Baseball, Ballparks, & Seafood

I pretty much write about whatever I find interesting at the time and find a way to tie it to oysters or seafood.  Philadelphia hoagies, the history of chili peppers, unconventionally flavored potato chips.  Luckily, most of my interests are culinarily focused or akin, so it aligns rather easily.  I enjoy gardening, so I made a ceviche with homegrown produce.  I like underrepresented history, so I did a piece on famous oysterman and abolitionist Thomas Downing.  However, I'm also a massive sports fan, and nothing is better than playoff baseball, especially with the Phillies in the mix.  #RingTheBell.  #RedOctober.  So, as we're heading into the MLB postseason, I wanted to do an exploration of ballpark cuisine with a seafood twist.

Of all the professional sports, none is more closely tied to culinary fare than baseball.  Popcorn, beer, soft pretzels.  It's a stop-and-go game full of frequent lulls that are perfect for grabbing some grub.  Some say a ballgame isn't the same without a hot dog, others say a hot dog isn't the same without a ballgame.  Baseball is also full of tense moments and nervous energy, perfect fidget snacks like sunflower seeds and peanuts.  The iconic 7th inning stretch's Take Me Out to the Ball Game literally has ballpark culinary staples right in the lyrics.  I don't even need to say them and any American reading this knows exactly what those foods are.  If you think about it, that's objectively pretty funny.     

via TheBayOnline.com

Seafood and baseball are closely tied as well.  Beach season and baseball season are the twin tides of summer.  And over the last few decades, several seafood offerings have steadily flowed into the ballpark.  Oracle Park's garlic crab fries, Fenway Park's lobster rolls, T-Mobile Park's poke bowls.  The Baltimore Orioles have hosted Crab Fest games at Camden Yards, and the Milwaukee Brewers reportedly have a secret Friday Fish Fry in American Family Field's section 208.  Double A's Richmond Flying Squirrels even showcased a 300 pound monstrosity earlier this year with the world's largest crab cake.  I hope it at least tasted good.

Beyond the dishes, many ballplayers have been dubbed with seafood nicknames.  Tim Salmon and Mike Trout might not count, but Catfish Hunter and Oyster Burns certainly do.  Several minor league teams' names and mascots are also seafood inspired.  The Biloxi Shuckers, Jersey Shore Blue Claws, Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.  There's a collegiate league team out of Seattle known as the DubSea Fish Sticks.  The Carolina Mudcats have Muddy, a flathead catfish, as their mascot, and Japan's Chiba Lotte Marines have Nazo No Sakana (謎の魚), or Mysterious Fish, as their mascot.

Things have become even more fun with minor league baseball's alternate identities.  Back in 2014, the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs decided to don bacon uniforms for a series.  The following year, the Fresno Grizzlies became the Fresno Tacos for a weekend.  Ever since, whether it be via the Copa de la Diversión or Stouffer's Alter Ego Challenge, MiLB teams have been embracing regional culture, economy, and cuisine in rebranding for a couple of games a season.  As few things are as fiercely tied to regional identity as food, many of these rebrands have paid homage to local delicacies.  And many are seafood themed.  The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels became the Grouper Sandwiches; the Portland Sea Dogs were the Maine Clambake; and the Morehead City Marlins switched to the Fish Tacos.  I won't lie, I find the MiLB alter egos concept so enjoyable, especially in contrast to the MLB's City Connect jerseys.  The Augusta Pimento Cheese and Erie Pepperoni Balls, yes please!  The Phillies and Twins dressed like cans of Axe Body Spray, no thanks.   

However, nothing can beat the Chesapeake Baysox' temporary rebrand as the Oystercatchers, a seabird native to the area.  In short, the Baysox initially released the baseball glove with an oyster and baseball pearl as part of their rebranded logo, pictured here.  And, well, many fans saw something less catcher's mitt with an oyster and more of a "third base" situation.  My favorite quote had to be "most men can't even find the baseball."  They quickly took the NSFW rebrand down from all socials, but it had already gone viral.  In laudable fashion, they owned it and brought it back for merchandising, donating 10% of proceeds to Cervivor, Inc., a non-profit focused on cervical cancer awareness.  You can't make this shit up.  Minor league baseball is the best, and this is MiLB at its finest: absurd, self-aware, and community-driven.

