Farmers_Market

After taking the summer and most of the fall off writing this newsletter, I thought I would reintroduce it with the newly reconstituted “Ask Cap’n Tim” column, where people send in their burning seafood related questions and Cap’n Tim answers them in his own imitable way. Here it is:

Don’t forget to send your questions to Cap’n Tim, and if he likes them, they will be featured in an upcoming blog. If he doesn’t, he will probably just make up some shit and put your name on it. It’s your chance to brush up against fame, so don’t miss it! “What’s good for Cap’n Tim is good for America”. Johnny Appleseed said that.

Fish Stories ……………………………………………………………… by Tim Ports

Every April, right about this time, the same words come out of mouth: “I swear, this is the last year we sell soft shell crabs”. And I mean it every year, too, even though it’s become something of a joke around here. But here we are once again. Asparagus is back, salmon is not, and soft shells are being quoted at prices bordering on criminal. Wronged by a rite of spring. I don’t really hate soft shell crabs, though. What I really hate is everyone’s expectations around them. Here are some of my favorite chefist quotes: “Make sure they are jumping out of the box!” I have never actually seen a soft shell crab jump out of the box after spending my entire adult life doing this. “I’ll need a credit on those dead soft shells you sent me.” Fuck you. We never quote soft shell crabs as “live”. No one back east sells me the crabs as “live” either. They call them “fresh” crabs, so that’s what I call them. “They’re not quite as good as I remember them back in Maryland”. No shit. Let’s take one of the most fragile creatures on the planet, having just shed its exoskeleton, pack it in a box, air ship it 3000 miles with maybe a layover in Phoenix in the middle of the summer, pick it up mid-afternoon so they can make our trucks for next morning delivery, re-pack them to your exacting specs, and yes, I am not surprised they are not as good as they are in Maryland. I know what I look like after such a flight, and I fly coach, not in the unpressurized belly of the plane. But I do like to eat them, even though my wife won’t let me fry them in the house anymore after splattering oil onto the ceiling of the adjacent rooms. So now I fry outside. Like any good hillbilly, not only is my grill outdoors, but so is my frying station. Right out on the back patio. While my neighbors are out there grilling their burgers, the oil is getting hot in my dual fry daddies! It almost makes soft shell crab season tolerable.

In other spring news, as tax time approaches, Steelhead go away. By the time you read this, the last of the wild Steelhead should have made their way through the marketplace. Typically they will back in time for Thanksgiving. Or maybe later. Or maybe earlier, depending on rainfall and water levels of the northern river systems. But when one door closes, another one opens, as they say. We are seeing some Columbia River King Salmon, and the spring run is the good one. Good fat content, decently large fish, stupid expensive, but that should soften a little. If I wasn’t so busy frying soft shell crabs, I would probably be grilling some of these. And there looks to be Alaskan King Salmon right behind them. I don’t expect any of the King Salmon to show up an any “value meals” this year, but they will get cheaper. I mean, they have to. And with that, the Sockeye will be showing up sometime in May, followed by Coho. Both of these should provide some relief from the high prices Kings are commanding. If this year is anything like last year, we will sell more of these two species than ever before.

And let’s not forget Alaskan Halibut. The opener this year was delayed because of all the Halibut still in freezers from last year. And a lot of that fish was put up at higher prices than it will likely go for this year. It’s these times that it’s nice to be a little guy without such problems. “See fish, buy fish, sell fish.” And then we go home. No carrying of inventories from one season til the next for me, thank you. Halibut quotas are significantly lower than they were last year, so in theory, that should support the price. But economic theories don’t always translate to the demand side of the equation, and we are already seeing “dumping”, that is, the selling of fish at any price to make room for the new fish that will have to be “dumped” next week. We try to buy primarily air freight fish, that although a bit more expensive, keeps us out of the dumping grounds of the Seattle brokers. To complicate things just a tiny bit more, early indications are that the California Halibut fishery may come back with a vengeance this year, making up for last years season that wasn’t. Put that in your red acrylic bong and smoke it. I’ll write if I find work.

