Are you sick of my mushroom posts yet? Here’s a change of scenery: Snowbird Central, the southern Gulf Coast of Florida. This is the only truly tropical corner of the continental U.S., where white shoes and blue hair are the norm.
We went to visit the rellies, but the fish called, so we took a flyer and booked a half-day trip as a Christmas gift to ourselves. Guided fishing ain’t cheap. Yet when time is short and terra is incognita, it makes sense to pony up and learn something from the local pros.
Enter Captain Pat with his dandy flats boat and years of experience fishing the Naples backcountry. Our trip would take us into the maze of mangroves that make up the inland waterways of southwestern Florida, to the edge of Rookery Bay and the northern limit of the Ten Thousand Islands.
Just after 8 a.m., Captain Pat cut the engine and poled us into a slot where a deep, narrow cut held fish up against a line of mangroves. We baited up with shrimp and tossed our lines into the channel. Almost immediately I heard what would become a familiar refrain: "I’ve got a fish!" Riley’s pole was doubled over. He reeled in a beautiful sheepshead of 13 inches, a keeper. Food requirements met, we settled down to enjoying the sport. Riley had six fish to the boat—sheepshead, mangrove snappers, and sundry other backwater finners—before I landed a lowly catfish requiring careful release due to poisonous spines. This was met with general merriment from my fellow anglers.
"You’re more of a fly-fisherman," my boy tried to console me. Captain Pat assured me the next spot would offer some fly-friendly water.
Indeed, the next spot was leeward where the incoming tide moved swiftly over a shallow bar adjacent to a deep pocket of jade green water. Captain Pat produced a flyrod and I happily gave up my bait rod. Second cast—bang!—fish on. A few seconds later, fish off. Several more casts and nada. The good captain examined my fly and popped on what he called a tip and what I called a cheater, a little piece of shrimp. I tossed out the ungainly thing and felt an immediate tug. Thankfully the tip was gone when I reeled in. I suggested we try a different fly rather than another cheater, something a little heavier to get down in the feeding lane, and the captain tied on a lead-eye fly that looked like a variation of a Crazy Charlie. Next cast, fish on. I put the cork to it this time and hauled in a beautiful ladyfish, crowing "Let the record show no shrimp in evidence." This earned me several guffaws of derision from my mates and the nickname No Shrimp.
The next forty-five minutes were hot, with a fish on nearly every cast, all of them ladyfish, which are also known as poor man's tarpon. My brother Whit and Riley had good action too, with ladyfish, seatrout, and snapper. My fly-fishing success didn’t escape notice from the boy. As you’ll recall, he’s been practicing his fly-casting this past year. I relinquished the rod and took up the video camera.
The kid continues to astound me. I'd chalk it up to beginner's luck, but this so-called luck seems to be a recurring feature of his young angling career. He nailed fish after fish on the fly, finally turning to me with a hint of both pride and lament in his voice.
"Looks like we'll have to share the name No Shrimp, Dada."
Back at the dock the pelicans and egrets sensed an easy meal.
Last week I backpacked into the Elwha Basin in Olympic National Park to see the place before it undergoes profound change next year. You see, in 2011 the process of undamming the Elwha will begin in earnest and five species of Pacific salmon will have a chance to re-colonize a river that historically supported large fish runs. Since most of the watershed is within the boundaries the park, the habitat remains in good shape and there are great expectations for filling the river once again with fish.
With this in mind, I decided a trip into the Elwha to see the place before the dams come down would be a good thing, a way to compare the before and after. My timing looked bad, though. Local weather guru Cliff Mass was telling his blog readers that this was a week to stay out of the mountains. A dreaded marine layer was headed our way from the Pacific with a forecast of rain every day for a week. Pigheaded as usual, I hoisted my pack anyway and walked directly into the teeth of the storm.
The rain held off and that first evening I made it as far as the Lillian River, a major tributary, and a dark, dank foreboding place to make camp. Rodents pestered my tent all night but fortunately, with my food bags hung safely from a bear wire, nothing larger. The next day I got deeper into the valley, leaving behind the popular destination Elkhorn Camp at the 10-mile mark to penetrate another six miles up-valley to where the Hayes River meets the Elwha. It was around Hayes that I felt civilization's shackles start to loosen—and here is an important lesson known to serious backpackers: go deep. Your destination may be labeled wilderness or national park, but the essence of the wild doesn't kick in until you're suitably removed from the trappings of town. In this case I was 16 miles up a trail and another dozen or so miles inside a national park boundary before the magic of the back-country began to percolate.
And percolate it did. Beyond Hayes the trees got bigger and the forest took on an enchanted quality. A lush carpet of moss covered everything. Winds whistled down from surrounding peaks carrying with them the sounds of glaciers creaking and melting. The river brawled through steep canyons. A fallen tree across the trail was as tall as me in its prone position; someone had counted the rings and noted them on the cut: 560 years old, this tree was a sapling here a generation before Columbus set sail for the New World.