Ballpark Food History

Stevens Scorecard via Our Game

 Alter egos, animated mascots, and celebrated cuisines were not always part of baseball.  Records of the first foods at ballgames are sparse and disputed, and concessions were relatively disorganized and ad hoc — apples, lemonade, ham & cheese sandwiches, beer, ice cream, pasta, even charred onions and tripe.  Then, in the 1880s, Harry M. Stevens began shaping the ballpark cuisine landscape we think of today.   Posthumously known as the King of Concessions, Stevens' beginnings weren't even in food sales.  He started by selling scorecards at Columbus Buckeyes games, a novel concept at the time.  He added food advertising to those scorecards, and eventually sold the food itself at ballgames.  Stevens' business quickly spread to ballparks and stadiums all across the country, essentially codifying concession offerings.  The invention of the hot dog is often mistakenly credited to Stevens, but he was responsible for popularizing them at ballparks.  He's also credited with bringing peanuts to the game.  Story goes that a peanut company wanted to advertise in Stevens' scorecards, but was unable to pay.  Stevens accepted literal peanuts as payment, then resold them at ballgames.   They were so successful that he eventually bought a peanut farm in Virginia to vertically source them.  This is also a speculated origin for the phrase "working for peanuts."

Stevens passed away in 1934, but the concessions game continued on.  Ballparks themselves followed America's Post-WWII car and highway development and migration from cities to suburbs.  Stadiums became soulless, concrete multi-purpose shells in the industrial outskirts of town, prioritizing capacity over quality.  The food largely followed.  Some diversity came in the form of nachos and pizza, but they served mostly the classics.  That's not inherently an issue, but it was when the quality decreased.  Stale soft pretzels, tepid hot dogs, rubbery burgers; the AstroTurf of cuisine.  Concessions operations became consolidated to a few major conglomerates, and they mirrored the prioritization of capacity over quality.  Even today, all 30 MLB teams' concession programs are operated by just six companies.  The rise of agribusiness in the 60's and 70's diminished our foodways well beyond just the ballpark's, but that's a whole other conversation. 

  

However, when Camden Yards opened near Baltimore's Inner Harbor in 1992, ballpark culture started to shift again.  Stadiums began moving away from sprawling parking lots and back into cities' downtowns.  The Orioles' concession company partnered with local vendors to serve regional cuisine like crab cakes and pit beef.  This kicked off the ballpark renaissance, and over half the league built new stadiums in the next 15 years.  They began reconnecting with their local identities, both geographically and culinarily.  Cheesesteaks at Phillies' games, BBQ at Royals' games, Skyline Chili at Reds' games.  30 years later, we've now entered the era of epic ballpark cuisine where clubs try to one up each other with the most extreme dishes.  Cotton candy fries, mac 'n' cheese hot dogs, s'mores quesadillas, two-foot burritos, toasted crickets.  Some people celebrate the direction ballpark cuisine is now heading, and others utterly despise it.  I see both sides.  The Boomstick Burger and What Up Corn Dog look disgusting, but I loved the Banana Dog at a Savannah Bananas game.  And that's okay.  Some dishes are home runs, others are 'a swing and a miss.'  Either way, it's all pretty damn fun.

So, in that spirit of ballpark whimsy and fun, I set out to reimagine some of baseball's culinary classics with a seafood twist.  Let's kick it off with "....buy me some shrimp at the seafood shack, I don't care if I never get back...."  Maybe "hook, line, sinker you're out?"  Whatever...play ball!

Blue Crab Nachos

While not canon in classic ballpark cuisine, nachos have become a staple at practically every stadium.  As noted, hot dogs, peanuts, and popcorn go back to the early 20th century.  Nachos at ballgames first appeared the 1970s.  The original nachos, invented in the 1940s on the US-Mexico border, were fried tortilla chips, jalapeños, and cheese baked in an industrial oven.  Not an ideal offering for fast paced concession stands.  However, in 1976, Frank Liberto of Ricos Foods invented a shelf stable, pourable spicy cheese sauce, enabling nachos to be served efficiently.  Liberto first sold them at Arlington Stadium for a Texas Rangers' game, and they were an instant hit.  Within a decade, nachos with cheese sauce were being sold at practically every convenience store, concert, movie theater, and of course, ballpark.

