Cape Native

Scallop saturation, back to the flats

It's a curious thing when the abundance of a delicacy can result in over-saturation, or maybe over-satiation. For example, is it true that one can eat striped bass for too many nights in a row? I would answer in the affirmative, and that is why my extended family, neighbors and even roofers have been happy that I chase the great striped fish. If you have a method for handling more than a week of striper, let me know, I'm open to suggestions. But then, what makes one salivate is so subjective.

          Appetite aside, while the hunt for bass never seems to grow old, panning for shelled gold can run a little low on the adrenaline-producing scale. And so our scallop harvest has gone. Case in point, after harvesting, opening and eating scallops for weeks, we bought a half bushel for fifteen bucks from someone who did a short drag in the wind-blown, churned-up Bay. For us it was no cold fingers, no walking waist deep in the water, just an exchange of short money and a lightning-fast opening session.

          I have to admit I had already become bored and set off on a quahogging mission. We skipped all the high-falootin' scallop concoctions and started dropping raw scallops in bowls of chowdah - an affair that lasted four days and a few dinner parties. I had enough to make a chowder base to freeze, which is always fun to break out when the flats are iced in. Note to self: never make quahog chowder again, if at all possible. Once spoiled by the sweet, buttery meats of steamers in a chowder and you will never go back to the tough, nutty 'hogs.

          Friends and family enjoyed the quahog chowder, with added scallops, but I felt the need to redeem myself in the eyes of the chowder gods, and I headed out for soft-shelled clams. I'm happy to report there were many, and they were easy to catch, in my favorite well-flushed saltwater spot. I did have to deal with handfuls of mud being thrown at me while I dug. The boots-off, wet socks toddler also took a fancy to plunging a clam rake into the basket of steamers, breaking a few. I redirected him by making a family friend of a seagull and we threw broken clams at the bird, who happily took the chum off our hands.

          The steamers are purging away in the garage fridge. Purging steamers is absolutely, completely and totally essential to a good chowder or a nice fresh steamer dipped in butter. Some folks put cornmeal in saltwater or brine to aid in the cleansing, but I prefer a good long soak in ocean or bay water.

          For a steamer chowder, you can open the clams, saving the liquor, peel back the membrane from the 'neck', and chop the bellies, discarding the necks. To make life easier, we steam open the clams, save the broth, open the clams and chop the meats. I'm trusting you have your own chowder recipe, which must never include cream. If you have some scallops, throw a raw handful into each bowl just before serving.

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Scallop harvest

          Let's get one thing straight. Cape Codders pronounce 'scallops' like 'wallops' or maybe like 'trollops', but never like 'gallops'. Now that we have that bit of business covered, I'm happy to report that the delectable little treasures are making themselves available to the drag or the rake, and four days into my area's season, there were still plenty to be had.

          Opening day for bay scallops featured a double whammy of rainy conditions and a huge amount of water pushed into the estuary by the heavy Northeast winds that prevailed for many days. On the subject of rain, I once heard a salt-of-the-earth character assert, "I learned a long time ago that I ain't made outa sugar." I've recalled those words over and over again when the threat of inclement weather caused me to hesitate at the thought of outdoor chores. But rain and wind aside, even the astronomically low tide afforded by the new moon couldn't empty all that water out, and the rough seas conspired to make wading tough, so I sadly turned my car around at the ramp and gave up on getting there first.

          Returning at low tide the following day, I was met by a scene that any honest fisherman will admit feels like an uppercut to the gut. Half a dozen skiffs - some with pulleys, some without, some with two guys, some with one, but all with two drags pulling out beneath the wake - were plowing the rich fields of scallops I had been eyeing for weeks. They looked like bumper boats - everyone packed into an area of shoreline 30-feet wide and maybe 50-feet long. Boats would stop to allow skippers and crewmen to haul up the metal chain drags port and starboard and then the sorting would commence, with handfuls of rocks and seaweed tossed overboard and more handfuls of scallops dumped in their bushel baskets. There was plenty of weaving and close passing involved, and it seemed a wonder that none of the drags caught each other.

