One of the nice things about living in Maine is that you can often get given stuff for free just by asking. This predates craigslist by several hundred years and is still going strong. All you need to do is be in contact with the right people and be willing to trade work or favors in return when needed. In most cases, the person to be in contact with is not necessarily the owner of what you need, rather the town extrovert, the person who likes to talk and talks to a lot of people, usually in the course of business or volunteer work.  Just mention, “I need some good used lobster traps,” and for a favor, a bottle of wine or the promise of a few lobsters next summer (and the required few months of waiting while your request makes the rounds) you will hit paydirt.

I hit paydirt yesterday when my friend Chuck called to say he negotiated a deal for me. These traps look like they’ve been barely used and if I were to go out and buy new ones, they’d be close to $100 each. They even come with buoys and line. Count me one step closer to pulling in dozens of lobster dinners this summer! In addition, they lend a certain Downeast ambiance to my yard in the off season.

I’ve been reassured by several people that my gear will not be molested by other fishers, which is a big relief. Apparently a local state cop also puts out traps, and in an incident involving underwater cameras, the sole bad boy was caught and will not be re-offending. This is coupled with the growing awareness that traps are lobster feeding stations and more traps means more lobsters. Undersized lobsters come and go for free meals and notched or egg-bearing females and all under- or over-sized lobsters are let go when traps are hauled.

This means I need bait. At least two pounds per pound of legal lobster, at least according to what I’ve heard. Currently in the Maine Legislature there is a bill which will outlaw any bait which “is not part of the lobster’s natural diet”. This limits my bait choices to over-fished herring, which is the usual commercial bait, or whatever I can catch myself. Herring as bait is not willingly sold to 5-trap people like me, so if this bill passes I may be opening tins of tuna or frantically fishing for mackerel. Whatever happens, I’m one step closer now!

Amelia made this for Christmas 2010

Get Ready Lobsters, ‘Cause Here I Come

(apologies to Smokey Robinson)

I never met a clam who makes me feel the way that you do. (You’re alright)

Whenever I’m asked what makes my meals real, I say crustaceans do. (They’re outta sight)

So, fee-fi-fo-fum
Look out lobsters, ’cause here I come.

And I’m bringing you some fish that smell.

So get ready, so get ready.

You’re gonna love it in my wire hotel.

So get ready, so get ready ’cause here I come.

(Get ready ’cause here I come) I’m on my way. (Get ready ’cause here I come)

If you wanna play hide and seek with me, let me remind you (It’s alright) The meal is free if you’re too big or small, I just release you (It’s outta sight)

So, Fiddley-dee, Fiddley-dum Look out lobsters, ’cause here I come.

I’m bringing you a life with no risk.

So get ready, so get ready.

I’ll make your friends into a lobster bisque.

So get ready, so get ready ’cause here I come.

(Get ready ’cause here I come) I’m on my way. (Get ready ’cause here I come) (Get ready)

[Instrumental]

If all my friends should want you too, I’ll understand it. (Be alright)

I hope to trap enough for them, the way I planned it. (Be outta sight)

So twiddley-dee, twiddley-dum Look out lobsters, ’cause here I come.

And if you’re a lady that’s just full of roe.

So get ready, so get ready.

I’ll notch your flipper and just let you go.

So get ready, so get ready ’cause here I come.
(Get ready ’cause here I come) I’m on my way. (Get ready ’cause here I come) (Get ready ’cause here I come) (Get ready)

The morel, from wikipedia

This fall like most we attended the Common Ground Fair in Unity. While there, we listened to a talk by Greg Marley, our local (Rockland, ME) mycologist (mushroom expert), mycophile (mushroom lover) and mycophagist (mushroom eater). His talk was meant to put an end to mycophobia.

Marley sees the world as divided into the mycophobic (like here and England) and the mycophillic (just about everywhere else). He tells us our society has an irrational fear of fungus, but then points out how mushroom poisonings in the mycophillic world number into the hundreds per year. The one thing to remember, he says, is to focus on edible and medicinal species which are not at all similar to poisonous ones. This means avoiding LBMs (little brown mushrooms) which are notoriously difficult to key out. Also, keeping a checklist of the traits of the most toxic

The death cap from wikipedia

‘shrooms is a good practice. The most toxic genus (the last stop before individual species) is by far, Amanita. One typical cap of Amanita phalloides, the death cap, can kill 5 people and will do so slowly over a week or so. Saving the life of the victim often involves a liver transplant. Amanitas have a white spore print, white gills which are free from the stem, a ring around the stem (an annulus) and a swollen base (a volva), as if it came out of an egg. The death cap is rare in Maine but other Amanitas, including equally toxic ones, are plentiful.