Everyone loves nachos.  Pretty much everyone loves crab.  And everyone I know loves crab nachos.  It's a well established dish, and was a no brainer to kick off my ballpark seafood trials.  I picked up ½ pound of fresh picked lump blue crab meat on my way back from a brief trip to the shore.  Once home, I grated Tillamook cheddar over Mission tortilla rounds, added the crab with pickled jalapeños, black olives, and ample amounts of Old Bay.  Into a 400° oven it went and additional toppings were up next.  I mixed up a quick pico de gallo with some garden fresh tomatoes, peppers, garlic, cilantro and lime.  I also made a crab-seasoned nacho cheese sauce with a roux, heavy cream, shredded cheddar, Old Bay and a little bit of the pickled jalapeño brine.

After about 15 minutes, the crab nachos were bubbly brown and ready to go.  I took them out of the oven and drizzled on the cheese sauce with a few dollops of Daisy.  Cheeky little Old Bay seasoned lime and it was time to serve.  They were delicious, at least from the few bites I had.  Cheesy, savory, and spicy with a bright acidity from the pico de gallo and sweet, briny bites of lump crab meat.  I'm sure my wife and kids would have articulated the same.  But, instead of bases, they were too busy stealing chips and clearing plates.  Hey, at least I tried.  Nacho easiest pun situation.  

Seafood Bratwurst 

The natural choice here would be seafood hot dogs.  I made and profiled smoked trout dogs a few years ago, which were delightful, but I wanted to try something new.  Next to the classic ballpark frank, nothing says I'm at a ballgame quite like a brat.  I picked up some day-boat scallops, monkfish, and a Northern Atlantic lobster tail from Hill's Quality Seafood.  Chef Cuso's rustic style of seafood sausage looked interesting, but I was swinging for the fences on this one.  Proper sausage maker, 10mm plate, coarse grind, stuffing in hog casings. 

The seafood all got a rough chop and mixed with proportional bratwurst seasoning.  I've made pork bratwurst several times before, both by toasting and grinding my own spices, and using premade spice mixtures.  Maybe I'm just an inept spice crafter, but the premade mixtures have always turned out better for me, especially with A.C. Legg's Bratwurst Seasoning.  Don't mess with a winning lineup, right?  I set the mixture in the freezer to chill and meld for a few minutes.  Rule one of sausage making is keeping everything ice cold.  Otherwise the fat will render and the meat will smear, leaving you with a nasty paste rather than a coarse grind.  I wasn't sure the same logic applied to shellfish, but I wasn't about to test and find out. 

My wife is from Wisconsin.  As such, I know a brat is not a brat without peppers and onions, so I sautéed some while I waited.  Once the seafood mix was fully chilled, I added a little lager (Wisconsin-style, again) then ran it through the coarse grind and into hog casings.  I ended up with only two brats, but they were big league sized.  Seafood's expensive, and I'm a baller on a budget.  Onto the grill they went for 5 minutes, then into some Amoroso's Italian Rolls with the peppers and onions, horseradish, and spicy mustard.  Give 'em the heater, Ricky!  And they were delicious.  Discernibly bratwurst with that herbaceous, peppery-nutmeg flavor, but they had a distinct, oceanic sweetness, especially from the toothsome lobster.  The caramelized peppers and onions brought in that familiar savory-sweet and the horseradish a piquant zest.  I shared the other with my neighbor, and he agreed: web gem worthy.

    Rock Shrimp Cracker Jack

No ballpark cuisine post would be complete without Cracker Jack.  Recipes for candied popcorn & peanuts in the States go back to the early 19th century.  However, Frederick Rueckheim is largely credited with its popularization.  He and his brother first reportedly offered it at the 1893 World's Fair.  A patron tried some and declared "whoa, that's crackerjack!," which was slang for something excellent or outstanding.  Rueckheim trademarked the name Cracker Jack in 1896, and in that same year, there's record of it being a concession at an Atlantic City game.  Then, in 1908, Jack Norworth penned Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Cracker Jack was forever deified within baseball.  Just imagine what food that might be if "and Cracker Jack" didn't rhyme with "never get back."  Also, I don't say deified lightly.  Check out what happened when the Yankees tried to replace Cracker Jack with Crunch 'n Munch.