Fish Stories ……………………………………………………………… by Tim Ports

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING BLOG CONTAINS REFERENCES TO CONVENTIONALLY FARMED FISH. THESE FISH ARE RUMORED TO CONTAIN HIGHER LEVELS OF PCB’S AND MERCURY. READING ANY FURTHER MAY RESULT IN THE SUBSTANTIAL LOWERING OF YOUR IQ.

What happened to all the Atlantic Salmon? Just a month ago, the price was sitting at some all time lows, with what seemed like no end to how low some producers were willing to sell pre-cut fillets for. For a time, it was cheaper than Tilapia, the standard-bearer for cheap farmed fish. As is with most commodities here in the early part of the 21st century, it is a global problem. It all started with friends to the south in Chile. Chile was (and I do mean “was”) one of the largest producers of conventionally farmed salmon in the world. And by many accounts, the most irresponsible as pertains to methodology, both from an aquaculture as well as a business standpoint. They took the aquaculture technology from the Norwegians, who more or less invented it, and turned it against them. But not really, because in many cases the Norwegians actually owned them, either directly or indirectly. Through cheap labor, lax aquaculture standards, and by perfecting the “fish factory” concept, the Chileans came to be the market makers where farmed salmon was involved. With the help of the U.S. government, who conveniently slapped Norway with tariffs that made the sale of their fish in this country prohibitive, Chilean salmon poured into this country through Miami, finding its way to your favorite Costco for $3.99 per lb. Now that should have been a happy ending for all of you free-market god-fearing types, but if you have watched CNN or Fox News or even been listening to NPR, you are probably at least peripherally aware of the cannibalistic nature of unfettered markets in action. Sooner or later, they consume their own endo-skeleton leaving their internal organs lying in an unsupported heap on the ground, waiting for someone to clean up.
None of this would be a problem if the market was capable of distinguishing one conventionally farmed Atlantic Salmon from another. The Chileans would have been the low coast leaders of your basic TGIFridays salmon, while the Canadian, Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian producers would be priced to the relative merits of their farming and business techniques. But it doesn’t work like that. It’s like buying the nicest house in a shitty neighborhood. It will only ever be worth as much as the shitty neighborhood allows. And so it was with Chilean Salmon. They kept all the other producers at “going broke” price levels for years while they dominated the market. Oh sure, occasionally a farm or two would carve out a high end niche for itself, but these wacky few amounted to little more than a pimple on the ass of the salmon industry. If Chilean Salmon was priced at $1.85 per lb. then the Canadians best follow suit or else they could watch their fish grow to the point where it cost more to keep them alive than to kill them.
But nothing lasts forever. In the past couple of years, Chilean Salmon has been decimated by Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA). The actual cause is unknown, but there is no uncertainty about how it spreads in the densely populated pens that Chile is famous for. As a result of the spread of the virus, Chile has closed several farms and expects exports to be off by as much as 50%. Major consumers such as Safeway and Costco have reduced their commitment to Chilean produced salmon. This is red meat (there is a pun in there somewhere) for the anti-fish farming crowd, whose view on this as a long overdue punishment for those engaged in unsustainable methodology is somewhat akin to the Christian Fundamentalist view that AIDS is Gods special way of punishing sinners. As one who has dabbled in sin on occasion, I have always thought it best to hedge your bets by whatever means necessary, so we have never embraced Chilean salmon, no matter what the price.
In all fairness to our Chilean brethren, they did not invent this mess, only perfected it with the technology made available to them by the European multi-nationals that own most of them. And the ISA virus has presented itself to a greater or lesser degree in virtually every conventional salmon farming operation in North America, South America, and Europe at one time or another. But not in anyone’s memory has the economic impact on one country been so great. Nor has one country been able to dictate global pricing to this extent. Aquaculture as we know it is relatively young. In a few short decades it has gone from a few happy hippies with masters degrees digging a hole in the ground and filling it with water to the aquatic version of large scale agribusiness.
Okay, so you take Chile more or less out of the mix, take one of the largest Canadian producers of salmon, Mainstream, out as they work through the natural cycle of their farms for a few months, and add currency fluctuations on both sides of the transaction, and we are left with higher salmon prices for the foreseeable future. What does the poor consumer do? Well, if you are already using one of the premium Atlantic Salmon available (i.e. Scottish, NZ Kings, etc.) you will be less likely to experience quite the same volatility as these fish are less sensitive to commodity pricing. The prices on these will be affected, but it tends to be a more gradual creep than a sudden jump. But maybe, just maybe, this is what needs to happen. The Canadian Salmon that comprises the largest amount of conventionally farmed fish we sell, really is a better product than the Chilean fish. These salmon come from smaller farms that have always attempted to “do the right thing” as far as aquaculture is concerned. While maybe they lack the pedigree of some of the Scottish or Irish fish, they are a premium product in their own right, and ought not be commoditized along the lines of “factory fish”. And when you buy Atlantic Salmon fillet from us, we pull the fish out of the box, scale it by hand, cut it by hand, and deliver daily fish that is cut to order. This fish deserves a premium to Chilean Salmon that is farmed the way it is, filleted by machine, and shipped in the fillet form, and likely is sitting in Styrofoam boxes for five or more days when it finally reaches the end user, who is you by the way. Let the marketplace speak. Or maybe it has spoken, but is speaking in tongues.