          The boats were a bit of a bummer, but there were also a half-dozen waders slowly picking up scallops with rakes, although they smartly steered clear of the high-density area the boats were working. I observed the action with the baby, who enjoyed the spectacle and preferred the boats, and, though it was just a little tempting to take him into the fray and the waist-deep water in my waders, I had to bag it and hope some scallops would remain when we got our chance. The interesting thing about scallops is that they scoot like burglars, and just when you think a spot is cleaned-out, more appear. For someone who spends an inordinate amount of time with steamers and quahogs, watching a scallop shoot away is a hoot.

          If it sounds like my secret spot was 'burned', as they say, make no mistake - there is nothing secret about the area. Even if it was my most obscure, clandestine fishing locale, I've learned the hard way that the Cape has no secrets, and as the peninsula narrows around the elbow of Chatham and up to the fist of Provincetown, hopes of keeping anything on the Q. T. completely evaporate. Having a good spot to yourself ends up being more a question of weather and how far you have to walk to get there, with a little bit of crowd psychology mixed in. Sometimes you luck out and find yourself the only person willing to give it a go and other times you have to share, but sweet bay scallops have the pull to get everyone in the water, including very young and very old folks.

          We got our chance, I found a few, but Tony Stetzko pulled in many more, cementing my opinion that if everyone fished like him, all edible aquatic species would be extinct. He has an uncanny ability that lays to waste friendly contests - he once won my impetuously announced First Keeper (striper) contest in no less than 15 minutes, which included finding a spot, getting out of the buggy and making that cast (cue sh*t-eating grin.) No more striper contests. And no scallop contests, either. I'm satisfied to have won the prestigious Most Delicious Preparation of Super-Fresh Scallops award, and it took three nights of sweet eatin' to get to it.

          For anyone who needs a primer on opening fresh scallops, this fellow from Long Island put together a clip, but I have to admit that I open them the opposite way, as does everyone else I know. I hold the scallop with the hinge facing away from me, wiggle the knife in on the right-hand side of the hinge and sweep it across the top of the shell, right to left, cutting the meat close to the shell. After flipping the top off away from me, I tilt the shell and dump the stomach bag and coral, then cut the meat from the bottom shell. It is recommended that you eat a few meats raw right out of the shell whilst opening scallops.

          If you happen to find some very fresh bay scallops, you really have to try this dish. I tried fried scallops (for shame) and pan-seared scallops before giving it a try, but this one is really worth the small effort it takes to prepare. The recipe is adapted from Parragon Publishing's Fish and Seafood Cookbook.

           Scallops in Saffron Sauce

2/3 cup dry white wine

2/3 cup of fish stock (or chicken broth)

large pinch of saffron threads

2 lbs bay scallops

3 Tbs olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2/3 cup heavy cream

squeeze of lemon juice

salt and pepper

chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, to garnish

crusty bread, to serve

          Put the wine, stock and saffron in a pan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

          Season scallops to taste with salt and pepper.

          Heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes, or until softened and lighty browned. Add the scallops and cook gently, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes, or just until they turn opaque. Beware of overcooking.

          Transfer the scallops to a plate, then add the saffron liquid to the pan and bring to a boil. Boil rapidly until reduced by about half. Reduce the heat and slowly stir in the cream, then simmer gently until thickened. Return the scallops to the pan and let simmer in the sauce for just a minute or two. Add the lemon juice and serve with a garnish of parsley and some crusty bread.

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Onion harvest

          I'm sorry if it's been a while - I slipped in the basement and found myself buried under a great heaping pile of freshy harvested onions. The good news is that I emerged competely free of rheumatism, arthritis, gout, bad humours, boils and negative vibes. The bad news is that maintaining a dry environment in my somewhat-porous Cape Cod basement has proven to be a formidable challenge. Proper storage and preservation of the harvest is key, and, after years of late-winter discoveries of  once-gorgeous, juicy heads of carefully dried and braided garlic turned to dust and those mouth-watering heaps of home-grown onions liquified and too many of the hard-won butternut squash developing squishy spots that overtake the fruit, I'm over it. I need advice. I need a copy of Mike Bubel's "Root Cellaring," and when I have a few sheckles to rub together I will make a grab for a used copy from Amazon. In the meantime, I am trying to can all I can, in hopes of happily tasting those onions next March - and I'm emptying the resevoir in the dehumidifier at a dizzying rate.