Now, are we ready for the edibles? Feeling uncertain? Good! Identifying edible fungus is best first done with an old hand. Someone who not only knows how to identify them, but where they are likely to grow. When I was a kid that guy was Smitty, a retired mail carrier and big band musician who lived

Shaggy Mane, from Sisyphus. A little past its prime.

across the street. Every May he and his wife Louise would take me into the woods and we would look for morels. This was northern Michigan, where morel hunting is a favorite pastime. The big benefit of morels, besides their flavor, is the fact that they look like sponges on a stalk and so can’t be mistaken for anything poisonous (actually, there’s one, but it’s easy to tell apart and it’s not as deadly as a death cap).

When I moved to Maine I had to leave morels behind. They do grow here occasionally, but you can’t gather enough for a meal, just the odd one. So after years of feeling sorry for myself I ended up listening to Greg Marley and realizing all I had to do was to substitute local edible mushrooms for the ones I miss. Greg presented the “fool-proof four” mushrooms for Maine. They are the morel, puffball, hen-of-the-woods, and shaggy mane. But he said these four are from

Hen of the woods, from AMG

another mycologist and the morels here are scarce. He also pointed out that the puffballs, while an easy target, are not the most choice. He advocated three more which may be more appropriate for Maine, the chanterelle, the sulphur shelf and the king bolete. I am looking forward to finding all these gems. I already came across a nice stand of shaggy manes, and I had a great meal.

There’s much more to getting started in wild mushrooming that looking at a few pictures and

Sulphur shelf, from wikipedia

warming up the frying pan. An intermediate step is to start an excel spreadsheet of all the specimens you find. Each row corresponds to the found fungus with columns for date, location (GPS is good!), habitat, link to photo, spore color, best guess (genus, species, common name) and notes. This will get you practice in identification, a feel for the features of different families and genera, and will give you a chance for a return visit next year. You need an up-to-date field guide. Mine is old and fails to reflect all the name changes that have occurred in the last 30

Chanterelles, from wikipedia

years.

Mycology is very much an evolving field, with genetic data starting to turn the old classification system on its head. Two  on-line resources to use are mushroomexpert.com and Europe’s Roger’s Mushrooms. Don’t do a google search for a picture of a certain species without realizing you will get pictures of misidentified mushrooms–stick with the above sources or a good field guide. Stay in touch with other mushroom hunters like Ari Rockland-Miller and his blog themushroomforager.com to see what’s popping up in the area.

Greg Marley’s book, Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares: The Love, Lore, and Mystique of Mushrooms is available in the usual places and is a great tour through the fungal world (did you know flying squirrels eat truffles?). Greg wrote in my copy, “Hope this gets you out into the mushrooms!” It did!

One of the sore points of our beautiful state of Maine has been the collapse of the ground fishing industry. This has been even worse in Newfoundland, where the human population had dropped from its peak in 1991 at 568,475 to 505,469 in 2006, a 9% drop. A neighbor recently bought a house in a fishing village there for $1. While the trend may be finally reversing due to new mines and oil exploration, here in Maine there’s new hope for groundfishing.

from the Portland Fish Exchange website, http://www.pfex.org

First, a definition. Groundfishing refers to fish with fins, not lobsters, shrimp or shellfish, caught in nets.  Here in the northeast these are mostly haddock, cod, hake and pollock. The resource collapsed due to overfishing. Blame for this situation varies depending on who you ask; fishers, the government, foreign factory ships, healthy eating trends or homeowners with leaky septic systems, take your pick. In a very long and detailed article in Maine Coastal News Jane Lubchenco (see below for her title, it’s a whopper)* writes that the new fish management scheme is resulting in a turn-around. Previously, implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens  Act (the federal law enacted to manage fish stocks) focused on limiting days at sea and landing limits. This was not embraced by the fishing industry, as it resulted in fishing during bad weather and dumping lots of by-catch. Now, the new way of rebuilding our fish stocks involves participation of the fishers themselves. In an earlier article, we explored how Maine’s lobster industry has successfully worked with science and government to maintain health, now it seems the government is more willing to trust the groundfishing industry to self-manage.

from the Portland Fish Exchange website, http://www.pfex.org

Instead of limiting days-at-sea, the new scheme is called “sector management”. The sectors are actually volunteer groups of fishers in given areas which are charged with meeting certain catch limits. How they do it is up to them. Like farming, each fisher is limited by his territory and responsible for its productivity.  The results are encouraging. Dr. Lubchenco writes,

We are finally on track to end overfishing. For the first time ever, we have catch limits and accountability measures in place and clear ability to track progress. In 2010 fishermen fished within the limits for 18 of the 20 stocks. This is excellent news.

