagouille other than it was really good.  And I mean really fuckin' good.  Much praise owed to those who recommended this place.  The razor clams were incredibly fresh and flavorful, and covered in a bright citrus butter sauce with candied orange peels.  The john dory was a perfectly charred medium-rare and paired with a deep, herbaceous butter sauce.  Isn't there a famous saying?  "What are the three secrets of French cooking? Butter, butter, and more butter?"  It's likely a bit more complicated than that at La Cagouille, but all the butter certainly didn't hurt.  Whatever their secrets are, I hope they keep them up for another thirty years.  I highly recommend La Cagouille to anyone visiting Paris, and it will genuinely be my first stop whenever I make it back. 

Restuarant Chez Michel

Chez Michel's Beachside Entrance

Final stop for our family vacation was the beautiful port city of Marseille.  As the oldest city in France, dating back to 600 B.C., Marseille has a rich history as a cultural nexus for art, philosophy, literature, sport, architecture, and of course, cuisine.  And no dish is more famous or representative of that cuisine than bouillabaisse marseillaise.  I'll admit that before this trip, I had a very loose sense of what bouillabaisse was.  I thought it was just a French seafood soup or stew, endemic to Marseille, with differences based on style and ingredient availability.  Fish stock, maybe clarified, maybe with tomatoes.  Plenty of seasoning and a variety of vegetables.  Clams?  Why not.  Some sort of white fish?  Of course.  Mussels, shrimp, squid, crab?  Sure, whatever you've got.  However, what I learned was quite the opposite.

The word bouillabaisse is a combination of medieval Provençal Occitan words bolhir (to boil) and abaissar (to lower).  The soup base is brought to a vigorous boil to extract the flavors of the ingredients, then brought down to a simmer to both infuse those flavors and gently cook the seafood, which is added at the end.  Like most seafood stews or chowders, bouillabaisse's beginnings are hotly debated, but likely started with humble fishermen.  Whether they were Greek, Arabic, Roman, North African, or of various French origins is at the crux of that debate.  Either way, the story is likely the same.  Fishermen would sell their quality catch at the market and piece together the remaining scraps or bycatch to feed their families.  The best way to stretch these, and make them flavorful, was by making a stew.  To this day, for most native Marseillais, bouillabaisse is a dish reserved for family, usually made at home, and rarely enjoyed at restaurants.

Bouillabaisse Ingredients via TaseAtlas

In the mid-19th century, bouillabaisse began regularly showing up on restaurants' menus in Marseille.  Soon, it took hold as the city's emblematic dish, becoming more popular and more demanded.  From a poor man's to a posh man's meal, affluent tourists started paying top dollar for an "authentic" bouillabaisse in Marseille.  Much like the aforementioned oyster deceit, some less reputable operations began exploiting bouillabaisse's popularity by hawking poor, inauthentic, or even deceitful versions to these none-the-wiser tourists.  Contemporary investigations still regularly show widespread fraud in the seafood industry, bouillabaise included.  In reaction to the diminishment of their beloved dish, over a dozen Marseille-based restauranteurs came together in 1980 and established la Charte de la Bouillabaisse Marseillaise or the Bouillabaisse Charter, codifying bouillabaise's ingredients, preparations, and presentations.  Those rules are:

• Fresh, never frozen, local Mediterranean fish must be used
• Rascasse (scorpion fish) must be a base for the soup
• At least three other fish from a variety of conger eel, john dory, skate, red gurnard, red mullet, monkfish, or weever fish must be included in the base for the soup
• Other required ingredients include saffron, fennel, high quality olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, and onions.
• The soup should be served first, with additional fish or shellfish presented separately and filleted tableside (preventing mislabeled cuts of fish making their way into the soup)
• Garlic croutons and rouille, a spicy pepper and saffron aioli, should be served alongside the soup   

This sounded an awful lot like European Union food or beverage protections, much like pizza napoletana, champagne, and many other products or dishes have.  I have a weird, paradoxical relationship with culinary protections.  On one hand, I fully appreciate them, even want for them in the States in many ways.  They ensure quality, benefit consumers, preserve producers, and maintain tradition.  At the same time, they can undeniably stifle innovation.  In more extreme circumstances, they can be emblems of hyper-nationalism and thinly-veiled bigotry.  There's certainly an issue with innovation when it comes from those who don't fully understand and value foundational tradition.  Disrupting is fashionable right now, and everybody's eager to be the next big disruptor.  However, things too frequently go awry when wannabe disruptors aren't well educated on that which they're disrupting.  Sure, there's something to be said for not being indoctrinated and remaining an outsider, but fully understanding the logic and reason for an industry's landscape is a baseline requirement for the credibility to disrupt it.