On Day 3 I left base camp to hike another 11 miles into the valley, making for a 22-mile day. I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the headwaters but the weather finally caught up to me. It rained all day and the mountains remained mostly hidden, socked in with fog. I had to settle for close-in views of the Elwha Basin and a look at a tumbling, roaring river that gouged out its banks and stacked enormous logjams of old-growth Douglas-fir like cordwood. In this way the river looked nearly perfect on the surface. But I knew that deep within those dark blue pools behind the logjams—ideal shelter for salmon fry—the currents were empty of anadromous fish. For now.
At Happy Hollow, the last shelter on the trail before it becomes a climbing route, I ran into three trekkers who had just come down from the Bailey Traverse, a famous bushwhack through a remote range in the Olympics that has never seen a designated trail. The trekkers had a fire going to dry their gear and seemed both exhilarated from their multi-day expedition and glad to be found. They had spent a full day lost in the hills and told me they were two days behind schedule and worried that a search party might be sent after them. I agreed to notify a ranger of their whereabouts on my way out.
The mushrooms were just starting to pop and they seemed to grow right in front of my eyes, the shiny red caps of Russulas emerging where there had been only moss just a few hours earlier, and hedgehogs clustering in the darkest patches of forest. I made dinner with a medley of wild mushrooms, including chanterelles, lobsters, and hedgehogs. I also caught rainbow trout and released them back into the river where they will seed the future stocks of steelhead that will hopefully reclaim the river once the dams are gone.
Trips like this got me foraging in the first place and when I reemerged on Day 5 to find my car in the parking lot, the spell of the wild was still on me. I drove back to Seattle in a daze, blissfully unaware of the traffic, neon signs, and hurly-burly of the city, at least for a little while.
Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly his first. Last year Riley hooked and caught a brookie on the fly with help from his dad. But this year the kid decided nine years old was about the right age to pick up a fly rod unaided, and who am I to argue? It will be sad to finally say goodbye to the Scooby-Do rod—we’ve had some good times with that stalwart member of our family angling arsenal. Riley caught trout, bass, steelhead, and even salmon off the beach with the Scooby-Do rod but he’s ready for what he calls a big boy rod.
We practiced on the pond in Colorado while visiting his grandparents. Seeing him throw a 9-foot 5-weight rod is a little comical—he’s dwarfed by the thing—but really no matter how big or heavy the rod, it’s all a matter of timing, and Riley seems to have a pretty good understanding already of what it takes to make a good cast, even in the wind. The first fish surprised us both and after a brief tussle broke the line. We regrouped with another fly and the next fish wasn’t so lucky—it was a big rainbow that Riley released because he wanted to eat a brookie.
The third fish was the hoped-for brookie and now the fight was on. I had the film rolling when—cripes!—my memory card crapped out. Anyway, I managed to catch some of the action and completed the video with a couple stills of his catch, a nice brookie that got pan-fried within the hour.
The next day I took Riley to a stretch of the Yampa River known for its huge rainbows, a tailwater section below Stagecoach Reservoir where tiny flies and fine tippets are the order of the day. Most anglers nymph this stretch, which is to say they fish wet flies subsurface under strike indicators. I’ll nymph if I have to but dry-fly fishing—the excitement of a slashing strike at the surface—is my preference and I figured it would be a better introduction to moving water if Riley could watch the progress of his fly and see how mending his line could make a difference along with all the other skills required to successfully fish a dry fly.
The upshot: more of those dudes hunkered over their #22 RS2s and bobbers ought to try tossing something as unassuming as a #14 parachute adams—it worked for Riley!
Ed. note: I value your comments and will respond to this and previous posts as soon as I return from a week off the grid in the Rogue River Canyon.
Going native is a time-honored tradition. What’s more fun—traveling as a tourist or blending in with the locals? I choose the latter.
Which is why a sweltering spring morning in Goshen, Arkansas, found me hanging around on the limestone banks of the White River with a bunch of good ol' boys and even more first generation immigrants, a cheap spinning rod in my hand. I was there to go bassin’.
Middle American rivers and reservoirs emptying into the Mississippi mark the pan fisherman’s Mecca. You’ve got catfish, crappies, sunfish, perch, and several varieties of bass, all vying for the pan, all tasting exceptional when fried up fresh. In my younger years, when I first discovered the pleasures of trout on a fly and its attendant rituals, I pitied the bassmasters with their jon boats and fish-finders and trucker caps. They struck me as an antediluvian species, as antiquated as the country store.