Stocks are being rebuilt and therefore catch limits are up….in the 2011 fishing year catches have gone up for 12 of the 20 groundfish stocks…

Atlantic Cod from http://www.nero.noaa.gov

Dr. Lubchenco goes on to praise the new cooperative system for resulting in more selective fishing and “fishing smarter” to avoid the taking of bycatch of weaker stocks.

While early signs are encouraging she warns that there are many tweaks to the system which may be required. Better data collection, more nimble reaction to stock levels and more trust building between government, science and fishers will need to be done in the next few years. And even if stocks are on the upward trend, the cost per pound needs to provide a decent income, something that can’t be guaranteed by anyone.

The article I have presented is at best a brief summary of this complicated issue. I will continue to report on the groundfish situation, and I expect the news to be good in the next few years. Yet another reason to love the state of Maine. Get the full story in November’s issue of  Maine Coastal News.

*Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U. S. Department of Commerce Before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, U. S. Senate, Boston, MA.

Out in front of SeaCat’s Rest are untold numbers of Mya Arenaria, the soft shell clam. This is the type of clam you will get most often when you order a clam dinner anywhere in New England. These clams settle in the intertidal mud vertically, with their “necks” (siphons) extended several inches towards the surface, where they filter seawater for food. When they sense danger, like a human stepping on the ground nearby, they quickly pull in their siphons and remain securely buried in six inches or so of the fragrant mud. As they pull in, they often squirt excess water, betraying their location. But even if they don’t squirt, they leave a little hole where you know where to dig. That’s where the work comes in.

The first step is to make sure you’re legal. In Lamoine, Maine, that means getting a license. It costs a whopping $6 for residents or $12 for non-residents for a recreational license. This allows you to dig one peck per day, 2-1/2 gallons or about 150 clams. Since I usually figure 20 clams per person, that’s enough for 7 people.  The next vital step is to make sure there are no closures. A clam flat closure can be due to either pollution or red tide, and is not to be ignored. The place to go is the Maine Shellfish Hotline, 1-800-232-4733

Next you need equipment. A bucket or “hod” (a slatted tray with a handle) to hold the clams, some rubber boots and a digging tool. Here, the clam flats are not pure mud, but a mixture of mud and rocks. This makes it hard to get to the clams without damaging them, and I’ve found the best tool is a straight four-tined spading fork. Mine is made by Ames and was found at Home Depot.  The tines are placed at least six inches from the holes and pushed down all the way. If rocks are in the way, try a different spot. When down all the way, gently lever the mud up. Often you will catch a glimpse of a clam’s neck squirting water. Grab onto the neck and hold firm as you continue to flip the mud. This is your first clam.

Reject any clams under 2″ across or with broken shells–you’ll never get the grit out, and you want live clams, not dead ones. Once you have made your first hole, now it’s time to hear the digger’s secret. Flipping back the mud might get you one clam, but there are more down there and the only way to get them is to thrust your hand down and feel for them! Go back and forth across the bottom of the hole and probe for the shape of a closed clam set vertically in the mud. Rock the clam back and forth to break the mud’s suction.  Don’t worry, they don’t bite. You will pull out rocks and more mud, but with a little luck, a few more clams. Don’t forget to go over the mud already pulled out with the first spading. Beware of broken glass! Commercial clammers in Lamoine have lubricated their activities with liquor for a century or more. Some pieces of glass are therefore quite old and may be worth saving.

As your clam bucket fills up you will eventually want to rinse them. Pour out your clams onto a bed of rockweed and clean out the mud in your bucket. Pour clean seawater over the clams and return them to the bucket with clean water. Now is the time to make sure there are no dead clams, closed but filled with mud. Your clams can stay like this for hours in the shade until you’re ready to cook them. If you use tap water be sure to thoroughly mix in 1/3 cup of salt per gallon. The clean water also allows them to expel any grit they may have inside. Some people like to pour in cornmeal to give the clams something to replace the grit with in their stomachs. Once your clams get their grit out you can store them dry in the fridge for up to two days, but using sooner is better. Do not seal live clams in plastic!