From The Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
sus·tain·able
\sə-ˈstā-nə-bəl\
adjective
Date: circa 1727
1: capable of being sustained 2 a: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged <sustainable techniques> <sustainable agriculture> b: of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods <sustainable society>

I like that definition. It’s pretty easy to understand. One of my favorite things to ask people when they start throwing around terms like “sustainable” is what does that mean to them. Not because I know, or want to catch them in the inherent contradictions of their convictions, or want to impart my wisdom on them because I think I am so much smarter. It’s because I really want to know what that means to them. I get the entire range of answers from “well uh, you know, sustainable” to a very detailed diatribe on which farming methods in Scotland are superior to the ones in British Columbia and does the carbon footprint trump catch method when one is weighing the options for imported fish. I try to listen to everybody. So what I have learned can be distilled into this: Every one of us will seek out the evidence to support whatever prejudice we already bring to the table. And the beautiful thing is that there is an abundance of evidence available to us all. We can all be self-righteously right! Because it says so right here! Sustainability has become fashionable, which I find particularly bothersome at times. When an internationally known chef who was once quoted as saying “local fish is anything that shows up at my back door” is chosen as the keynote speaker for a conference on sustainability, the concept is compromised. Seizing “the movement” as marketing opportunity strikes me as bit cynical, yet time tested and effective. Just opening up this month’s issue of Seafood Business, a useful journal if you are the district buyer for Red Lobster, I see a two page ad from Slade Gorton, trumpeting their commitment to sustainability. Now, I need to preface this with saying I know these guys for years and like them for being the old salts that they are, but these are the guys that brought you fish sticks in your school lunch back in 1974. Up until last year, they didn’t even know how to say “sustainable”. A few of us who have been in seafood game for a lot of years were doing sustainable before there was a word for it. Chances are that if you are situated at the high end of quality in this business, you are getting it from a sustainable source. The higher quality the product, the better chance you have that it was fished responsibly. Hook and line rockfish that is caught by hand, brought to dock in ice, and cut by hand? Good, but costs a little more. Drag caught rockfish that is pulled up in nets hundreds of pounds at a time, machine cut, packed in boxes and trucked down from Canada? Cheaper, but probably shittier. You see, chances are that doing the right thing where seafood is concerned may actually cost more on the front end, but you should more than make it up on the back end with quality and shelf life. No one said it was going to be easy.
I like that part of above definition that states “not depleted or permanently damaged”. Clear enough, yet by whose standard? Who does the measuring and what is their agenda? We are all data miners and we have all staked rich claims in the mother lode of information. For my money, I believe the fishermen. When a hook & line fisherman from Bolinas tells me that there is an abundance of Rockfish in an area that is now closed to him, while drag boats still ply their craft a few miles away, I come to distrust the data supplied by the government agencies assigned to protect the resource. Their data and there motives are highly suspect. I believe the fishermen. I do not believe the National Marine Fisheries or California Fish & Game. While probably not in forces with evil, they are in forces with politics, and that can make pimps and whores out of saints if left to their own gravitational pull. Likewise, you would be wise to distrust the seafood industry. They are not a lot different from the oil companies. When I hear of a certain West Coast mega-fish company (no names, they have mega lawyers and I don’t) buying up fishing boats from Alaska to California and trying to game the regulations to favor a quota system that, surprise, favors a quota for the boats they bought at garage sale prices so they can own all the quota on the West Coast, I am reminded of the Warren G. Harding administration. That’s the piece of American history that became known as the Teapot Dome scandal, when our elected officials and their appointees sold off the natural resources of our public lands to the major oil companies of that time. And it is happening again with our oceans. No joke. The truly “sustainable fishermen”, the west coast hook & line Rockfish fisherman, are being marginalized to the point of extinction by the very governing bodies that were designed to protect the resource. While the draggers, a more wasteful method of harvesting by anyone’s definition, enjoy relatively unfettered access to the fish. Guess who has the larger lobbying presence in Sacramento and Washington? You get extra points if you did not say Bolinas hook & line fishermen. And if you think that Greenpeace and the Monterey Bay Aquarium are objective bodies doing the Lord’s good works, I have a governor I want to sell you in Alaska. That’s the governor to nowhere, literally and figuratively.
But I do digress. I buy and sell Atlantic Cod. By all accounts this is a fishery under pressure. But it’s a big fishery with several different catch methods that are all being painted with the same brush by your favorite watchdog groups. When one is buying hook & line caught fish that have reached maturity from artisan (I love that term) fishers, who is being punished by not supporting them? Reward the folks who are doing it right, or are at least approximately right. Don’t buy product that you believe is fished unsustainably. I don’t. See how data mining works? It’s fun, try it yourself.