Well, these days as we drive the endless strip (getting longer every year) waiting for pavement to give way to dirt and for fast food joints to give way to fishing holes, don’t we all yearn for the dusty commerce of the country store once again? And so it is with the bassmaster, who is the backbone of angling in America. McGuane is right: When the trout are lost it's surely time to smash the state. But when there are no more bass and no more bass fishermen we will have finally screwed the pooch once and for all.
Luckily for me my spring break with the in-laws in Fayetteville just happened to coincide with a great annual tradition for bassmasters across the tick and chigger-infested interior: the running of the white bass. There are bigger bass and there are tastier bass; rarely do you encounter a more prolific bass. The limit in Arkansas is 25 per day. Morone chrysops looks like a smaller version of its cousin the striped bass. Males are smaller than females, usually weighing under a pound; females, which follow the males upriver, might push five pounds, though a two-pounder like this one my boy caught is considered large.
I stumbled upon the white bass fishery by accident while scouting for morels. Crossing the Twin Bridges where Richland Creek empties into the White River I couldn't help but pull over to see why so many trucks and cars lined the road. A guy with a stringer loaded with fish and a big grin clued me in. We walked down to the water's edge to see the commotion. Anglers were hauling in fish up and down the banks. "This ain't nothin'," said one elderly man in a canoe. "At the peak it's every cast." The fish pour out of Beaver Lake impoundment on their spawning run like an angry horde, chasing each other around the riffles, slashing at lures, and putting their fierce dispositions on generous display. I talked to a few knowledgeable bassers with the heftiest stringers. Crawfish, they advised, and rubber minnow jigs. I was back the next day.
Fish Tacos
That night we made fish tacos at my brother-in-law’s place. Filleting out 15 bass was a bit of a chore for this bassmaster-in-training. Bass are bonier than the trout and salmon I’m used to, although the concept is similar. I thought about Mexico while working the fillet knife.
The best fish tacos I ever ate were prepared beachside on the Baja while a bunch of us attempted to surf our hangovers away during a bachelor party weekend. Despite the gulf's promise of renewal, one by one we washed up on the beach feeling more unsteady than when we started, lured by the thought of stable ground and the smell of fish tacos cooked right on the spot over a camp stove. This has been my template ever since. If you try to complicate the matter, you’ll miss the point. Fish tacos should be a perfect blend of white-fleshed fish, warm tortillas, and piquant salsa. Nothing more. The preparation was so simple I’m almost embarrassed to repeat it here, but if you’ve never made your own fish tacos before it’s something you should do—so here are the basics.
1. Make a simple salsa. For instance, chop together 2 large tomatoes, 1 small red onion, 1 clove of garlic, a half-cup of cilantro, and a hot pepper. Adjust amounts to taste. Squeeze in a half lime and season generously with salt. Set aside to marry. 2. Heat flour tortillas wrapped in foil. 3. Dredge fish fillets in seasoned flour and fry in butter over medium heat until flaky.
That’s it. Now make your tacos, garnish with hot sauce, drink a refreshing beer—and think about going native.
Rainbow trout first captured my imagination in sixth grade when I filled an aquarium at school with a few dozen fingerlings. Most of them went belly up, but the hardiest survived to become silver streaks of excitement for Middle School boys with their faces pushed up against the glass.
Here in Washington State on the dry, eastern side of the Cascade Mountains, we have a species of trout variously called redside or redband. In fact it is a subspecies of rainbow adapted to live in the desert canyon country of the Pacific Northwest, a harsh environment of fluctuating river flows and oscillating weather extremes. The common names derive from the intense rosy blush coloring the fish's gill plate and flanks. These rainbows, I discovered soon after moving here, flash gorgeous colors and fight like hell.
Most of my fishing for redsides has been in the Yakima Canyon, a drainage severely compromised by dams and irrigation which some anglers refer to it as "the ditch." But that ditch's trout mesmerized me from the get-go. I had fished for rainbows all over the country, and though these particular fish rarely attained the size of rainbows I had caught up and down the fertile streams of the Rockies, they seemed to me more beautiful and pound-for-pound better fighters than their compatriots elsewhere.
My suspicions about the Yakima's rainbows were confirmed several years ago after meeting a state fish commissioner around the campfire one night. He told me that contrary to public perception, the Yakima's rainbows are hardly the mutts most people think they are. Years of stocking for a "put-and-take" fishery ended in the early 80's with new selective gear rules that culminated with "catch and release" designation in 1990 (those wanting to keep a fish can do so below Roza Dam). Now the fish are strictly wild—that is, self-sustaining. More than that, DNA tests proved that years of stocking hadn't fundamentally changed the river's native trout. Apparently the natives didn't find the stockers attractive or fit for breeding.
"You're catching 'bows descended from the same fish that Lewis and Clark caught," the commissioner told me.
If only this were true for other watersheds.