          It troubles me that we can ruin so much of what we grunt and sweat and spend to grow, even with all the modern innovations of refrigeration, freezing, canning, and dehumidification. But it really doesn't surprise me. For as many steps forward as we take, we seem to inexorably stride away from the centuries of knowledge that native peoples possessed. Not that our local predecessors were free from "rabbit starvation" and the like, but if I had to survive on what I harvested and killed during the kinder months, I would quickly be no more. The loss of native wisdom in the face of high-tech innovation may be a subject more suited to discussion during the dark of winter, when all the nice gear from Columbia Sportswear and EMS and L.L. Bean still can't keep the snow from getting between the little one's mittens and jacket cuffs and when multiple snowsuits must be at-the-ready as they all become quickly saturated. Thoughts turn to inside-out fur vestments, maybe oiled with seal fat, but we're jumping ahead too much for my taste and my instant-gratification culture.

          The issue at hand is the onions, and I'm hoping I cured and dried them enough to make them last. The harvest from last year held on fairly well, with the yellow onions going bad first, the whites following on their heels and the reds holding fast until early spring - or until they ran out. My garden is not huge, and I supplemented my stash with store-bought stock, a mistake I will not soon repeat. Rather than figuratively and literally put them up on a shelf, I have learned the hard way to eat them up. No more rationing.

          While brainstorming ways to preserve the onions, I ran across some enticing lore of medicinal and magical nature. Some of these curious tidbits came my way in an appropriately curious fashion. We periodically peruse the stacks at our local transfer station 'swap shop', and the literary volumes available there put the free-will offering at the local library to shame. It is interesting to see 'collections' deposited in their entireties, and it isn't hard to spot them. Recently someone unloaded a collection of works that offered a glimse into what must have been the result of some kind of spiritual quest. We found books dealing with herbal magic, geological magic, sweat lodges, Native American medicine, folklore and history. We grabbed them all and settled in for some reading.

          Scott Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs offered up previously unknown info on onions. Apparently, the onion is of masculine gender and ruled by the planet Mars. Its element is fire and its deity Isis, and its powers are protection, exorcism, healing, money, prophetic dreams and lust. Impressive stuff for the simple-looking orb born and raised in the dirt. After this introduction it gets juicy.

          Under the heading "Magical Powers," Cunningham writes, "Take a small white onion, stick it full of black-headed pins, and place it in a window. This will guard against the intrusion of evil into the home. The flowers are decorative and protective, and can be dried and placed in the home for an unsual and protective amulet. Carried, the onion gives protection against venomous beasts. Grown in pots or in the garden, they also shield against evil. Halved or quartered onions placed in the house will absorb negativity and evil, as well as disease. For healing, rub the cut end of an onion against the afflicted body part, visualizing the disease going into the onion. Then destroy the onion by burning or smashing and bury. Settlers in New England hung strings of onions over doorways to guard against infections, and a cut onion placed below the kitchen sink has long been used for the same purpose. To cure warts, rub them with a piece of onion and throw over your right shoulder. Walk away without looking back. A large red onion tied to the bedpost protects the occupant against sickness, and aids in recuperation. Never throw onion skins and peelings onto the ground - if you do, you throw away your prosperity. Instead, burn them in the cookstove or fireplace to attract riches. An onion placed beneath the pillow can produce prothetic dreams. If you are faced with making a decision, scratch your options on onions, one to each onion. Place them in the dark. The first one that sprouts answers you. Some ancient authorities state that when eaten, the onion "provokes to venery," i.e. produces lust. Magical knives and swords are purified by rubbing their blades with fresh cut onions, and if you throw an onion after a bride, you'll throw away her tears."