In an hour or two you will probably have enough for your meal. As the tide comes up you will find holes in higher ground, up to about 80% of the tidal range. Beware, it is hard to stop once you have tasted success. Just walk away! Rinse your digging fork with fresh water to keep it from rusting, and enjoy your clam dinner. You will have saved about $3.00 for each pound of clams you have dug (price as of 10/13/11) . A pound consists of 10 or so clams, so if you dug 100 clams you just made $30!

Clambakes came to us from Native Americans, who would cook their clams on hot rocks. Early colonists expanded the practice to include other ingredients.

from http://media.photobucket.com/image/clambake/ronandmia/Whidbey/ClamBake3.jpg?o=27

A clambake combines several genuine Maine shore experiences; the gathering of the sea’s bounty, building a nice fire, exotic seaside aromas and a great feast. Local professionals will build you one and supply all the food for a hefty price.  You can even get a “clambake” delivered to your door, minus the fire. But with just a little work you can do your own. Besides the ingredients you need a venue. A shoreside fire pit fits the bill. A lonely stretch of beach with the pit dug during low tide will work, just make sure the tide doesn’t rise too soon and that the land owner is  on board. One of our best clambakes was in our driveway!

The rockweed goes on the fire

The primary feature of the fire is rocks and hardwood. The hot rocks will do the cooking after the fire is reduced to embers, so they should be big-ish (like your head). The hardwood will burn hot enough to get the rocks hot. The rocks may split from the heat, but that’s par for the course. Think of it as a bonfire, quick and hot. Just make sure the rocks are hot enough to steam any water they contact. As the fire burns down you need to be ready for the next step: the seaweed. Collect about 25 gallons of rockweed from the shore. That’s the ubiquitous brown bladder-bearing stuff that is so common you will have no problem finding it unless you look for it at high tide.

Meanwhile, another crew is preparing the food. Corn should be cleaned of silk but not husks, the husks are folded back over the ears. Our October feast was corn deprived; grocery stores were out.

A tarp covers the seaweed and food

Clams should be in mesh bags. That’s often the way they come from the fish store (like Downeast Lobster Co., 1192 Bar Harbor Rd, Trenton, ME 04605). Otherwise  use loose fitting potato or onion bags, or improvise with cheesecloth. There should be plenty of room for the clams to open. Mussels and other shellfish can also be prepared the same way. Mussels can often be collected at low tide right on the shore without a license, but be sure there are no red tide or pollution closures for your area. Pollution closures occur often after heavy rains when poo washes down from the land. The Maine shellfish hotline is 1 800 232-4733. The lobsters need no preparation besides last rites, but I like to cut off their bands before they go in. Potatoes should be quartered and partially precooked, since the big problem with this process is overcooking of the clams.

Back to the fire. The big heat-producing phase is over and the hardwood is reduced to coals. A tender with a rake is making sure all the wood is burned or raked away, and the rocks are pushed together. Now everyone gets in the act.  Start throwing seaweed onto the pit. Immediately you will hear popping as the air bladders explode and send their flavorful steam through the air. Keep dumping on seaweed until you achieve a six to eight inch layer. Now it’s time to throw on the food. Reserve the hottest areas for all but the clams, place the clams at the perimeter or on top of other food. Some like to put in a raw egg. When the egg is hard boiled it means the bake is done.  Cover with another layer of seaweed and a wet tarp or old bed sheet. Anchor the sheet with rocks at the edge. You will see steam rising through the weave of the cloth. Start timing. After 1/2 hour uncover the food and look for open clams, that means it’s time to eat. The process may take up to one hour or more based on the heat of the rocks. You may find some items are not quite ready, but if the clams are done, don’t leave them in! First course! Keep a hose or water bucket handy in case the tarp catches on fire.

I can’t claim to be an expert at this. Be prepared like I am to pop some potatoes or corn into the microwave because they weren’t over a hot spot.  But overcooked clams are to be avoided, unlike lobsters, which can stay in longer without harm. The best part of a clambake is not the perfection of the timing, but the flavors of woodsmoke and seaweed which infuses the food, and the fun you and your friends have putting it all together.

If you want the flavor of a clambake without the pit and the big group, consider wrapping the ingredients (seaweed, lobster, clams, corn, etc.) into an aluminum foil pouch and cooking it on the grill or in the oven.  It comes pretty close!

