Eels: Lunch, Slip Sliding Away…

I can remember the first time I caught an eel. It was in the Royal River in Pownal Maine, using an earthworm on the bottom. Though perhaps only 10 miles from the sea as the crow flies the eel had followed the river inland for some 40 miles. But that’s what eels do.

I was a latchkey kid — probably why I spent so much time in the woods alone — and my mother was not at all happy to see 12-year-old me lugging home an eel. While her mother prized eels my mother did not. She said even when dead they wiggled when being cooked in the frying pan. No problem. I was already cooking for myself because my mother was a horrible cook. (I tell people she thought I was a Greek god. Every meal was either a burn offering or a sacrifice.) The eel I cooked tasted great.

In a word, eels are fish,usually brown, green, olive or black, with a light or yellow stomach. There are five species in cooler waters, ten in warm waters, one in Europe. While they live in fresh water, on shallow bottoms, after a set number of years (8 for males, 13 for females, 25 if landlocked) their yellow belly turns silver and they swim to the deep Sargasso Sea between Bermuda and Puerto Rico.  There they spawn and each female eel can produce as many as 10 million baby eels. The resulting little eels drift for a year upon the currents then select a fresh water area to live, from eastern North America to the rivers of western Europe. Thus my first eel had traveled several thousand miles. They’ve also been eaten around the world in nearly every country.

Eels live on the bottom and are are scavengers, like crabs and lobsters. Perhaps that contributes to their distinctive taste. They also eat small fish and mollusks. They are high in omega 3 fatty acids as well as vitamins A, B1, B2, D and E. Eels are about 71 percent water, 17% protein and 11 percent fat.

Catching eels depends on the time of year. The best time is when they head downriver to the sea to spawn. They are at maximum size and health then. And since they don’t all go every year there is always a migration. Eels usually travel at night in late summer and early autumn. In warm months they will take a baited hook. In the winter they can hibernate on the river or lake bottom often in great numbers (when they are taken by spears.) Young eels can be taken by baited hooks or traps.  Here in Florida eels can live in canals, particularly in the southern end of the state.

Most commonly folks fish in estuaries from around 7 p.m. on using chicken liver, blood worms, squid strips even smelly old beef for bait.  Eels prefer dead food. Cast about every two minutes into coves and shallower water where it runs in to deeper areas of the river. A fire on shore helps to attract them. A smaller hook works better than a larger hook. In turn you can use them for bait for larger fish, such as striped bass.  Wait for a tug on the line, wait  for a second tug then set the hook. I caught mine on a tiny gold hook intended for pan fish. And since the eel swallow the hook there was no possible compromise. My mother still complains about that first eel. After that she just gave up.

Once you have an eel you can dispatch it like other fish (they are slippier) or take it home and put it in deep container and toss in a cup of salt or so. Oddly that will kill them in a couple of hours and clean some of the slime away.  Commercially eels are dispatched by putting them in a tank and stunning them with electricity. Eels must be thoroughly cleaned especially on the outside. All traces of slime must be removed. This can include scraping the skin. When gutting an eel (if you are not using the skin to cook it in) cut from just behind the head to the very end of its tail. Incidentally, eel skin is very tough and has been used to make door hinges.

To smoke cleaned eels, soak them in brine for 10 minutes (or more.) To make the brine use nine to 10 ounces of salt to a quart of water. Drain. Smoke at  95F /30C for one hour, the one hour at 120F/40C and finish with one hour at  170F/77C.

To can the same eels soak them in brine for 15 minutes. Then follow the same drying procedure. Afterwards pack them into a can, cover with a vegetable oil heated to 230F/110C and seal and heat process at 230F/110C. A seven ounce can takes one hour.

If you want to know how old the eels is it will tell you. Eels (and perch) have a bone under the gill cover. Remove it and count the rings. Just like a tree, one ring for each year alive. Oh, if you catch a Moray eel in tropical waters don’t eat it. It is best to consider it toxic to humans.