As Anders Halverson explains in An Entirely Synthetic Fish, his book tracing the remarkable journey of the rainbow trout, from its origins in one of the nation's first hatchery programs to its subsequent spread around the country and the world, the success of the rainbow has had a greater impact on fish and fishing than anyone could have predicted. Rainbow introductions created fisheries where none previously existed, helped to initiate countless young anglers, and altered ecosystems. With echoes of Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire, Halverson shows that not only have we engineered a fish but that the fish has also engineered us.
The story begins with Livingston Stone, a New Hampshire pastor turned aquaculturist. In 1872, with orders from his boss Spencer Fullerton Baird, head of the newly hatched U.S. Fish Commission, Stone went west on the transcontinental railroad to San Francisco, then traveled north to the upper reaches of the Sacramento Basin in the shadow of Mt. Shasta. Here, within an arrow shot of the Wintu Indians, he set up shop on the McCloud River with hopes of propagating chinook salmon. The salmon hatchery didn't pan out but further upstream he met success with another North Pacific species, the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss).
By 1886 the U.S. Fish Commission had sent rainbow trout to 33 of the 38 states then in the Union as well as England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Mexico. In time the fish would establish populations in South America, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and Africa. Rainbow trout would become a "global species, both physically and culturally," remarks Halverson. "The range expansion that corn, sheep, dogs, and humans only achieved over thousands of years, rainbow trout have accomplished in little more than a century." The author goes on to examine the concurrent rise of recreational fishing, suggesting that such a rise might not have been possible without the adaptability of rainbow trout, for the sheer numbers of modern anglers require a hardy fish that can be produced—or reproduce on its own—in quantity. Hence the proliferation of hatcheries around the world, for good or ill, and the current debate over wild fish versus man-made fish.
The rainbow's ascension occurred during a time when the control of nature seemed not only possible but preferable. Massive dam projects changed the face of the American West in particular, and where warm, muddy rivers once flowed there were now dam-controlled water courses with clear, cold water—prime trout habitat. Halverson details one of the more unseemly chain of events: the poisoning of the Green River (tributary to the Colorado) and its native "rough fish" to make way for sport fish like the rainbow. The poisoned fish now reside on the Endangered Species list.
As the Green River episode illustrates, the rainbow's success has come at considerable cost. Rainbow trout now compete with native fish on nearly every continent. They're also used as compensation for degraded habitats. Throughout the 20th century it was commonplace to erect a fish hatchery where the assault of pollution, resource extraction, and development made natural fish propagation an impossibility. On the other hand, one wonders how many of today's river stewards were first lured to the joys of fish and fishing by the leaping rainbow.
Anglers and history buffs alike will tie into a good story with An Entirely Synthetic Fish, a story that is both peculiarly American and also global in its lessons. After all, China is the new frontier for trout fishermen.
Every year in mid-November I help my friend Bradley close up his cabin near the Rogue River in southwestern Oregon. The Rogue is one of only a handful of coastal rivers that can boast a significant roadless section, in this case a 30-plus mile stretch of river that flows through the Congressionally designated Wild & Scenic lower canyon and the adjacent Rogue River Wilderness. It's rugged country filled with bears, cougars, hermits, and goldpanners. After the chores are attended to, we hike the trails, fish for steelhead, hunt mushrooms, and whump up big meals on the wood stove.
This annual trip is pretty much the capper on my year of wild food foraging.
Long Live the Queen
I don't get many opportunities to pick queen boletes (Boletus regineus). They're most often found in mixed woodlands of the coastal mountains to the south of me, in Northern California and Southern Oregon, particularly the lower elevations where tanoak thrives and puts the hurt on anyone hoping to bushwhack around those river valleys below snowline. I've never found them in Washington, probably because I rarely encounter tanoak here.
Besides habitat, the best way to distinguish the king and queen in the field is cap color (see photo at right). Queen boletes will have darker caps at maturation, sometimes a rich mahogany brown, and the younger specimens, while often lacking dark caps at this stage, will frequently have a whitish bloom across the cap that can be rubbed off with your finger. They're generally smaller than kings too.
One of the cool things about the queen is that it fruits later than the king, at least where I pick it, and often in troops, so you can still get fresh porcini even after the kings have gone to dirt. Our queen is not the same species as the one found in the Old World. That's Boletus aereus, which by all accounts rivals Boletus edulis, the king, for its porcini flavor and aroma. Boletus regineus is similar with its dark brown cap but tastes milder. On the plus side, the flesh is white and firm like the king yet often lacks the insect infestations of its more heralded partner in royalty.
We ate the queen with steak one night and sauteed it up with black trumpets another night to serve over crackers.
Blow Your Horn
Speaking of black trumpets (Craterellus cornucopioides), this is another species I only see in the Rogue. We never find large quantities, just enough to savor that wonderful woodsy, almost smoky flavor. Northern California is the strike zone for the trumpet. I've heard professional foragers reminisce about enormous patches in the hills just inland from the Pacific.