Anthony Bourdain, from the Travel Channel

Travel Channel viewers know there are two guys with shows about eating strange stuff in faraway places. One is the nice guy, Andrew Zimmern and the other is his bad boy opposite, Anthony Bourdain. I watch them both. I encountered Andrew’s Bizarre Foods show about Maine when it aired and wrote about it here.

What I didn’t know was that Tony Bourdain did his own take on the Maine food scene too. Filled with the usual frequent profanity bleeps Tony followed his long-time (and Emmy winning) cameraman Zach Zamboni to his home town of Milo, Maine as well as a few coastal stops along the way.  Their show is called No Reservations and like Bizarre Foods, they probed the endless quirky backroads (and bays) of Maine to find strange people and stranger food. But in our country of endless malls and cookie-cutter towns, what seems bizarre to the folks of suburbia is quite ordinary to those of us who have made the escape, or never knew they were born in areas of strangeness.

So fasten your seatbelts and take a trip with Tony and Zach to their odd corners of Maine. Portland (the foodie town), Rockland (Midcoast culinary impressionism) and Milo (just watch). There are three parts of this YouTube video.

For a while I’ve been saving empty wine bottles that guests of our oceanside apartment have left behind with the vague notion that I will someday make a batch of wine. Last year I actually planted a vineyard and the plants did great over the summer of 2010. I did not allow them to produce fruit however, since this is what you are supposed to do for the first few years. Over the winter I bought a few wine kits, reasoning that if I wanted to utilize my eventual harvest to the utmost, I should get some practice in winemaking.

I couldn’t believe how easy it was. The making of the wine consisted of :

1. boiling a couple gallons of water
2. dump a gallon of the boiled water into the primary fermenter
3. add an envelope of powdered bentonite, a type of clay which helps to settle out the solids
4. dump in the juice from the kit
5. pour in enough water to reach the six gallon mark and
6. pour in the wine yeast

This whole process took less than an hour. At this point I had no idea if the end product would be drinkable, but I did know it would be cheap. The per-bottle cost was under $3.

The directions called for “racking” at regular intervals. This is the transfer of the wine from one container to another, to allow leaving behind the sediment. At the final racking two envelopes of fining (clarifying)  agents are added and one envelope of sulphite as a sanitizer. Then in two weeks, bottling, and the first chance to taste the wine.

I’m no great judge of wine, but I will proclaim the two batches I made as highly drinkable. If others agree (given a respectable time for aging) I will offer my guests a bottle or two. Of course I don’t intend to sell them, just please save the bottle!

In the vineyard, I did my first pruning in early April.  Pruning is necessary to limit the number of buds; too many buds produce too many fruiting clusters and produce small, low quality fruit. I haven’t decided whether I will allow fruiting this year (a second pruning operation removes the flowers) but I suspect I will allow a few per plant. The other thing I did which is exciting is to attempt to root the cuttings. This is happening now, and consists of placing the cut twigs into a moist pot of soil over a heating pad. Supposedly I should see root growth in a week or two. When this happens I will move the pots into the sun so that the buds will start to produce leaves. Then I can expand the vineyard to accommodate another 12 plants. These are all frontenac gris vines, a hardy variety developed by the University of Minnesota.

Lamoine Beach

The numbers are in for 2010. Maine tourism is on the rise since the dismal 2009 season, with increases in the state of 8% and Acadia National Park of 12 to 13%.  Additionally, the fall season was even better, indicating that the trend is not fading. Both the Maine Office of Tourism and The Maine Tourism Association are bullish on the 2011 season. Maine is within a six hour drive of 26 million people, and if the economy continues to mend, those folks will need a vacation.  We hope they come to Acadia.

Maine shrimp

Now for seafood. The big news on Friday was that the Maine shrimp season is shutting down early, on February 28, six and a half weeks earlier than planned. While this sounds like bad news, it’s not. The early shutdown is simply because biologists have declared that the total catch quota has been reached. The shrimp fishery is healthy and shrimp fishers have reached their limit with less fuel and in shorter time. Although this quota is much less than old record years, the management of the fishery is with an eye toward building up the stocks rather than the boom-and-bust days of old. Soon Maine’s shrimp industry will rival the productivity of our lobster fishery. Read on.