Now, I fully understand the founders of the Bouillabaisse Charter didn't have the next Steve Jobs of seafood stews in mind when drafting the guidelines.  Their goal was to curb the debasement of bouillabaisse marseillaise with lower quality frozen and fraudulent exploits popping up all over the city.  Who knows, though.  Maybe they were the true visionaries who saw A.I. generated, 3D printed bouillabaisses on the horizon.  Jokes aside, they did acknowledge the importance of the cook's artistry and innovation in the Charter's introduction:

Fresh Fish Display at Chez Michel

"It is not possible to standardize cooking. Indeed it is an art in which success depends on the chef's savoir-faire. Bouillabaisse, however, the most typical dish of Marseilles, includes precise ingredients which are important to use if traditions are to be respected and the customer is not to be cheated."

The Bouillabaisse Charter is also not an enforceable regulation, like other EU culinary protections.  It's more of a coalition of restaurants subscribing to standards and practices to guarantee quality and safeguard the bouillabaisse brand.  Makes sense, and I genuinely applaud that effort.  But, after learning all this, where the hell was I going to get my bouillabaisse?  After some research, I found a restaurant that was the reported "local's choice," the past recipient of a Michelin star, and even frequented by French presidents.  This was Chez Michel.  Politics aside, I figured if it was good enough for Macron, it was good enough for me and my daughter.  The whole family joined, but she's my only adventurous seafood eater.   

Bouillabaisse Fish Presentation

Located in the Les Catalans neighborhood of Marseille overlooking the city's beach, Chez Michel is a family owned brasserie that has been specializing in Provençal seafood since 1946.  Four generations of bouillabaisserrie have made it local institution.  Matter of fact, bouillabaisse is pretty much the only thing on the menu aside from some grilled fish, a few oysters, and fried squid.  As previously noted, native Marseillais typically make their own bouillabaisse at home for family and special occasions.  However, if they are dining out, Chez Michel is the reputed go to.  The interior feels like you're still walking into 1946, almost like a scene from Big Night, just French and with a giant, whole fish display front and center.  The restaurant is full of copper mirrors, vintage blinds, and Baroque murals of seascapes.  The wait staff even look like tactful French pirates with gold ring earrings and silver, marauder style haircuts.

Bouillabaise de Chez Michel

My first bouillabaise marseillaise

After being seated, I promptly ordered a bouillabaisse for one in my infantile French.  No English here.  The server even jokingly looked to my daughter, thinking she may be of help in our language barriered communications.  Once we understood each other, he swiftly departed and returned to show me the uncooked whole fish for my meal.  Red gurnard, conger eel, and weever fish.  Respect for the transparency.  About 20 minutes later, another server returned with a simmering cauldron and a plate of the poached whole fish with potato rounds.  He ladled the deep orange, saffron packed soup into my bowl, then proceeded to filet the fish and present them separately, classic marseillaise style.  Ample amounts of garlic croutons and rouille were provided as well.  I know, I was seriously skeptical of mixing mayonnaise into my seafood soup, but it bizarrely works.  The fish were cooked and filleted perfectly and had tons of seasoning from the poaching.  The soup itself was not just deep in color, but flavor as well.  Slightly spicy with heavy garlic and thyme notes and a dominating oceanic, low-tide essence.  It reminded me of the gaminess in lobster tomalley or crab fat, and had a unique, borderline gritty texture.  With such intense flavor, the rouille now made sense to cut through and brighten the richness.  I did enjoy it, but a single serving was plenty.  It's certainly not a dish for the faint of seafood heart.  However, if you're a seafood fanatic, it's an absolute must on the bucket list.  My 2-year-old loved it, so I imagine you would too.