Instead of bumming you all out with my generally bad demeanor this week I thought I’d write about happy things. Like puppies. Kittens. Good lovin’ gone bad. Or fun facts about Valentine’s Day. So who was this St. Valentine anyway? And how did he come to represent a day of romance, gift giving, sappy cards, and awkward dates? Fittingly, it turns out he was a martyr of some sort. And like any good martyr he was Catholic, although many may take exceptions to Catholics having the corner on the martyr market. Evidently, he refused to deny the savior of the western world to the Emperor Claudius II sometime around 280 AD, and was rewarded by having his head cut off. But not before he performed the miracle of restoring sight to his jailor’s daughter. Didn’t seem to help him much, though. His relics (I guess they saw to it that there were no remains) were buried in Rome and later transported to Dublin, Ireland as some kind of perverse gift to Pope Gregory XVI. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, go ahead and check my facts. So how did we get from there to here? Thank Geoffrey Chaucer. He took the feast of St. Valentine that was celebrated on February 14, and invented the love connection in one of his writings. From there it was a short walk from Hallmark that has morphed in to two top hell for you restaurants. None of any of that may be true, but it is the legend.

So what to serve your patron saints of excess consumption on Valentine’s Day? Red seems to be a popular theme, and there ain’t nothing redder in color or name than Rouget. These are the Red Mullet from the Mediterranean, coincidentally close to where your favorite saint namin’ papal authorities reside. Serve them whole or we can fillet the little guys for you, but bear in mind they are only about 3-4 ounces each in their whole form, so the fillets are but a wisp, but a damn tasty one. Then there are the ever popular Tai Snapper, not a snapper at all, but a bream. These are well suited to either a whole fish presentation, or in fillet form. The skin is pink and crisps up nicely. The Tasmanian Ocean Trout makes a very pretty fillet, with its orangey/reddy hued flesh. Sustainably cultured in Tasmania, they are actually a Steelhead. Kind of like the wild ones only not. These fish are showing up a lot these days in sushi bars and other exotic venues. Of course there is the ubiquitous crab and lobster path, well worn but time tested. Nothing gets you laid faster than playing the big spender on your 2nd date. Or so I hear. While we’re on the subject of spending some coin, there is Nantucket Bay Scallops which may just be the tastiest animal protein on the planet. And of course New Zealand Scampi, or Langostines depending on who you are trying to impress. These are frozen at sea, are a large 3-5 count, are head-on, and have very impressive plate coverage. I almost hate to mention them given the complete lack of reliability on the part of the fishermen, but California Spot Prawns are starting to show up. We generally have these both live and dead, but we prefer the term “fresh” to “dead” Dead implies, well, death, and nobody likes to think about that. Light a candle and maybe they will show up for your Valentine’s Day menu. And if they don’t, there is always the frozen to back it up. I know most of you don’t like to hear it, but often the frozen are better than the fresh. How do you think Japanese restaurants have them 365 days a year? If your Valentine's menu will be including oysters check out our newest delectable from the Northwest, the Shigoku. The grower describes it as an American Kusshi, same grow-out method but the