Eel Stifle

2 pounds peeled potatoes sliced thin

6 onions also peeled and sliced thin

2 pounds of eel cut into 3-inch pieces, or so

2 cups milk

1/4 pound salt pork diced

Flour

Salt

Pepper

Butter or oil a casserole large enough to hold everything. Put a third of the potatoes and onions on the bottom. Sprinkle with some flour, salt and pepper. Add a layer of eel, using half of them. Repeat the layer this time also adding half of the salt pork. Put the remaining potatoes and onions on top, sprinkle with the remaining salt pork. Add the milk. Cook in a preheated oven at 350F for an hour or so until tender. Should serve six, or one teenager.

 Grilled Eel

2 pounds of eel

About a third of a cup of olive oil

Paprika, a pinch or two, or half a teaspoon

Sage, about 10 fresh leave chopped or less dried

Salt Pepper

Mix the seasoning with the oil. Let set for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile cut the eel in to three inch pieces. Wipe dry. Set the eel in the mix. Salt and pepper to taste. Heat broiler or  start grill. Put eel on oven proof pan (four inches under broiler) or on grill. Cook 10 minutes. Turn pieces. Baste with mixture.  Cook ten more minutes or until done (light golden brown.)

Jellied Eel

* 2 eels, cleaned, gutted and skinned (about two pounds)

* ¾ pint water

* 5 tbsp white wine vinegar

* 10 black peppercorns

* 1 bay leaf

* Salt

* Knob of butter

Chop the eels into pieces a couple of inches big

Grease a casserole dish with the butter

Put the eel pieces in the dish with the rest of the ingredients and season with the salt

Put the lid on the casserole dish and bake in the oven on gas mark 3, 170 c, 325 F for about an hour

Let the eel and its liquor cool before putting in the fridge over night until the liquid has ‘jellied’

 Stewed Eel

* 2 eels, cleaned, gutted and skinned

* 1 pt fish stock

* 1 oz butter

* 2 tbsp milk

* 1 tbsp plain flour

* Salt and pepper

Chop the eels into 2 inch pieces

Melt the butter in a saucepan then add the flour, stir well and cook for a minute

Slowly add the stock and bring to the boil, stirring all the time

Add the pieces of eel and simmer for about an hour

Add the milk and salt and pepper to taste

Serve immediately with the sauce on the side

ENGLISH EEL PIE

Skin, clean, and cut up two large eels. Cook with one tablespoon of butter, half a cup of chopped mushrooms, a tablespoon of chopped parsley, a minced onion, a bay leaf, salt, pepper, the rind of a lemon, a wine glass of Sherry, and a cup of beef stock. Cook until the eels are tender, strain the sauce, and thicken with butter and flour. Line a baking dish with pastry, put the eels in it, and pour the sauce over, with sliced hard boiled eggs on top. Cover with pastry, brush with yolk of egg, and bake for an hour in a moderate oven. Serve either hot or cold.

EELS À LA LONDON

Fry four chopped onions in butter, dredge with flour, and cook thoroughly. Add two cups of stock, half a cup of Port wine, two bay leaves, and salt and pepper to season. Cook until thick, stirring constantly. Add one large cleaned eel, cut into two-inch lengths, cover, and cook for fifteen minutes. Serve on toast.

Achilles’ Eel

2       tb          Olive oil

2       lb          Eel cut into 3 inch pieces

1/2     lb          Onions — roughly chopped

3                    Sun-dried tomatoes (in oil) roughly chopped and soaked in

2       tb          Boiling water or

1       tb          Tomato paste instead

3/4    lb          Tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped

1/2    ts          Honey

1       tb          Fresh thyme or

1/2    ts          Greek “Mountain” thyme

1                    Bay leaf crumbled

1                    Zest of one lemon

1       tb         Lemon juice

2                   Garlic cloves, minced

1       cup       Finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1       tb          Finely chopped fresh mint

1/2    lb          Feta cheese, crumbled

Salt to taste

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

In a heavy skillet or wide flameproof casserole, heat  2 tablespoons olive oil and saute the eel pieces until are well-browned on all sides.  Remove from the pan and add another tablespoon oil if necessary. Add the onions and fry gently until translucent. Pound the sun-dried tomatoes, if using, to a paste. Add to the pan with the chopped tomatoes, honey, thyme, bay leaf, lemon zest, and garlic and simmer for 10-12 minutes until the sauce begins to thicken. Return the eel pieces to the sauce and stir in the parsley, mint, and salt and pepper to taste.  Move to a baking dish or earthenware casserole, if necessary. Strew with the crumbled feta and shake the dish, so the cheese settles a little.  Sprinkle with lemon juice. Bake in an oven preheated to 350F for about 30 minutes.