While this was admittedly a ton I was able to pack into a brief family trip, it's just the tip of the Fruits de Mer Français iceberg.  I still want to explore the history of sauce américaine, visit the oyster farms in Marennes-Oléron, try authentic salade niçoise in Nice, find the best matelote in Alsace, and eat moules in Normandy.  There's likely much more I'm not even aware of, so please do share.  I'd love to return to France to explore further, and hope you have the opportunity to visit soon too.

Bises,

The SF Oyster Nerd

Cheese & Seafood: Scrumptious or Sacrilegious?

My daughter crushing broiled scallops

My wife was traveling for work recently, so I was solo-parenting our two children for a couple of days.  Arts and crafts, hide and seek, the mall, and Disney Junior can only go so far with toddlers, especially in the dead of winter.  Luckily, my parents were kind enough to have us over for a casual pizza night, providing me a little respite.  It takes a village, right?  As we often do, my mom and I found ourselves talking about restaurants, cooking, and my favorite, old family recipes.  We got so deep into conversation that my mom even pulled out her old recipe decks.

I certainly don't long for the internet-less days of past, where home-cooking knowledge was almost exclusively obtained through cookbooks, word-of-mouth, and scarce PBS programming.  It's quite convenient to stand in the kitchen and Google the dozens of ways to brine a turkey or braise short ribs.  However, there's always something incredibly charming about thumbing through old recipe catalogues.  Newspaper and magazine cut outs.  Gravy stained index cards.  Photocopies from neighbors' cookbooks.  People even had their own, personalized recipe cards they would fill out and share with friends.  "Easy Chicken Cacciatore - from the kitchen of Debbie Wanamaker."  I won't lie, I'd prefer a personalized recipe card over the random TikTok videos of El Burrito Monster my neighbor DMs me.  Don't get me wrong.  I like the viral cooking video hits just as much as the next person.  But there's something delightfully endearing about personalized recipe cards.

Recipes that call for Cheese & Seafood

Anyway, my mom and son stepped away to play trucks, leaving my daughter and I plenty of time to start rifling through decades' worth of recipes.  Chicken a la king.  Beef stroganoff.  Countless mayonnaise based salads, green bean casseroles, and everything in between.  The Tupperware generation certainly had its own, unique taste, for better or worse.  The big thing that started jumping out at me was the number of cheese and seafood recipes.  Three cheese oyster gratin.  Shrimp and artichoke divan.  Cheesy crab puffs.  Lobster strata.  I'll definitely be making Pinky Jordan's impossible scallop pie at some point.  Admittedly, the majority were clam or crab dips.  But still, look at the sheer number of recipes calling for various seafoods and cheeses.  I found this particularly astounding given the age-old adage:
never pair cheese and seafood.

But why shouldn't we pair cheese and seafood?  The credo is relatively common knowledge throughout North America, and frequently pops up on competitive cooking shows such as Top Chef, Chopped, etc.  We also know it's not 100% true.  There are several beloved dishes that fly in the face of this culinary injunction.  Lobster mac and cheese, tuna melts, smoked salmon and cream cheese, crab rangoon, clam pizza, shrimp and grits.  Lobster Thermidor is often finished with a crispy, cheesy crust.  Caesar salad mixes anchovies and parmesan cheese, not to mention anchovies as a pizza topping.  And the dishes are not limited to the States.  Moules al Roquefort, or mussels in a blue cheese sauce, are enjoyed all over coastal towns in Northern France.  You'd be hard pressed to find a fish tavern in the Greek Islands not serving Garides Saganaki, an appetizer of shrimp and feta cooked in a tomato sauce.  There's Jarlsberg torsk in Norway, Machas a la Parmesana in Chile, and Fish Pie in the British Isles.  Hell, even McDonald's puts a slice of American cheese on its fish sandwich.  I'm certainly not a fan of all these preparations.  Some even gross me out.  Sorry, but seafood alfredo is disgusting.  However, there is well established, global precedent for cheese and seafood acceptably working together.  So where and how exactly did the epicurean edict of never pairing the two originate?