And how did the Maine 2010 lobster season do? Terrific! 81.1 million pounds was the 2010 total, far outstripping any other year since record keeping began. Remember, our lobster are caught in traps, not nets or dragged dredges, so it’s certain that many, many lobster escape to live another year. Follow the link above to discover the details of our sustainable lobster industry. The only possible problem on the horizon is the cost of fuel and bait. Diesel keeps going up, and our method of rejecting under- and over-sized lobster in addition to egg-bearing females means lots of fuel is necessary for each pound harvested. Compared to 1950, and adjusted for inflation, our lobster fishers are receiving less per pound ($2.92 in 2009 VS. $3.12 in 1950) and paying more for fuel ($1.60/gallon VS. $2.50/gallon or more now) and bait ($1.00 per bushel VS. $20-$25 now). We may get to a time when the limit to the lobster industry is not supply, but the price of lobster to the consumer. Thanks to The Ellsworth American for the above numbers.

Atlantic cod

Meanwhile, Maine groundfish, the word used to mean all traditional finned commercial species like cod, halibut and haddock, is  not doing so well. Actually, the fish are doing better than the industry. Some say the industry is on the verge of collapse, with fewer than 70 boats compared to a peak of 350 engaged in commercial groundfish fishing in Maine. There are many reasons why stocks are down but overfishing is the big one, and applying the management techniques used in our more successful fisheries is showing signs of success–stocks are rebounding. But how do we make sure there are those able to catch the rebounded stocks if the industry is allowed to die? In 2008, those 70 or so boats were allowed to fish a total of 48 days. Perhaps the correct level for allowing the stocks to rebound but not the industry. Times are tough. Now there is a new management system in place, which divides fishing grounds into sectors and allows more local management. The fishers will be more actively involved in the science and will no longer be in a mad scramble to maximize their catch in 48 days. We’re at the bottom of this fishery at present, I hope to report soon that the Maine groundfish industry is on the upswing. Once those cod recover however, look out lobster! They are a cod’s favorite food.

Atlantic sea scallops, (Placopecten magellanicus) Photo courtesy of Kevin H. Kelly, Maine Department of Marine Resources

Another secret many summer visitors don’t know about is Maine’s scallop season. Like shrimp, it’s a winter thing; the season is (this year) from December 15, 2010 to March 27, 2011. Also like our shrimp fishery, this is a sustainable fishery with tight regulations.

from http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov

The season is kept short to limit landings and many of the best scallop beds are off-limits to ensure the health of the fishery. This means that Maine’s scallop harvest fluctuates wildly, but that fluctuation does not indicate a free-for-all, boom-or-bust approach. Unlike lobsters, our scallop harvest is much lower than our states to the south. In 2009, total East coast landings topped 25,000 metric tons, of which Maine’s share was just 324. This is a small number compared to the average Maine harvest of over 2000 metric tons in the 1990s, but sustainability is the new top priority. In 2008 a survey was done by the NOAA and the results found that:

The numbers are the highest seen on Georges Bank since 2000 and the second highest since 1979 in the Mid-Atlantic Bight, and help document the effectiveness of a key measure used to manage the commercial fishery, that of rotating access to highly productive sea scallop areas while closing others to allow scallops to grow.

When we buy scallops at the seafood counter, we’re actually buying only the abductor muscle of 3 to 5 year old scallops. This muscle is big so that the scallop can flap it’s shell halves together to jet around the sea floor. So scallops are unique in this ability to move around in a hurry, if only for a limited distance. The scallop is cleaned at sea, and the rest is discarded, since scallops cannot be kept alive like clams. Seafood lovers in Europe however have been known to eat the whole scallop.

from http://www.fishingnj.org

Although Maine’s scallop fishery has made great strides to sustainability, one fly remains in the ointment: the dreaded dredge. This is the metal basket towed behind the fishing boat which collects the scallops. It also disturbs the sea floor and occasionally traps sea turtles. Some commercial harvesters dive for scallops, which is much better for the sea floor, and new evolving dredge designs are on the horizon. Overall, the trends for scallop fishing are encouraging. Now science plays a primary role, and so much more is known about what is happening “down there” than in the old days.

Our local Ellsworth roadside seafood man, David Gardener, is selling tubs of scallops for $12.50/ lb. These are not the kind you’d be likely to find in your frozen food section, some are so big you have to slice them in half to cook them at the same rate as the smaller ones. Think small hamburgers. The other difference is these are “dry” scallops. Some processors soak their scallop meats in phosphates to get them to take on water-thereby increasing weight. When possible, buy dry scallops for the best flavor. I’ll save my favorite Maine Scallop recipes for a later post.