Chicken and Ostrich eggs

  Eggs for Survival and Food

Eggs would seem like a simple foraging topic and it is, and it is not. My copy of the U.S Department of the Army Field Manual on Survival doesn’t mention eggs. Think about that. It tells you how to dangeroulsy test a leaf for edibility yet does not cover the topic of eggs. Of the dozen or so survival manuals I have only two lists eggs: Ray Mear’s Outdoor Survival Handbook and Survival in the Outdoors by Byron Dalrymple.

Perhaps I chose the wrong books to put in my personal library or maybe survival writers just don’t think much about eggs but they should. Not only are eggs nearly the perfect food but they have been on the menu for as long as man has been eating. And there are more than just bird eggs. There are reptile and fish eggs, the latter a very common part of the Native Americn diet. (I think we will leave snail eggs for bait. Look for clusters of white or pink pearls on the stems of water plants above the water line.)

Nearly all bird eggs are edible, and at any state of incubation. I say nearly because there are two poisonous birds, the Hooded Pitohui and the Ifrita kowaldi, both of Papua, New Guinea. Whether their eggs are edible is unanswered. The toxin is in the birds’ skin and feathers. If I may digress a minute.

One of two toxic birds

Pitohui (Pitohui dichrous, left) is orange and black. That is an extremely common coloration for toxic creatures. Numerous non-edible insects are colored orange and black as are some reptiles. It is not a coincidence that warning road signs are orange and black. It is a “danger” coloration that has been with us for a long time. Recognize it.

The Hooded Pitohui’s poison is homobatrachotoxin. It comes from its diet of Choresine beetles. I is a prime example why you can’t use animals as an indicator of what humans can eat. Birds can eat arsenic, squirrels strychnine, deer poison ivy.  The beetles are  the probable source of the deadly batrachotoxins found in Poison Dart Frogs. Technically that poison is a steroidal alkaloid neurtoxin, a sodium-channel blocker. It stops a cell from pumping sodium around preventing it from letting nerve signals go through.  Gram for gram one of the most powerful natural toxin known.

Local natives called the Pitohui the “rubbish” bird. If driven by hunger to eat the bird they rub the meat first with charcoal. Pitohuis raised in captivity are not toxic. The second toxic bird in New Guinea, Ifrita kowaldi, is known locally as the “bitter bird” and gets it toxin from the same beetles. It’s clearly a case of you are what you eat. The lubber grasshopper is not fatally toxic to large mammals but it can make you sick.

So, all bird eggs are edible (except perhaps those of the wild Pitoui and Ifrita.) They are edible at any stage of development, and in some cultures incubated duck eggs are a delicacy called balut. They are not cooked but eaten raw, developing feathers, entrails and all. Duck eggs, incidentally, are preferred by some for cake baking because they have a large yoke and add intensify the yellow color. They are, however, more rubbery than chicken eggs particularly when you fry them and wild duck eggs can be “gamey”.

Among the common fowl eggs eaten are chicken, ostrich, ducks, goose, quail, turkey, peacock, pheasant, plover,  partridge, emu, pelican and gull eggs. Most wild bird eggs are protected so if you are going to consume them make sure it is an emergency, limit your witnesses, eat the evidence. Don’t forget that if you butcher a chicken or an iguana or the like there will be unlaid eggs in various stages of development in the creature. My great grandmother, May Eudora Dillingham, was particularly fond of unlaid hens’ eggs.  When you take them from the hen they are soft shelled, pliable and decrease in size, but they are all edible as is.