Cracker Jack is made with popcorn, right?  And popcorn shrimp is a popular dish.  So why not shrimp cracker jack?  I picked up some rock shrimp from Hill's Quality Seafood, along with peanuts, molasses, and other fixins' at my local market.  Cracker Jack has those distinct, red skinned Virginia peanuts, and most markets around me don't sell them in shelled, cocktail form.  No problem, though — I had the kids shell (or shuck!) them.  They were more than happy to be involved.  I also created a simple brown sugar syrup with some vanilla extract and molasses and set it to the side.  I wanted to mimic that Cracker Jack candy flavor, but that classic butter based caramel wouldn't work in this instance.  Next, batter up!  I mixed water with equal parts AP flour and potato starch, per the instruction of Dredgemaster Flex, a.k.a. Rizzi from Lou's Takeaway.  Dude knows how to fry.  The AP would create that familiar popcorn shrimp breading, and the potato starch would ensure it stayed crisp enough to hold up to the caramel coating.    

Now, time to fry.  Each shrimp got battered and dropped in a peanut oil bubble bath.  Sure, seed oils are the enemy these days.  Red meat, eggs, and avocados were all once too, but now look at them.  I'm not saying red dye 40 and soybean oil will be deemed superfoods at some point; but everyone should chill out for a bit and let science catch up to the clickbait.  Stay hydrated, eat more fiber, and all things in moderation.  You'll be fine.  Once all the shrimp were done, I returned them in batches to the frying oil for a second dip.  Just like twice fried potatoes, this would ensure the ultimate crispy exterior.  Finally, I mixed the shrimp, peanuts, and caramel sauce all in a bowl, seasoned to taste, and plated.  They weren't as close to Cracker Jack as I'd hoped, but did taste great.  Just more like Honey Walnut Shrimp than the ballpark classic.  Not quite a home run, but a solid line drive up the middle.  I'll need to hit the cages in the offseason for this one.  Will keep y'all posted.

Overall, my whole baseball, ballpark, and seafood exploration was a grand slam.  Interesting history, exciting ephemera, and some fun dishes.  The only remaining question: what to do next?  Lobster poutine for the Stanley Cup?  Fish and chips with caviar for Wimbledon?  Salmon buffalo wings for the Super Bowl?  Oh — what about oyster baseball cards for the hundreds of varieties around the country?!?  Comment below with what should be 'on deck.'

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd

   

Shucked Ceviche

Every summer I try to bridge two of my favorite hobbies - gardening and seafood - into a post.  It started with an oyster shell paved garden path.  Then, it was pairing oysters with farm-fresh eggs from chickens our neighbors raise.  After that, it was turning homegrown peppers into hot sauce for an oyster condiment.  I won't lie, I've found it takes a lot of creative grasping and poetic license to pair seafood and gardening.  Wish I were as clever as The Beatles.  Sure, I could just run through seasonal fish recipes, paired with garden fresh produce.  Lobster BLTs, pan seared halibut over summer succotash, mahi mahi tacos with charred corn salsa, grilled ahi tuna and sesame cucumber salad.  All delicious, but a bit boring.  There's already plenty from the content creating clickbaiters.  "OMG you guys! Run, don't walk, to these amazing salmon recipes! #DeInfluence.  I like some history, exploration, or at the very least, a little whimsy.  Whether successful or not is a different story, but that's usually my aim.  

This year I leaned into the gimmick side.  The kids and I tackled our annual English pea harvest earlier this summer.  I always sow a few different pea varieties around St. Patrick's day, along with other frost tolerant plants like radishes, kale, beets, and lettuce.  This means that come Juneteenth, the garden is overflowing with peas.  My children won't touch a pea on a plate, but somehow love grabbing them right off the vine and enjoying as a snack.  The big harvest has become a bit of a tradition.  One day each year, usually a Saturday or Sunday in late June, we wake up and head to the backyard.  With warm morning dew on our feet and popcorn bowls in hand, we gently pluck each pod from the garden.  Then, we hang out on the deck, sipping coffee and juice, listening to reggae, and process the peas.