waters are not as cold so the taste is a little sweeter, and the box they're packed in is so nice you just might want to take it home.

As always, let us know if you have any special needs for the day, and preferably sooner instead of later. To my knowledge, there is no patron saint for air freighting perishables so we have to rely on surly union workers instead.

It’s a new year, so I guess it’s time to get started on my resolution from three years ago and start cranking out a newsletter again. I’ll start small just in case it hurts.

For all of you who require a wild caught salmonid, Steelhead remains the only reasonable game in town. “But aren’t those endangered?” I hear that all the time. You undoubtedly will too, if you put them on your menu. In fact, some journalist from a local publication saw them on the menu of his favorite neighborhood restaurant, inquired as to where they got them, and called me to set a “media trap”. Evidently, he didn’t believe me, because his next calls were to Fish & Game and National Marine Fisheries to extract the truth regarding the selling of endangered species. They all dutifully came to our plant to make sure we were on the right side of the law, which of course, we were. I explained to the journalist that endangered species requires an act of Congress, not an act of the SF Chronicle. Here go the facts: these fish are harvested by Native American tribes on the river systems of the Pacific Northwest, including the Columbia, Hoh, and Quinault Rivers. They are net caught. They are allowed to sell them commercially to whomever they choose. We are allowed to buy them and sell them to you. They are NOT endangered. It is a very small fishery that ebbs and flows depending on precipitation, temperature, and the amount of fresh water entering the rivers. They are actually an ocean run rainbow trout that get their red/orange color from their diet, just like their incestuous cousins, the salmon. They are anadromous, meaning they live their lives in salt water, but spawn in freshwater. Try that at home.

In other Salmon news, we are currently carrying a “sustainably cultured” Scottish Salmon. These are coming from the Shetland Islands, and are damned nice. So what does “sustainably cultured” mean? I suppose different things to different people, and there are no such standards set up by USDA as of yet. There are, however, European Union standards for organic seafood, and these fish do meet, if not, exceed the standards set up by the European Organic gendarme. But remember, and this is important: You can’t call them organic in the US. Now say it again: You can’t call them organic in the US. So what does “sustainably cultured” mean to me? I think of them as “free range salmon”. Low pen density. No artificial colorants. Natural feedstock. Minimal use of antibiotics. Allowing pens to go fallow. Farms set up in areas with high tidal exchange. None of this would be worth a damn if it didn’t yield a superior product. I think it does. I know that some who read this (no names need be mentioned) feel very different about farmed salmon and ocean-farmed fish in general. Despite how I may sound, however, I am not completely convinced of my own rightness. But I do believe there are farms that are doing the right thing and are taking aquaculture in the right direction and these farms need to be verified and supported. All that being said, give me a nice fat California King Salmon caught in late August by my favorite fisherman Mark Wagner anyday.

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