Roasting an egg with an open fire is neither difficult nor easy. It’s in between. I’ll describe how to do it with a chicken eggs since that is what most people will have to train with. Eggs have two ends, one is fatter and one is skinnier. With your knife gently tap a small hole in the top of the fat end. Widen that hole to about the size of a nickel. With a small stick or the like pierce the air membrane and yoke (this is to prevent the egg from exploding, and it will if especially if you don’t open the end of the egg and pierce the yolk.)

Next nestle your egg open end up in some coals near the fire. Sometimes the content will expand, sometimes it will not. A large chicken egg takes about 10 minutes to cook this way. After five minutes rotate the egg 180 degrees so the cold side is now next to the fire.  In about 10 minutes your egg will be done… read the white will be cooked, a bit rubbery, and the yoke will be cooked but not hard like a hard boiled egg, but not flowing either. A goose egg takes about 20 minutes, same treatment. Quail eggs can cook in four minutes, two minutes each side. It takes some experience and judgment.

So, next time you have an outdoor fire, even a barbeque, practice cooking eggs the mesolithic way but remember to open and pierce the yoke or it will explode loudly and throw egg and shell everywhere… On the other hand, if you want to put loud surprises in the campfire of the enemy…. Eggs can also explode in the microwave. A little known fact: If you have eggs and tomatoes to eat you can get all nutrition and calories you need to stay healthy. Remember that the next time you are on some deserted desert isle.

Turtle eggs

Now what about reptile eggs? We have to be more exclusive with reptile eggs. Eggs laid in water or a jell are not worth the effort which excludes frogs and toads (though they might be bait.)  Turtle eggs are prime eats, sea or fresh water, and a favorite of one of my grand uncles, Arthur Blake (eldest son of Mae E. Dillingham mentioned above) who also had a prodigious appetite. He could eat 18 eggs at a sitting, and was never fat. Again, remember many turtles, particularly sea turtles, are protected and the fines for a turtle egg omelet are high and usually include jail time.

Iguana eggs are edible as are alligator eggs but remember mother alligators are very protective of their eggs and young (I know this from first hand experience. If you want to know more details, email me.)  Snake eggs are edible but know dad and mom King cobra protect their nest.  Burmese Python eggs are about twice the size of chicken eggs and like many reptiles have leathery shells rather than fragile ones. The problem with snake eggs are they are often difficult to find as they are in logs, under rocks and otherwise buried, though I recently found some on a bank while hiking in a swamp.

There is a report out of India in March 2010 of some boys being sickened by eating snake eggs, and one dying. However, what the one boy died of and whether they had snake eggs at all is contested. Given the sanitary conditions of the area and the age of the boys, what they ate and what caused their illness is rather unknown. If it were snake eggs it would have not only been unusual but rather singular. There have been no follow ups on the report.

Cavier from different species

Next on the list is fish eggs, called roe or when prepared a particular way, caviar. Commonly consumed fish eggs are Cod. Hake, Herring, Mullet, Salmon, Shaker, Shad, Steelhead, Striped Bass, and Sturgeon, the latter perhaps the most famous fish eggs of all. Fish eggs were a significant part of the diet of many Native Americans. That said, the eggs of the freshwater fish, Gar, are toxic to humans as are the eggs of the salt water fish Cabezon. Skip those two. Fish eggs can be fried, boiled, baked, brined or dried. As for preservation there are two or three common methods. One is drying, one is making caviar, and the last is fermenting, which is really not fermenting but controlled rotting. Drying is accomplished many ways but usually sun and salt are involved, or at least a dehydrator and salt. A good example is Bottarga which is salted, cured small fish eggs (salmon eggs do not make good Bottarga.) It is often ground and used as a seasoning on seafood and pasta dishes. It tastes a bit fishy but not in an offensive way, and quite salty. It is an excellent way to preserve an excess of fish eggs and will last for about a year. Besides using small fish eggs the roe should be “ripe” which means you can see the eggs in the sac they are in. They are also uniform in color and not too watery.

Drying fish eggs

To make Bottarga soak the roe skeins in saltwater overnight. Lay out paper towels on a board or the like and pat the roe dry. Put the skeins in a bowl and coat lightly with olive oil. Transfer them one skein at a time to a bowl of coarse salt and coat with salt. Put the salted skeins on new dry paper towels so they are not touching. Put the roe in a cool, dry place. You don’t have to refrigerate them. The salt will draw out the moisture so you will have to keep replacing the paper towels and re-salting the skeins. They must always have a coat of salt on them. Somewhere between two to seven days the roe will be cured. At this stage they are soft and cannot be ground up. You can let them sit for weeks or months and at the latter stages they will be dry enough to grind. Ground roe is considered prime pasta flavoring, like grated cheese on top. Put finished roe in a sealed plastic bag or a glass jar in the frig or the freezer. It will keep for about a year. Don’t grind some until you want to use it.

To make caviar use small fish eggs that are less than a day old. An oily aroma is natural but reject any eggs that smell of spoilage. Gently remove the eggs from their skein and put in a bowl. You’ll get about 1.5 cups of eggs from a half-pound skein. Remove any pieces of membrane, blood, and bits of intestine or skin.

Snake eggs, note the oblong shape

For each 1.5 or so cups of cleaned eggs, make a brine from one-half-cup of salt and 2 cups cold water. Put the eggs into the brine, mix, and let set for at least 30 minutes (so the eggs can absorb the brine.) Strain the caviar, rinse in cold water, drain. Store in tightly covered jars in the frig. It can remain good for several weeks, or as long as the flavor is good. Served chilled. Discard if you detect spoilage. The same eggs can be processed into bait as well. To make non-edible bait the skeins are cut into bait-size pieces along natural divides and dusted with borax. Dry in a cool area for one to two days. Then seal and store in the frig or freezer. THEY ARE NOT EDIBLE as borax is not good for us. The bait is wrapped in a small piece of nylon (stocking) or the like and then put on the hook. The eggs then “milk,” that is, when in water they release an odor other fish like.

Fermenting eggs is not what it sounds like. Called by American natives as “stinky eggs” it is rotting them to a particular flavor stage. The same is done with beaver tail, seal flippers, fish heads et cetera. The problem is ancient methods worked well but modern materials do not so there have sporadic cases of botulism when tradition methods and materials were not used.  To quote the Public Health Agency of Canada from 2001:

“Harvested salmon roe is placed in a grass-lined shallow dug-out in the ground. The dug-outs are usually in shaded areas to keep the eggs cool. Roe is covered with grass or moss, and left to ferment for a few days. Time for fermentation varies with ambient temperature conditions. The fermented roe is stored at room temperature and consumed within a few days.

Salmon heads, beaver tails, and seal flippers are some of the traditional food items that are similarly fermented by various Aboriginal groups in Canada. The extent of consumption practices for these food items within a community, and between communities, is difficult to ascertain. On the West Coast, these delicacy items are generally felt to be more popular among Elders than the younger generation.

Traditional foods are now prepared using non traditional materials such as plastic containers or glass jars. Fish, or meat, to be fermented is stored in closed containers at room temperatures. Presence of an anaerobic environment, heat and moisture increase the probability that any Clostridium botulinum spores will germinate, grow and produce the toxin. “

If you are going to try “fermenting” fish eggs please do more research on it and use the old method.  (Some natives would put fish heads on a string and leave them in a flowing stream for a few weeks to “ferment” them.)

The word “egg” didn’t start out spelled that way. It was “oeg” and competed with “ey” plural “eyren.” By 1500 in English both words were used and it caused some confusion. When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock in 1620 you could have fried eyrens or oegs. “Egg” prevailed by the late 1600s and omelets haven’t been the same since. Here’s a recipe for deviled eggs from 25 BC Rome (“deviled” means spicy. See a separate article for  fish sauce.)

“Make a small hole in each egg to let out the air, which might break the egg during boiling. Put the eggs into cold water. Bring to the boil and cook for about 5 minutes, then leave to cool. Peel the eggs and cut them in half. For 5 eggs, finely crush 1 clove of garlic with some pepper and 5 anchovies. Add the egg yolks and pound smooth. Add a little olive oil and a little wine and stir well. Pile the mixture into the egg whites.”