Garides Saganaki - courtesy of
The Greek Food Alchemist

It seems widely agreed upon that the cheese and seafood doctrine has its roots in Italy.  This explains why it's so widely observed in North America, given the massive influence of Italian cooking across the continent.  It also explains why many people are so uncompromising and emphatic about not pairing cheese and seafood.  Few cultures are as fiercely defensive of their gastronomic traditions as Italians and Italian-Americans.  This British TikToker went viral by documenting his culinary trolling across Italy, getting him 2.9 million followers and global press in the process.  Ice in red wine.  Ketchup on pizza.  Just look at some of the viscerally horrified reactions to his antics.  Italy don't play that shit.  

The most common, contemporary rationale for the prohibition is that seafood is subtle and delicate, and must be prepared simply.  Cheese is strong and robustly flavored, and will overpower any seafood dish.  Sure, in some instances.  You wouldn't catch me broiling a piece of halibut with a slice of sharp, aged cheddar on top.  But we all know there are very strongly flavored seafoods like anchovies, sea urchin, blood clams, and mackerel, and equally mild cheeses like burrata, mozzarella, havarti, and queso fresco.  I'm not saying salmon fondue is a good idea, but there are enough examples proving the logic at least partly unsound.  "I before E, except after C.  Weird, right?"    

Some speculate the tenet stems from the hyper-regional foodscapes of Italy.  The best cheese producing areas of Italy have primarily been the mountainous, landlocked regions.  The best seafood, naturally, has always been sourced from the coast.  Thus, the two rarely had the pleasure to meet.  This kind of makes sense, from an "if it grows together, it goes together" culinary perspective.  But trade around Italy goes back millennia, so the two most certainly crossed paths with some frequency.  Cheese and garum, an ancient fermented fish sauce, were even part of standard rations for Roman soldiers.  A few of Italy's oldest and most famous cheeses are also made exclusively in coastal areas.  Pecorino romano, for example.  I fully understand Italian food is very regional, and treating it as one, homogenous cuisine is incredibly ignorant, insulting even.  But it does seem there are at least a few dishes from around the country that pair cheese and seafood.  Just sayin'.  

Machas a la Parmesana
Courtesy of Chocolate.co.ao

Lastly, there are some old world dietary and medical considerations behind the cheese and seafood ban.  Ancient physicians Hippocrates, Galen and Aristotle reportedly warned against the combination as it would imbalance your humors, or your four essential bodily fluids.  Dairy and fish were both "cooling" foods that slowed down the body's metabolism.  Eating them together would increase your chances of humoral imbalance.  Seafood also required full digestive capacity, as it could "corrupt" the body easily.  Thus, the two should never be paired.  While not entirely medically accurate, there is sound reasoning here.  Dairy and seafood are both highly susceptible to spoilage and pathogens.  The separation of meat and dairy in the Kosher diet has a similar foundational logic.  Combining the two, particularly before the advent of refrigeration, would be doubling down on your digestive roll of the dice.  And while modern day food safety measures mostly protect us from these concerns, the restrictive practices around cheese and seafood have simply never left us.  We can't completely knock humoral theory, though, as it was the original proponent of some wonderful pairings like lemon and fish.  

These ideas are all likely contributors to the present day cheese and seafood ideology.  But even when combined and considered together, they're not enough to warrant the vehement backlash you get when sprinkling parmigiano-reggiano on your spaghetti alle vongole.  Then I came across this Atlas Obscura article by Dan Nosowitz.  The article cited everything above: seafood's delicate nature, Italy's geography, and the humors.  However, it added one more that deeply resonated.  As noted earlier, few cultures are as fiercely defensive of their traditional cuisine as Italians.  How we determine "traditional" or "authentic" cuisine is another conversation.  But in Italy, there are clear culinary commandments and it's sacrilegious to break them.  Why?

In short, World War II.  After the war, Italy was devastated.  Political upheaval, economic collapse, unrestrained globalization, and aggressive outsider influence from the looming Cold War.  When all cultural and societal stability is eroding around you, food identity is one of the few things you can define, control, and defend.  Speaking very generally, that's exactly what post-WWII Italy did.  They took their notions of traditional and authentic Italian cuisine, essentially their Nonnas' cooking from the early 20th century, and made that canon.  Never pairing cheese and seafood happened to be part of that orthodoxy. 