When my daughter said "I love shucking peas" this year, it got me thinking - what other foods do we shuck?  Is there a reason that we shuck corn but peel bananas, hull sunflower seeds, and husk coconuts?  I've heard shell and shuck used interchangeably for peas, but shell and shuck for beans can mean entirely different things.  What about peeling shrimp, cracking crabs, and shucking oysters?  I really enjoy weird etymology, bizarre grammar, and strange lexicon.  Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?  What cruel person decided the fear of long words should be "hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia?"  Do you think they named oranges before they named carrots?

According to the Britannica dictionary, and similarly across Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, and others, the most common, contemporary definitions of shuck are.

shuck (n):  

the outer covering of a nut or a plant (such as corn); the shell of an oyster or clam

shuck (v): 

to remove the outer covering of (a plant, such as corn) or the shell of (an oyster)

The true etymology of the word is unknown.  Just ask Gemini, ChatGPT, or any other LLM and you'll get a host of different answers.  That's because these models are programmed to never admit uncertainty, even when sources conflict.  I love a good AI hallucination, but I'm pretty excited to see the AI bubble burst.  I'm by no means a luddite; I use “AI” for data processing and organization at work all the time.  It can do incredible things, and will only get better.  But presently, it's more akin to a search engine on steroids than intelligence.  It's a streamlined parrot of the internet.  It doesn't reason or understand.  Rather, it's being deliberately engineered to seem it can for quick investments and money grabs.  In the worst cases, it's even being fraudulently propped up.  The hype will eventually collapse.

Abraham Fleming's 1577 account
of The Black Shuck

Anyway, while the true origins of shuck are lost to time, there is still reasonable speculation.  The front-runners seem to be Old English's scucca, Low German's schok, and Dutch's schokke, all of which were used in reference to husks, shells, or coverings.  According to The Oxford University Press, the earliest use of shuck with current definitions was as a noun in 1674.  Funny enough, it was describing pea and bean pods, e.g. pea-shucks.  In 1785 we first see shuck as a verb, detailing corn shucking, and we see oyster shucking references in the mid-1800s.  Curiously, the Old English, German, and Dutch words also meant to shake, shrink, terrify or be frightened and shocked.  There's record of shuck, scucca specifically, denoting a devil or demon going back to the 11th century.  References to The Black Shuck, a demon dog said to roam the British coastlines of East Anglia, go back to the 16th century.  Gives a totally different meaning to "Live to Shuck, Shuck to Live" through that lens 😬.  Perhaps shuck around and find out is more appropriate?  Just jokes.  Love my Hog Island homies.      

In American English, shuck gradually evolved to take on other meanings throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.  I'm sure you're familiar with the interjection "shucks," such as "aw shucks," expressing mild embarrassment or disappointment.  Less commonly, there's shucking off clothing or a bad reputation, as in to discard.  It also meant something valueless in the 1800s, like "it wasn't worth a shuck."  More recently there's the practice of shucking hard drives, which is taking an external drive and repurposing it internally.  Modern variations of shuck are also based in African American Vernacular English.  A shuck can be a fraud or scheme, or to shuck can mean to deceive or trick.  Think of shuckin' and jivin', which has its unfortunate foundations with the Black community evading undue attention from the authorities.  Equally unfortunate is the phrase's racially coded appropriation nowadays, and some don't even realize that when they use it.

I'm not a linguist, computer scientist, or race relations expert, so take all of this with a grain of salt.  My research often amounts to shuck.  But with that salt, I can confidently say I'm damn good at making well-seasoned and flavorful seafood preparations.  So while the etymology and history of the word shuck are fun, I wanted to make a dish with my kids celebrating all things shucked.  With our homegrown English peas shucked and on hand, fresh clams, corn, scallops, and oysters all came to mind.  Honestly, I couldn't think of many other shuckables.  No problem, though, because all that sounded like the start of one tasty ceviche.  

My son and I headed to Gentile's Market in Newtown Square.  They've always got the best seasonal produce in stock.  We picked up some ceviche basics - limes, shallots, fresno chiles, green onions, and cilantro.  For the shucking portion, we of course grabbed a few ears of fresh Jersey sweet corn.  Every region of the country has its own celebrated corn basket, and I'm not going to say Jersey's is better than Nebraska, Iowa, or anywhere else.  However, New Jersey is known as the Garden State for a reason, and their produce is top notch.  There are a lot of reasons to hate on New Jersey, but their corn isn't one of them.  Again, just jokes.  Nothing but love for ya, Dirty Jerz.