Here’s some salmon egg curing method’s from Mark’s daily Apple.

•    Fill a large bowl with warm (around 100 ºF) water and a generous amount of salt. You’re basically creating a brine.
•    Place the roe in the water and let it sit there for half an hour.
•    After half an hour, rinse the roe in warm water and carefully remove the skeins (the sacs holding the eggs together).
•    Once all the skeins have been removed, including the bits, place the eggs back in the brine for a few minutes.
•    Strain out the brine. Shake the colander to get the eggs as dry as possible, then place into sterilized canning jars. The roe will be good for a couple weeks in the fridge and longer in the freezer.
Here’s a basic soy-sauce cure:
•    Run the roe under warm water, about as hot as you can handle, to help you remove the skeins. Do this over a colander to prevent any lost roe.
•    Once all the skein has been removed, place the rinsed and cleaned roe into a glass container.
•    Add soy sauce and any other seasonings (sake and mirin are popular) and stir until all eggs are evenly coated. Cover the container and place in the fridge.
Enjoy for the next few days. Freeze what you don’t eat. A vacuum sealer will get you the most air-tight seal, but you’ll want to pre-freeze the roe to keep them from being crushed. If you don’t have a sealer, you can just stick them in a good ziplock bag and suck the air out with your mouth, then put that ziplock into another ziplock freezer bag (suck the air out of that one, too).

What if you have a seasonal glut of chicken eggs which can happen on the farm. Take the eggs –unwahsed, that’s very important DO NOT WASH THEM — and put the eggs whole in Lime Water. (That’s one tablespoon of slaked lime per quart of water, also called CAL, aka calcium hydroxide,use to nixtamalize corn, easy to buy in Mexican markets called CAL) I have four dozen eggs store that way now. They can stay good for one or two years that way. 

Intentionally rotted herring, surstromming

Fish Sauce, Rotten Meat, and Other Garbage

There was a great scene from an episode of Barney Miller, a popular sitcom in the 70’s based in a police quadroom. Sgt. Wojohowitz — Polish — is passing Sgt. Nick Yamana — Japanese — who is eating his lunch with chops sticks. Wojohowitz looks at what Yamana is eating and says it smells like garbage.

“Garbage?” replies Yamana. “That’s an ancient Chinese delicacy… it’s got fish heads, cabbage leaves, carrot peels, radish roots…[he pauses]… come to think of it, it IS garbage!”

Hunger no doubt drove ancient man to eat rotten food. But being the animal that he is, man also developed a taste for the same. Amongst northern latitude natives a wide variety of foods were buried to make them rot. The answer to “why” is different flavors and textures, nutritional changes and sometimes preservation. Fish heads and eggs, beaver tails, seal flippers, whale blubber, sharks et cetera were all subject to rotting when they could have been prepared more conventional  ways.  (See “Eggs.” )  Where I grew up many a deer taken in hunting season was hung from a tree for a few weeks to “season.” And some folks felt a pheasant was not good to eat until it was hung by the neck until the body dropped off from rotting.

Cheese is perhaps the best represented example of rotted food in modern society. Saurkraut is also well known. Kimchi, buried for months, is popular in the orient. Rotted fish, such as Surstromming (Herring) or Hakarl (shark) is not widely consumed.

Canned anchovies, which taste far different than fresh anchovies, are the best example of semi-rotted fish still consumed widely. They are, for example, the major flavoring in Pasta Puttanesca, disintegrating and disappearing completely in the dish.  Their preserving process gives them a particular flavor, one that goes back thousands of years.

Fish sauces range from ancient Roman recipes to Asian fish sauces to Worcestershire Sauce. What? You didn’t know Worcestershire Sauce is a fish sauce based on anchovies? Now you do. Worcestershire Sauce  is modern version of a very old sauce called Garum. Here’s a Roman recipe:

“Take small fatty fish (for example, sardines) and a well-sealed container with a 26-35 quart capacity. Add dried, aromatic herbs possessing a strong flavor, such as dill, coriander, fennel, celery, mint, oregano, and others, making a layer on the bottom of the container; then put down a layer of fish (if small, leave them whole, if large, use pieces) and over this, add a layer of salt two fingers high. Repeat these layers until the container is filled. Let it rest for seven days in the sun. Then mix the sauce daily for 20 days. After that, it becomes a liquid.”

Here is a second one:

Chop small fish into tiny pieces. Add fish eggs and the entrails of sardines and sprats. Beat together until they become an even pulp. Set the mixture in the sun to ferment (rot) beating occasionally.  Wait six weeks or until evaporation has reduce the liquid content of the pulp. Drain the pulp (called liquamen)  into the jars. Use sparingly. It is strong in taste and flavor.

The above is for primitive purposes. Here are a couple of modern versions.

JOSEP MERCADER’S “GARUM”

560 g black olives, stones removed.
16 anchovy fillets, soaked in water for 1 hour and patted dry
1 hard-boiled egg yolk
90 g capers
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon grainy mustard
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh marjoram, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, finely chopped
1 teaspoon white pepper
60 ml olive oil

Mix all ingredients together in blender or food processor until light and fluffy. Puree the mixture in a food mill or push it through a sieve with a wooden spoon. Return to the blender or food processor and process briefly to obtain a smooth paste. Refrigerate.

Note: Do not substitute fresh herbs with dry as they will not puree properly, either omit, experiment with other fresh herbs, or increase the amounts of parsley.

 Quick Garum.

Cook a quart of grape juice, reducing it to one-tenth its original volume. Dilute two tablespoons of anchovy paste in the concentrated juice and mix in a pinch of oregano. (From A Taste of Ancient Rome.)

Perhaps I am being a stickler here but I have a hard time calling the intentional rotting of meat “fermentation.” Fermenting is usually the process of changing carbohydrates into something else, usually alcohol as in beer and wine or tartness as in yogurt and curdled milk. Rotting meat is the break down of proteins. There is no doubt that “fermented” sounds better than “rotting” and no doubt they are altering the original food. But, as a consumer I think we need to know the difference between the two.  Often. however, in some commercial operations a starch or a sugar is added to the meat so that bacteria can actually consume the added carbohydrates, which technically is “fermenting.” The reason for doing this, past flavor, is to insure a rapid growth of good bacteria which then reduces or shuts out the growth of bad bacteria.

Interestingly, the biggest health problem with rotting foods today is using modern utensils rather than doing it the way the ancients did. North America Indians who use plastic bags and glass containers to rot fish eggs or beaver tails rather than a grass-lined hole in the ground in the forest have suffered fatal cases of botulism. They also rot foods at a warmer temperature than in the past prompting botulism. Meats should be rotted below 40F or better 37F. You want to avoid growing botulism. It’s toxin is powerful. One gram can kill 1.5 million people.

There are several ways to inhibit the growth of botulism and subsequent toxin. High acid content (pH lower than 4.6 and use vinegar stronger than 4%) high sugar content (more than 50%) high salt content (7% or more)  high alcohol content, dehydration, and or refrigeration below 37F. You may ask how does one get temperatures below 37F long ago? The answer is the natives would rot these foods at the end of the harvest season, usually in the fall when in that part of the world winter was coming and temperatures dropping. Also, the permafrost was … ah… permanent frost so that helped a lot as well.

We have so many choices in food and flavor today that it is difficult to convey the diet of hunter gatherers. They had few spices and the menu just didn’t change much. You would have the same thing to eat for months at a time. Thus any change was welcomed, and that included rotted foods.  The point of this article is those little fish and cleaned bits you might toss away can be made into a condiment, one you might find tasty if you do it right.

The word “botulism” comes from the Dead Latin word Botulus which means sausage. The disease was called “botulism” because it was first reported in Wildbad, Germany  in 1793.  Thirteen people ate blood sausage there and got botulism. Six died. Incidentally there is the “Handbook of Fermented Meat and Poultry” by Fidel Toldra. A scholarly book for professionals, at last check it was selling for $240.

Over looked seafood

Emerita: Mole Crab Munchy Crunchies

Mole crabs are probably the most common ugly food there is, though most people don’t know they’re edible.

Fishermen view the mole crab as great bait for such fish as pompano, red drum and kingfish.  Sea birds find them a tasty morsel. Rakes are sold to specifically dig them out of the swash zone where they hide in the sand snagging little bits of food floating by. Not too many folks, though, also eat the bait. The main reason is they are small, but, big flavors can come in small packages. I have a video on Mole Crabs and Coquina here  and an article on Coquina  here.

Mole crabs, also called the Atlantic Sand Crab, are certainly among the smallest of crabs. They are oval, usually some shade of beige, darker on top, lighter on bottom, and have five pairs of legs but no pincers. The females grow to about an inch long and the males half that size.  On the east coast of the Americas lives the Emerita talpoida (above) and the on the west coast E. analoga. Emerita is latin for retired female professor. Talpoida is from the Latin root “talpus” and classical Latin word “talpa “ which came from the longer Greek word of tiflopodikas. It means “mole” and very apt because these little crustaceans are quick diggers.  They dig into the sand butt first and face the incoming waves. Brave little beasts but they don’t want to be washed higher up the beach. When the wave recedes they pop up slightly to catch food in the outflow. Analoga means similar but slightly different. There are several species of Emerita and to my knowledge all edible.

Among the more interesting features of the mole crab is that some of them are bioluminescent when handled at night. Also, they eat bits of Portuguese Man of War tentacles. They wrap the loose tentacle around a leg like yarn and nibble away. While I have read of no warning it might not be wise to eat mole crab when there has been large seasonal numbers of those stinging jelly fish around. Incidentally, the mole crab is fastidious. It uses antenna to clean itself.

So, how do you eat them? Many ways but raw is not one of them. While most sea food is safe they can harbor parasites. Best to avoid any complications by cooking them. They are prepared three or four different ways.

One is to simply drop them into hot, deep oil and fry. When they float they are done and  just pop them in, shell and all (I eat shrimp shells and find them delicious.)   A second way is to pull off their small tail, which takes some of their digestive system with it, squeeze them to get more digestion out, wash them, and then fry them as is or in a batter.  Another way is to cover them whole (or cleaned) with fresh water and bring to a boil and boil for about 20 minutes. Then put them and the broth in a large container and mash the mole crabs with a potato masher or the like. Then filter that liquid and use as a basis for various soups. (One similarly cooks coquina — minus the mashing — and just uses the broth.) When you cook mole crabs they turn red just like crabs and lobsters do and you will detect the definite aroma of seafood.

In southeast Asia they are deep fried then dipped in honey. In Brazil, where they are called Tatui (Emerita brasiliensis) there are many ways to prepare them. The simplest is to just fry them whole in a little butter. Another way is to boil them until red and then toss them in a pan with oil, salt and pepper. After stirring to coat flour is added to coat and cook. Then they are arranged on the plate in a whole with the seasoned flour on top.  Natives also eat the roe raw off the large female3s.

The easiest time to dig them up in just before low tide or just after the low tide has turned and is coming in. They are found usually only on sandy beaches where the waves break. If you train your eye you will learn to see two little antenna popping up as the mole crabs senses the pressure of an incoming wave, and then disappearing as the wave recedes. You will also find them in the same spot as coquina who also use the wave action for food.

MOLE CRAB CHOWDER

1 to 2 pounds of live mole crabs

2 cups of water

2 to 3 red onions, chopped

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon butter

½ teaspoon parsley, minced

2 to 4 more cups of water

1 cup noodles, rice, or potatoes, not cooked

flour or toasted wheat flour

Steam the crabs in a covered pan with 2 cups of water until they are tender, about 20 minutes. Remove from the stove and, with the crabs still in the broth, mash thoroughly with a potato masher. Strain through cheesecloth, retaining the broth and discarding the crabs. Next, fry the onions to a golden color in the oil and butter, and mix with the broth in a saucepan. Add the parsley and two cups of broth. Heat the broth and add either the noodles, rice, or potatoes. Remember to add sufficient water to cook the quantity of ingredient you add. The broth and chowder may also be thickened.