Seafood Alfredo from Olive Garden

Globalization offshored and appropriated classic Italian dishes, turning them into things like seafood alfredo.  I too would feel the need to protect the cuisine so near to my heart and heritage from such bastardizations.  Several foundations for modern day 

geographic protections of food and drink immediately followed WWII.  It's no coincidence the 1951 Convention for the Use of Appellations of Origin of Cheeses was held in Stresa, Italy.  Parmigiano-reggiano and parmesan cheese are very different, not just in taste but by law.  I'm not saying deep Italian culinary traditions don't go back centuries, or at least a few centuries.  Pasta and tomatoes, after all, aren't native to Italy.  But the modern day safeguarding does seem to stem from the acute, cultural shock of WWII reconstruction and a reactionary preservation. 

Half way around the world, there's another country with similar post-WWII devastation and equally ardent culinary traditions: Japan.  Soy sauce is for dipping, never pouring.  Nigiri is eaten with your hands, not chopsticks.  Never rest chopsticks in your food.  Seem familiar?  Twirl your spaghetti, don't cut it.  Cappuccino is a morning drink only.  Never pair cheese and seafood.  Japan and Italy aren't the only cultures with widely employed food rules, practices, and etiquette.  Far from it.  But they are well known as some of the most disciplined and passionate about them.  And in the context of preserving your culture and identity, particularly in times of turmoil, I can't think of many things more important to defend than your food.  Respect.  That being said, I've always enjoyed breaking the rules a bit.  Time for some flippant disregard of cheese and seafood dogma.  

Coquilles Saint-Jacques 

Coquilles Saint-Jacques Ingredients

Coquilles Saint-Jacques literally translates to the Shell of St. James, but is actually the French word for deep sea scallops.  How scallops became synonymous with the apostle is a much longer and often varying story involving pilgrimages, shipwrecks, miracles, and even food rationing.  More recently, the classic French preparation of Coquilles Saint-Jacques Gratinées, or scallop gratin, was so popular in mid-20th century America, the dish became simply known by its eponymous ingredient.  And the dish, very basically speaking, is sea scallops, covered in a rich sauce, and broiled.  

The one thing I learned about Coquilles Saint-Jacques is that nobody makes it the same.  All the recipes I read had everything from slight to considerable variations.  Some with mushrooms, some without.  Some with breadcrumbs, some without.  Several had a béchamel base for the sauce, others just cream and egg yolk.  Most poached the scallops, a few seared them.  Maybe vermouth, maybe white wine.  Some didn't even have cheese, the whole reason I started researching the dish.  So, with a few dozen recipes reviewed and a few cooking videos viewed (Julia Child's of course), I dove right in to making my own.  Much like Italy and Japan, France is also vociferously protective of its cuisine.  I figured I'd already offended the former two, so why not the French as well with my take on a classic.

I grabbed some dayboat scallops from Hill's Quality Seafoods, a few other ingredients from a local market, and borrowed a couple of OG baking scallop shells from my mom.  With the kids watching Bluey, I quickly prepped and began.  After sauteing shallots, garlic, and mushrooms in some butter, I hit the pan with a cup of sauvignon blanc.  I threw in an ad hoc bouquet garni of thyme, tarragon, and bay leaf, then the scallops to poach.  While a pan-seared scallop is hard to beat, poaching made the most sense in order to capture all the flavorful essence scallops release when cooked.  A big focus of the dish is the creamy, scallop-rich sauce, and I didn't want to burn off any scallopy liquid gold.  Once partially cooked, I removed the scallops and strained the mushroom mixture.  The reserved liquid went back into the pan with some butter and cream to reduce further.  Even with some time, the sauce wasn't coming to the thickness I was hoping for, so I added in a tempered egg yolk.  Glad I had the arsenal of recipes fresh in mind.  A few minutes later, desired thickness achieved and the taste was spot on.  Next, assembly and broiling time.  I layered in the mushroom and shallot mixture into the scallop shells, added three scallops to each, and generously covered it all with the cream sauce.  Topped with some panko and a healthy portion of gruyere cheese, into the oven they went.