          If treatment of specific maladies is more interesting to you than warding away that omnipresent evil, the first  Foxfire Book offers some intriguing down-home uses for onions. Compiled from selections from the Foxfire Magazine, Eliot Wigginton's book includes lessons in hog dressing, snake lore, faith healing, hunting tales, moonshining, and, as Wigginton puts it, '...other affairs of plain living.' The stories were gathered by Wigginton and his high-school students, who headed into the Southern Appalachians '...armed with tape recorders and cameras.'

          The home remedies in the book include wonderfully rustic concotions that often involve lard, turpentine, kerosene and whiskey, and there are fanciful cures that call for rendering the fat of a polecat. Most of the remedies involving onions are slightly more palatable.

          For chest congestion, 'Make and onion poultice by roasting an onion, then wrapping it in spun-wool rags and beating it so that the onion juice soaks the rags well. Apply these rags to the chest." For croup, 'Squeeze the juice out of a roasted onion and drink,' or 'Boil an onion, some turpentine, and some lard together. Pour the juice on a cloth and put it on the chest.' If pneumonia is your worry, 'Make an onion poultice to make the fever break. Then give the person whiskey and hot water.' For a sore throat, 'Bake onions in an open fireplace; then tie them around your throat.' If you happen to be caring for a child with a serious illness, forget the onions. 'Take some blood from the child's arm, put it on a grain of corn and feed it to a black hen.'

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Butchering the chickens at home

          The chickens, we did them in. 5, 10, 15...30. The little transistor radio perched on the woodpile played Michael Jackson songs as I lopped off heads and felt around for organs inside warm, freshly plucked birds. Heads down, hands moving, we worked our way through the job.

          Calmly crate six birds. Set them in the shade far enough away that they can't see what's coming. Pick a bird and bring it to the killing cone. Cradle the head and carefully slice the neck, avoiding cutting into the trachea or esophagus. (We want them to bleed, not choke or drown.) Get another bird, repeat. After a thorough bleeding and assurance of death, scald them in a hot water bath, approximately 140 to 150 degrees. Plunge and agitate until tough wing feathers pull out easily, then hang the birds by the feet from the plucking line. Pluck up to the head - the necks will be included in the final package. Eviscerate after cutting off the head and feet. Carefully cut around the cloaca, or vent, (poo, pee and egg hole - yes, that's right, there is just one hole - remember that when you are cracking eggs.)  Remove all the innards, reserving liver, hearts and kidneys. I'm over gizzards, but my 10-year-old daughter has her own area to process gizzards and her own bag of them in the freezer.  Be sure to get the crop out one way or the other, either from the neck or the body cavity. Scrape out the lungs. Cut the oil gland off the back of the bird just above the tail.

          Rinse the gutted fowl and deposit in an ice bath. We are using a giant Igloo cooler filled with water and chilled with big ice blocks made from freezing recycled water jugs. After half an hour or more, the chickens are rotated into a cooler filled with just ice blocks, no water. When the job is finished, move the birds to a refrigerator to chill and rest for two days before vacuum-sealing them.

          Our broilers were nine-weeks-old when butchered. For a flock of all females, which I believe are more tender though males grow faster and thus are usually chosen by meat chicken growers, I think they grew well in the cool weather. They consumed 17.5 bags of feed, including half a bag of cracked corn fed in the last three days of their lives. Most of the birds weighed six-plus pounds, and we had many six-and-a-half and even seven-pounders. I don't want to get into price per pound, as it is hard to figure. Let's just say it's a number I know and don't want to admit. We drive more than 1/2 an hour to attain feed (Orleans to exit 5) and it's difficult to calculate all the additional expenses, including water, electricity for two heat lamps, the price of the heat bulbs, the multiple bales of pine shavings, propane to fire the scalding set-up and all the other little expenses that seem to accumulate as the weeks wear on. The birds aren't worth selling - they would have to fetch at least $20.00 a piece to make sense. And that's giving away the labor, butchering and packaging. Like gardening, raising your own meat birds should teach you the true value of food, and that to rely on just your own small plot of land would probably mean starvation. Any questions?