Next, we headed right across the street to Hill's Quality Seafood to pick up some littleneck clams, scallops, and a single oyster.  I've had and made oyster ceviches before and must admit they're not my favorite.  I like Veracruz's vuelve a la vida, which usually includes oysters.  And the line between ceviches and other Latin American or global raw seafood dishes is a blurry one.  Aguachile, poke, kinilaw, tartare, coctel, tiradito.  An oyster on the half shell is technically just a crudo.  So I do like innumerable raw oyster preparations.  However, shucking and mixing loose oysters into the classic ceviche mix of citrus, chiles, and alliums isn't my cup of tea.  There's something about the oysters' texture, in volume and concentration, swimming around in the leche de tigre that doesn't work for me.  They just don't have the right tooth or body to stand up, and I end up feeling like I'm eating them just for the protein.  That being said, you know I had to incorporate at least one oyster into my shucked ceviche.

We halved the limes, chopped the cilantro, sliced the green onion, and brunoised the shallot and fresno.  By we, I mean the kids got to massacre a few green onions and some cilantro on the side with their plastic knives while I managed the rest.  They did shuck the corn and I sliced some kernels off the cobs.  The diver scallops got diced too.  Next, it was onto the clams.  Same logic as the oysters, raw clams aren't great in ceviche, in my experience.  However, while cooked oysters aren't either as their texture remains rather supple, cooked clams take on a nice, firm texture that holds up well.  We steamed the clams for 10 mins, and once cooled, the kids and I shucked them from their shells with some butter knives.  They absolutely loved this part, and it was toddler safe.  Last, the single Wellfleet oyster.  Ceviches are often finished with crunchy toppings, adding a nice contrast to the bright and acidic base.  And few things are better than a golden brown, crispy fried oyster.  I shucked it, dredged in corn meal, and deep fried in canola oil for a few minutes.  I set it to the side, and with the prep ready to go, it was finally ceviche making time.  

Prep is the laborious part of ceviche.  Fine dices, uniform knife cuts, lots of squeezing citrus.  All very important.  A shoddy chop on onions is no major issue when sautéing, but when eating them basically raw, a millimeter or two can make a big difference.  And bottled lime juice isn't even close to fresh, so never cut any corners here.  The juice is quite literally worth the squeeze.  However, once finished, the rest of ceviche making is just mixing things in a bowl and seasoning.  Quite easy.  Depending on the type of seafood, it can help to marinate it in citrus juice for 15 to 20 minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients.  The acid denatures the proteins of the seafood, both firming and tenderizing while giving it that 'cooked' appearance.  In this instance, the clams were already cooked and I wanted to keep the scallops crudo, so no marination on this one.  The other key step is combining everything in a bowl over ice.  Ceviche should be served ice cold, and this set up helps ensure that.  You can even find special bowls for serving ceviches, tartares, and other dishes that need to be kept chilled. 

Shallot, fresno, cilantro, sweet corn, peas, clams and scallops all came together in the icy bowl with ample amounts of lime juice and kosher salt to taste, then got plated in a hand thrown bowl a friend gifted to us.  I thought of finishing it with some spicy peanuts or pistachios, as you'll occasionally hear of shuckin' both.  However, I decided to stay classic and added some canchas.  They're basically Peruvian corn nuts and are a standard accompaniment to Andean ceviches.  We didn't personally shuck and make them, but they were certainly shucked at some point.  Topped off with some green onion, a little more cilantro, and of course the fried oyster, the ceviche was good to go.  And it tasted great.  Spicy, tart, savory, tangy.  Various levels of sweet ranging from the corn and peas' earthy sweetness to the clams and scallops' oceanic.  The canchas and oyster provided great textural contrast and saltiness.  All spot on with no edits, and a delightful bite on a warm summer's day.  

Wish I could say my kids felt the same.  Since they were integral in the whole production, they were champs and gave it a try.  But I suppose ceviche is more of an acquired taste.  I'm not giving up, though.  They'll be ceviche fiends just like me at some point.  However, I can positively report they're now avid shuckers, and nothing makes me happier than that.  I hope y'all enjoy the rest of your summer and get a few chances to have some shuckin' fun! 

Cheers,

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 old family 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 sauteeing 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