Coquilles Saint-Jacques a la Bari

Once beautifully golden brown, I removed them from the oven and plated with some sliced lemon and chopped tarragon.  I wish I could say I waited before digging in, or at least my burnt tongue wishes I could.  Fortunately, that was my only regret.  The Coquilles Saint-Jacques were delightful.  The scallops were perfectly firm yet tender, surrounded by a buttery, briny cream sauce with a flavor that only deepened with broiling.  The mushroom and shallot mixture brought a nice earthiness and textural contrast.  But the cheese.  I mean, come on, crispy browned cheese is the best.  You know, those little bits that spill onto the pan while you're making your quesadilla or grilled cheese.  They're everyone's favorite part.  This dish is simply enveloped in all of that, paired with rich, indulgent scallops and cream sauce.  The French know what's up when it comes to culinary decadence.  And forgive me, but I did have one more regret.  I only got a couple of bites before my son and daughter devoured everything, so I wish I had made more.  But few things make me happier than seeing my children eating adventurously.

Tacos Gobernador

For working parents with kids, Taco Tuesday is an absolute godsend.  All you really need is a pound of ground meat, tortillas, and a few fixins'.  Fifteen minutes in front of the stove and you've got an economical and tasty dinner for four that everyone will enjoy.  And if you're like me with picky eater toddlers, you can sneak in healthy bits like riced cauliflower with the kids being none the wiser.  I'm not ashamed to admit we've had Taco Tuesday and Taco Friday during some particularly challenging weeks.

Tacos Gobernador Ingredients

On one such Taco Tuesday, I found myself with a little extra time in the kitchen.  I poked around our fridge and freezer, and realized I had the ingredients to try my hand at a modern Mexican classic pairing of cheese and seafood: Tacos Gobernador.  Legend has that the governor-to-be of Sinaloa , Francisco Labastida, was visiting Los Arcos Restaurant in Mazatlán during his campaign in the late 80's.  The owner of the establishment had heard the future governor was a huge fan of shrimp tacos.  Hoping to impress, the chef trialed a few novel ideas and ended up serving griddled tortillas filled with shrimp, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and tons of melty cheese.  Labastida enjoyed them so much, he asked for a second serving and the name of the dish.  The owner simply replied "the governor's tacos, of course."  Since then, Tacos Gobernador have skyrocketed in popularity and can be found all across Mexico and beyond.

For my makeshift version, I started by slicing a cooking onion and Anaheim chile and chopping up garlic. I also opened a can of chipotles in adobo, thawed a bag Trader Joe's Chilean langostine tails, and shredded some Queso Oaxaca (essentially Mexican mozzarella).  Like I said, taco night is a staple in our household, so you know I'm hittin' the Latino markets often to liven it up.  I briefly pan-fried the langostine tails, being sure to remove and reserve excess liquid so they could properly sear.  Once browned, I removed the tails and added in the chile, onion, and garlic.  After those softened slightly, I returned the reserved langostine liquid, along with the blended chipotles in adobo.  Only a bit, because the chipotles pack a serious spicy punch.  I let this simmer and concentrate for a few minutes.  Lastly, to go that next level, I wanted to make crispy cheese exteriors for the tacos, kind of like a variation on quesabirria tacos.  Again, those fried cheese bites are the best, so why not cover an entire taco in that?  I placed some shredded queso in a separate pan with a flour tortilla on top, then added more cheese along with the chipotle, onion, chile sauce and some of the langostines.  In less than a minute, the exterior cheese had crisped with the interior cheese slightly melting and melding with the langostines and sauce.  I folded the Quesolangostino Gobernador franken-tacos over and plated with lime and cilantro.        

Tacos Gobernamija

Please excuse the hastily and shoddily chopped cilantro.  I had a little extra time in the kitchen, but it was still a school night and the kids were getting hungry.  The tacos were pretty legit.  Salty, crispy cheese exterior with a gooey, melty interior that popped with briny bites of seared langostines and peppers.  I'd gone a little too light on the chipotles, as the spice and flavor level hadn't come through as much as I'd hoped.  A squeeze of lime brightened them up, but they still wanted for something.  On the next go, I'll definitely add more chipotles in adobo or top them with a spicy jalapeno and cabbage slaw.  Even better, I could riff quesabirria tacos even further and serve them with a shellfish consommé for dipping.  The possibilities are endless, just like our family's Taco Tuesdays, so I'll keep y'all updated on my Tacos Gobernador 2.0.