          It started with a question, "What is it like to butcher chickens? I eat chicken, and I would like to know how it feels to get the bird from the farm to the fork. Someone, somewhere has to be in some way responsible for this moment...why not me?" And, to be honest, there is a moment. It is that instant at which a curious, warm, moving being is cut from the trajectory of its existence. It is the movement of the hand that says, "You now cease to exist on this plane." It is the intentionality of that movement. After that, it's all average kitchen work.

          Truthfully, killing a chicken freaks me out. It gives me a head rush; it makes me shake a little, both outwardly and deep inside. Sink too deeply into that moment and one could easily become a vegetarian, or in my case, a fishitarian, as those sleek creatures of the sea yield to my blows in a way that I can handle. But the chickens, whom I've raised by hand, trouble me. So I have mostly passed that job on to my partner. Over the years, we've specialized. I pluck, I eviscerate, I monitor the ice bath and cold storage. He gathers the birds, kills and scalds, and all is well, with a winter's worth of unrivaled, mindfully slaughtered chicken in the freezer.

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Welcome, Pluto goat!

         Monday morning offered a wonderful surprise, though long anticipated it was. Our doe Luna, so named because she was born on a late June full moon two years ago, finally gave birth to a son, Pluto. His father is Orion and he is the grandson of Jen Holloman's big buck Buckley and our fabulous milker Ridgeback, who passed away last June. I hope she is smiling in that great green pasture on the other side.

          Like most births in the goat world, the event was unattended and without complication. Luna was observed at 7 a.m. and seemed normal, if utterly rotund. When I went to the paddock to check her at 9 a.m. she was absent, which was unusual, as she has been browsing almost around the clock for hay and all the tender grass shoots she can find for weeks. I peeked into the barn and saw her lingering there, then saw a little leg moving around on the floor. These are breathtaking moments for the keeper of goats. Without ultrasound, we rely on belly hugs to feel for movement and position, and all seemed well, but you never know.

          The kid was perfect and momma was dutifully cleaning him off with her tongue and protecting him from visitors. I checked him briefly, discovered his himness and left them alone. In the past I have keenly observed the process from birth to standing to finding the teat and its powerful colostrum. It is said that a kid must get the first taste within half an hour, or an hour, depending on the source, but I've dealt with the trap of introducing the bottle and hoped to let nature take its course. I left the barn, after much oohing and ahhing and observing, around 11 a.m, and when I returned at 1 p.m, Pluto was on his side in the barn, with Luna hovering over him licking him fiercely and pawing at the straw near him. As my neonatal ICU nurse sister would say, he CRUMPED.

          Luna went onto the milking stand without incident and happily munched some grain while I milked out several ounces of rich, thick colostrum. Into a bottle the life-giving nectar was funneled, and I gathered the limp kid up in a towel and gave him the juice. He started slow, but by the end was sucking air as the contents disappeared. I adjusted the lamp, set him down in the towel and left him to recover. When I checked back an hour or so later he was climbing on the milking stand, all goofy-eared and tottering, with fluffy fur and an appetite for more of what that bottle held. After playing and petting and more treats and water for momma, I left, only to find them sitting together on the floor like a couple of old friends an hour later.

          I resisted the impulse to milk Luna out again in the evening, and left them in the kidding pen/milking stall for the night. A quick peek after sunset revealed a heartily slurping buck and a (thankfully) obliging mom. And that has been the sight around these parts for the last 24 hours. I haven't seen much of his cute mug, as every time I visit he is buried under his momma's udder. She is extremely docile, friendly and gentle - one of the benefits of being raised here on our land and handled daily. She used to go for walks around the property in a dog harness and comes when called, but she grew too big for the harness and now watches as the yearling bucks are paraded around the property. (Their visit to the Fourth of July parade was a hit.)

          The buckling will get all of his mother's milk until he starts to forage on his own and eat some grain, at which point I will take a single milking each day, and then increase to two. There will, with all luck, be ample milk for all the household uses and maybe some surplus for traditional chevre. Happy days on the farm!

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