Supposedly there are a few patches of well-guarded trumpets in Washington but I've never found them. Instead I look to the Rogue each year to satisfy my craving. Sometimes we get just a taste that must last us through the year.
"They're not big, but they don't know it."
The owner of the Silver Sedge Fly Shop told me that years ago when I stopped in to buy some fly-tying materials. He was talking about immature steelhead that probe the lower Rogue River before dropping back into the salt to finish their growth. Known as "half-pounders" to locals, these torpedo-shaped flashes of silver average 12 to 15 inches yet attack flies with the hellbent abandon of much larger fish and they're a hoot on light fly gear.
As in previous years, I took a single hatchery half-pounder home to share with the family so they could get a taste of the Rogue. The other fish, most of them wild, were released back into the drink.
We've been laid low by the lurgies. Even a morning draught of stinging nettle tea couldn't clear my head...but an evening jolt of spicy Tom Yum with Salmon & Lobster Mushrooms, made from a salmon-head stock, seems to have done the trick for now.
Studies are being done on Tom Yum's immune-boosting properties and I'm not surprised. Along wih Pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup, Thailand's signature hot and sour soup Tom Yum Goong has been our go-to dinner when la grippe has us in its bony grip. Just inhaling those aromatic and spicy fumes is enough to cleanse the sinuses. Until this week, I had never tried to make it myself.
Tom Yum can be made with water, chicken stock, or fish stock. One recipe exhorts readers to use the shrimp's head fat to enrichen the soup base—and who am I to argue with such logic? I did this by removing the heads, squeezing their fat—a noticeable orange color, as illustrated in the photo—into the stock, and then tossing the heads into the boil for a little extra umph. But more than that, I got my deep fish flavor from a couple of salmon carcasses. This year I made sure to keep the remains of every salmon I caught and filleted, which means I've got a ton of soup heads and backbones in the freezer.
The lobster mushrooms, picked during a hike near the Columbia River Gorge, added extra flavor and chew. I've always loved the paddy straw mushroom, a mainstay in Asian soups (and present in this one), but the lobster contributed its seafoody flavor and a texture that's firmer than the straw mushroom. Together, the two species of fungus added heartiness to the soup.
3-4 cups stock or water* 1 medium-sized lobster mushroom, thinly sliced 1 dozen shrimp in the shell with heads 1 stalk lemongrass, mashed and cut into 3-inch pieces 6 kaffir lime leaves, bruised and de-stemmed 6 slices galangal 6 Thai chili peppers, mashed 3 tbsp lime juice 1 heaping tbsp roasted chili paste 1 tbsp brown sugar 1 tbsp fish sauce 1 can straw mushrooms 1 handful cilantro chopped for garnish
1. Peel shrimp, reserving heads and leaving tail on. 2. Bring stock, lemongrass, shrimp heads, and lobster mushrooms to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes. 3. Meanwhile combine chili peppers, chili paste, and lime juice in small bowl. 4. Remove shrimp heads with slotted spoon and add kaffir lime leaves, galangal, and shrimp. Simmer a few more minutes. 5. Turn off heat just before shrimp are fully cooked and add mixture of lime juice, chili peppers, and chili paste. Season with salt, brown sugar, and fish sauce according to taste.
Serves 2 ballooned-out congested heads.
*For salmon-head stock, brown in peanut oil in a heavy soup pot a couple small to medium-sized salmon heads (along with backbones if you have them). De-glaze with a splash or two of wine (Chinese cooking wine is preferable). Add 1 chopped leek and 2 chopped cloves of garlic. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for several more minutes. Add 8 cups of water and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain. The salmon meat can then be picked from the pot.
If you want to get serious about foraged foods, a big ol' freezer is pretty much indispensable. Mine is packed with crabs, clams, nettles, mushrooms, berries, smoked salmon, shad, assorted heads, various stocks, and so on. Such a freezer full of foraged foods comes in handy for a party. Never mind that Marty tried her best to sabotage the whole affair by leaving the freezer door open for 18 hours a few days before. Most of the packages were still frozen, if sweating on the outside, and the clearly defrosted stuff got whipped into shape for the party, including stinging nettle pesto, Columbia river shad, and porcini mushrooms.
Look, Mom, no bones!
The shad in particular was a thing of genius. Several of the vacuum-sealed packages were flimsy, the once frozen shad now thawed and bendy. There was no way those things were going back into the deep freeze. As anyone who's ever processed these largest members of the herring family knows, shad are bony critters fit for deboning by the same jailbirds who punch out New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die" license plates.
Normally I have most of my Columbia River shad catch smoked and canned at Tony's, but I always keep a few fillets on hand to smoke myself or bake in the Low-Country style. This time I wanted a croquette I could serve at the party with a spicy New Orleans remoulade. I baked the shad for 30 minutes, spent 15 minutes picking as many bones as I could, and then buzzed the pile o' fish in the Cuisinart. To this pulverized mass of shad I added sauteed onions and red pepper, Worstcester sauce, lemon juice, an egg, some flour, cayenne pepper, and a bunch of fresh herbs from the garden, including tarragon, basil, chives, and parsley. I added more of the herbs than you might think; the more the better, in fact. Shad is a rich, strong-tasting fish, and the fresh herbs help to brighten the flavor and temper it at the same time. Hank Shaw has posted a similar recipe here, minus the sauteed veggies and lemon.
Once made, you can refrigerate the shad for a few days until party time. It has a consistency similar to well-mixed tuna fish salad. Or you can plow ahead and make the croquettes ahead of time and then freeze. I took the latter path, forming little hockey pucks of about the same diameter as a fifty-cent piece. These I dredged generously in panko and placed on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Into the freezer they went for a couple hours until solid enough to be removed to zip-lock bags. An hour before the party I arranged them once again on a cookie sheet to defrost and fried in oil minutes before the guests arrived. The fried shad croquettes were then topped with the red remoulade (although an aioli would be good too).
Porcini Crostini
I took this one from John Sundstrom, the chef/owner of Lark restaurant in Seattle. The prep is really quite simple: chopped porcini mushrooms roasted in olive oil with fresh thyme and rosemary. It's a little depressing to see all that beautiful fresh porcini lose half its volume by the time it comes out of the oven, but that's the nature of this fungal beast. Thinly sliced baguette is lightly toasted, rubbed with garlic, covered with a blanket of good ricotta, and topped with the porcini (and a generous sprinkling of salt).
Slow-roasted Tomatoes with Nettle Pesto Garnish
The last canape escaped the intrusions of paparazzi. Tomatoes were cored, chopped, and placed in a glass dish with olive oil to slowly roast overnight in a 225-degree oven. These got spooned on squares of baked polenta and dabbed with stinging nettle pesto.
Next time Marty better conspire to leave the freezer door open a little longer, 'cause we gotta clean out that sucker once and for all this winter.
Every other year at the end of August a bunch of friends get together to fish, laugh, and fish some more. We know each other through that most post-post modern of mediums, the Internet chat group, in this case a fly-fishing forum. Too bad Marshall McLuhan isn't around to witness and comment on the forging of such connections. If I could pull an Alvy Singer I would.
Our rallying site adds to the post modern twist: the industrial port of Seattle where the Duwamish River empties into Elliott Bay. Yet this isn't meant to be an ironic sort of fish slumming. As my friend Nope puts it, this is the most democratic of fisheries. Recent immigrants line the riprap, factory workers come out to throw a line during lunch break, and well-heeled anglers in yachts patrol the shipping channels. It's not a scenic place to wet a fly in the traditional sense—it's no Montana as portrayed in A River Runs Through It—but it has its own beauty. This is the grittiest of urban foraging, complete with container ships, trash compactors, big-bellied planes taking off and landing at nearby Boeing Field, cranes swiveling overhead, barges blowing their bullhorns, and a silhouette of stilettoed skyscrapers in the distance. Oh, and the place is a Superfund site.
With pontoons, kickboats, even sketchy rubber rafts, we take to the water armed with flyrods and round up our quarry, the pink salmon. Also known as humpies for the pronounced hunchbacks developed by males in the spawning phase, pink salmon have a two-year life cycle and return to local rivers every other year. Not nearly as esteemed as their bretheren the kings, silvers, and sockeyes, their flesh is less deep red and oil-saturated, so commerically they're mostly used by the canneries. But pinks are good biters, especially on a fly, and their meat smokes up very nicely.
Besides, the pink is a scrappy fish that seems to have taken to the scraps left behind in our devastated world. They're our fish, and we love them. Most pinks around Puget Sound average three to five pounds; those heading up the Duwamish to spawning grounds on the Green River run a little larger. We caught several in the six to seven pound range, including especially large dime-bright females.
Fishing the beaches during a large run is productive, but once the fish converge at the tidal mouths of their natal streams the action can get silly. This is the time to lean on the oars. Like fly-fishing for trout, you put the fly in the ring of the rise and WHAM! Fish on. At the peak you can have fish after fish slamming your fly—a notion that runs counter to most of what you hear about fly-fishing for salmon—and each one puts a solid bend in a 6-, 7-, or even 8-weight rod, towing a kickboat in circles before it succumbs to the net. We herders find a likely corner away from the barges and tugs to circle our wagons. Pinks run this gauntlet at their own peril, especially if my friend Bubba is tossing a line. Bubba has dialed in the Seattle pink fishery in the last decade like no one else and watching him fish is a lesson in humility. (A crack photographer as well, he contributed a few of the shots that accompany this post and video.)
BTW, if someone tells you the pink isn't worth keeping for the table, you smile and nod while you stack that limit in your cooler. I catch enough pinks every other year to take care of all my smoked salmon needs, and the brightest ones hit the barbecue the same day.
Smoked Salmon
It's easy to get worked up about all the possibilities for smoked salmon. You can use 101 different spices, juices, aromatics, etc. But if you catch fish in quantity, as we do during the pink run, you also gain a new understanding of what hunter-gatherer cultures were up against. For the two weeks I actively fished—about half the run—I lost more than a lot of sleep. Fish, work, fish some more, clean and fillet, put the kids to bed, brine the fish, go to bed, wake up and rinse off the brined fish, then fish the morning tide, work, fish until dark, clean and fillet, put the kids to bed, stay up late smoking the first batch and brining the next, haul stinky garbage to curb, try to clean kitchen before wife goes ballistic, sleep a few hours, get up and fish...and so on.
Notice how during that entire two-day cycle I only managed to smoke one batch. With limits of 4 to 6 fish daily (depending on area), we were drowning in salmon. Not that I'm objecting. So the point? Stick to basics. A simple brine of brown sugar, salt, and garlic is really all you need, with a dry brine being easier and less messy than a wet brine.
4 cups dark brown sugar 1 cup pickling salt 1 head garlic, cloves peeled & chopped black pepper to taste
Mix the dry brining ingredients. Generously cover each piece of salmon (I cut pink salmon fillets into thirds), then place skin-up in a non-reactive dish. Refrigerate for 6-8 hours. The brine will have become a soupy mess after water has been leached out of the fish. Gently rinse off each piece and allow to air-dry on paper towels for a couple hours until a pellicle forms—the tacky (not wet) outer layer of flesh that is so loaded with flavor.
For the actual smoking I use a Weber "Bullet," but it's possible to employ a regular gas grill in a pinch. A water pan is essential for keeping the fish from drying out. For wood chips I like to use fruit trees: apple, or cherry if I can get it. Alder is good too. If not green, the chips need to be immersed in a bucket of water for 30 minutes, then tossed on the coals in handfuls. Everyone has their own theories about temperature and smoking duration. Hot smoking will always be quicker than cold smoking. Because pink salmon fillets aren't thick, I usually figure on smoking for about an hour, even with a small amount of coals, maybe an hour and a half at most.
The last step is vacuum-sealing. I've kept properly packaged smoked salmon in the deep freeze for two years without any appreciable loss of flavor or tenderness.
Blackberry Must & Citrus Cured Salmon
Another option is cured salmon. While making blackberry wine with my friend Becky [future post], her chef pal Ashlyn turned me on to a use for the leftover must, the mashed up fruit that settles on the bottom of the barrel during the initial fermentation phase. Once you rack the wine for the first time, the must is discarded. But Ashlyn suggested I use it to cure fresh salmon. So I did.
2 lb salmon fillet(s) 3/4 cup pickling salt 1 cup brown sugar 1 each zest of a lemon, lime & orange 1 teaspoon peppercorns 1 sprig thyme 1 bay leaf 1 cup blackberry must*
* If you happen to have some blackberry must laying around, by all means use it. If not, the rest of the ingredients make an excellent cure on their own.
Mix all ingredients minus the must in a food processor. Next add the must a little at a time, enough to color the cure but not so much as to make it soggy. Spread a thick layer of cure on bottom of non-reactive dish, up to 1/4 inch. Lay salmon, skin side up, on top of cure, then pack remaining cure on top of the salmon. Cover salmon with plastic wrap and weight down with a few pounds (e.g., cans from the cupboard). Flip salmon in 12 hours. Salmon is finished after 24 hours. Rinse and dry.
The cured salmon will be darker, with an attractive, slightly purple hue from the must, plus there will be a smattering of blackberry seeds that give it extra texture. Slice thinly off the top and eat within a week. I had mine on pumpernickel with a dollop of creme fraiche and chives.
And remember to kiss that first pink salmon of the season. They're the only species of salmon left in the Lower 48 that gives us a hint of what salmon fishing was once like in the not-so-distant past.
"When the buffalo are gone, we will eat mice, for we are hunters and must have our freedom." - Chief Sitting Bull
Wouldn't you know the day I forget my camera is the day my boy catches his first salmon off the beach—on a Snoopy rod no less. (The photo at left is his second salmon off the beach, taken the next day. He's looking a little more blasé about the whole thing.)
Riley let out a whoop when the fish hit his lure, and I'm sure I probably thought it was a false alarm, some weeds or a bottom snag. But then I saw the Snoopy rod doubled over. Next came the yelling and screaming and carrying on. Other anglers on the beach interrupted their casts to take notice of the commotion. I ran over and set up a station behind the boy, making sure the fish didn't rip the rod right out of his grip. He reeled and kept the tip up like a pro. Pretty soon the fish was in the surf and I figured for sure it would break the line. But Riley held on and pulled that salmon right up onto the beach. The kid knows what to do.
We ate the fillets in two sittings. The heads I saved for something special.
My kids are big soup eaters. Because we live near Seattle's International District, at a tender age they discovered noodle houses and the "subtle yet profound" pleasures of an Asian noodle soup, as one blogger has jokingly put it, parroting cooking shows like "Iron Chef." These soups are so tasty and cheap that I never really considered trying to make my own before, but after reading Hank Shaw's post on the "nasty bits" of fish, I just had to give it a shot. Besides, we're fishermen here at FOTL. When the salmon are gone I suppose we'll fish sculpin; in the meantime we can do honor to our catch by eating every last morsel.
I haven't cooked many fish head soups. None in fact. Luckily we have the Interwebs from which to draw on a nearly bottomless well of inspiration. Two recipes in particular, in addition to Hank's, informed my final improvisation: [eating club] vancouver's Mama's Fish Head Soup is home cooking at its best, and gave me the courage to use canned Szechuan prepared vegetables; a column by Steve Barnes from Albany, N.Y.'s Times Union convinced me that the double-strain was the way to go, and that aromatics such as green onions and cilantro would give the broth extra depth when applied after the first straining.
The advice was good. I have to say, if you'll allow me, this soup was every bit as good as soups I've had in the I-District. Those of little faith might get spooked during the proceedings, especially when the salmon heads are rolling around in there with the leeks and other stuff, going to pieces and spraying their bones about willy-nilly. But that's what the strainer is for. Ever glanced into the kitchen of a back alley noodle house? Not a good idea. But all the crazy stuff going into that bubbling cauldron will eventually get strained out, leaving—yes—a subtle yet profound broth in its place.
Hank's Salmon Head Soup is in the Japanese tradition. We like that—but my kids are most enthusiastic about the many varieties of Chinese noodle soup, so I went down to Uwajimaya to see what ingredients I could dig up. Sure enough, they had the sketchy can of Szechuan prepared vegetables (some sort of radish, I think). I also got some udon noodles, our nod to the Japanese style. Here are the ingredients in full:
2-3 salmon heads, cut in half 2 tbsp peanut or vegetable oil 1 tsp sesame oil (optional) 1 3-inch thumb of ginger, peeled and sliced 2 leeks, tops discarded, chopped 4 green onions, chopped 4-5 cloves garlic, chopped 2 Thai red peppers, thinly sliced Chinese cooking wine 2 tbsp fish sauce (optional) rice vinegar (optional) aji-mirin (optional) 1 can Szechuan prepared vegetable (optional) 1 can bamboo shoots 1/2 head Napa cabbage, shredded 1 handful cilantro for garnish, stemmed, with stems reserved 1 package Asian noodles (e.g., udon, soba, ramen)
Despite the long list and the double strain, this is actually a fairly easy soup to make without the sort of pitfalls that can bedevil other soup recipes.
1. Over medium-high heat, brown fish heads and ginger in oil for a few minutes, turning at least once. De-glaze pot with a splash of wine and add chopped leeks, garlic, and half the green onions and red peppers. Saute together for several minutes.
2. De-glaze pot again with another splash of wine, then add 8 cups of water and optional fish sauce. Bring to a light boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Strain contents, picking and reserving as much salmon meat as possible. Return soup to simmer. Adjust for salt. Add half the remaining green onion and the cilantro stems. (Optional seasoning: Add a tablespoon of each: Chinese wine, rice vinegar, aji-mirin; add a few heaping tablespoons of Szechuan prepared vegetables.) Simmer another 15-30 minutes.
4. Strain soup a second time and return to low heat to keep warm. Dole out reserved salmon meat into bowls, along with noodles, a handful of shredded cabbage, and spoonfuls of both Szechuan prepared vegetables (optional) and bamboo shoots. Ladle soup. Garnish with green onion, cilantro, and Thai red pepper. Serves 4.
Prepared Szechuan vegetables will be hard to find unless you have access to an Asian market. If you can find 'em, I highly recommend. I also recommend the optional seasoning, though you'll be tempering the fish flavor in the process. A second strain with green onions and cilantro stems (or similar aromatics) is de rigeur; this is where the umami effect really kicks into high gear. If you've eaten in a quality noodle house, you know what I'm talking about. How do they do it? I once wondered, savoring every last drop of broth in my bowl.
Award-winning author of Upstream, The Mushroom Hunters and Fat of the Land, Langdon Cook is a writer, instructor, and lecturer on wild foods and the outdoors. Cook has been profiled in Bon Appetit, WSJ magazine, and Salon.com, and his writing has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and online journals including National Geographic Traveler and Eating Well. His on-screen credits include the PBS TV series "Food Forward."