Yellowfin Tuna Double Cheeseburgers

Tuna Cheeseburger Ingredients

From the start of this whole project, I knew I'd be referencing chef and author Josh Niland's work, yet again.  Over the past seven years, he's completely changed the landscape of seafood butchery and cookery, receiving global recognition in doing so.  He's championed nose to tail fish utilization, wasting nothing including the gills, guts, and bones.  Everything gets used in innovative ways, ranging from swim bladder chicharrones to fish eye ice cream.  He's also revolutionized how to approach fish, treating it with a versatility usually reserved for meats.  Dry-aged opah chops, swordfish prosciutto, glazed cobia hams, coral trout sausage rolls.   With his wide array of radical techniques, surely he's messed around with cheese and seafood.  As expected, one of the biggest sellers at his Fish Butchery and Charcoal Fish locations is the Yellowfin Tuna Double Cheeseburger.
 
I picked up some basic burger fixins' from my local market, and a yellowfin tuna steak from Hill's Quality Seafoods.  Niland's recipes called for tuna trim, sinew, even some bloodline.  His goal with the tuna cheeseburger is whole fish utilization, not wasting any off cuts.  Makes perfect sense for burger patties.  Unfortunately, a curse of being in the 'burbs is not having access to more obscure things like tuna trim.  A fishmonger I'd asked even questioned "Tuna trim?  Like, for bait?"  I'm sure some Asian markets or larger seafood retailers in Philadelphia have such offerings, but there isn't exactly a public clamoring for tuna trim in Chester County.  Lastly, I picked up some suet and thick cut bacon from Worrell's Butcher Shop.  Niland's recipes also called for rendered fish fat, something very difficult to procure, and I didn't have the bandwidth to make my own.  Beef fat would have to do.  As for the bacon, well, a cheeseburger isn't a cheeseburger unless it's a bacon cheeseburger, in my opinion.  Perhaps on the next go I'll make swordfish bacon like Fish Butchery.  And lastly, I picked up arguably the best bread in the Philadelphia area from Corropolese's Italian Bakery.  Great burgers may not result in great buns, but they definitely start with them.

  

I pulsed the tuna in a food processor until roughly ground, then combined with the beef suet and some Noble Made steak seasoning.  Say what you will about using jarred spice blends, but those coarse ground Montreal-style steak seasonings always make for a smackin' burger.  I formed the mixture into four equally sized patties and chilled them for 30 minutes to set.  Next, I got a cast iron pan ripping hot and quickly seared the patties, smashburger style.  Once one side was golden and crisp, I flipped the patties and topped them with a slice of Andrew & Everett American cheese.  The buns were lightly toasted, and I assembled the burgers next to a Claussen dill pickle spear and some Checkers oven ready seasoned fries.  Don't judge me.  The kids love the bags of frozen Checkers seasoned fries, and so do I.  

Bear Bear Double Burger

The end result was positively fantastic.  It was hands down one of the best burgers I've ever made, all proteins considered.  Salty, savory, cheesy, unctuous.  Sure, the beef fat and bacon added quite a bit, but it was notably a tuna burger first, especially with a squeeze of lemon.  And that Andrew & Everett's American cheese is much more flavorful than your traditional Kraft's single.  My wife had actually just returned from a kid's birthday party and "wasn't hungry," of course.  She's always a little wary of my seafood experiments to begin with, doubly so if already having eaten pizza and birthday cake.  However, she ended up eating an entire burger.  I'm taking that, and my daughter having a few bites, as confirmation of quality.  Tuna cheeseburgers have definitely been added to the family dinner rotation.

I really enjoyed my investigation into the precarious world of cheese and seafood pairings.  I never knew so much history, culture, and consideration was behind the prohibition.  There's sound logic behind it, as some cheese and seafood pairings are straight up gross.  Sorry Philadelphia sushi rolls.  But the logic should serve more as a loose guide rather than strict regulation, as several dishes marrying the two are phenomenal.  At the end of the day, I realized that a seafood dish is just like a dad joke.  Cheesy isn't always great, and sometimes it's even terrible.  But when thought out and well-executed, cheesy can be the absolute best.  Hopefully you'll brave some cheese and seafood pairings yourself soon. 

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd