Bounty from Sea to Shining Sea

Are you a pescatarian? That’s a person who adds fish and seafood and sometimes eggs to a vegetarian diet. As for me, my background put me on a trajectory of meat and potatoes. But that’s because the 1950s logistical supply chain to the Farm Belt could not accommodate fresh seafood, and our taste buds knew it. Seafood, even in restaurants, tasted “fishy” because it just took too long to ship saltwater fish. The 1959 Farm Journal Cookbook in fact highlighted a few lake fish recipes for farmers and fishermen, along with a mention of canned salmon and tuna dishes.

True, my farm family occasionally ate salmon from a can, but my sisters and I doused it with vinegar and piled our plates with hash browns. Now freshwater fish was another story, but we didn’t have nearby lakes. Summers at a northern Wisconsin lake at a several hours drive away, however, provided us with an almost daily meal of fresh smallmouth bass and northern pike, both filleted, coated in cornflake crumbs, and fried.

And from the shimmering lakes

These days, living so close to the ocean and its bounty means we have access to top-quality fresh seafood; hence, we try to have seafood at least once a week. I used to default to a couple of standard recipes, especially at midweek dinners – a Mediterranean white fish with onions, tomatoes, and olives or else baked haddock filets coated in panko, garlic, and lemon zest. And, if we could get fresh Alaskan salmon on sale, I’d brush the fillets with a garlic & dill mustard and broil the filets for about 12 minutes. Dinners with family (pre-pandemic) often were a shellfish stew with shrimp, lobster, and a whitefish. And one of our go-to recipes especially for arriving out-of-town guests is this outstanding shellfish chowder.

So while not pescatarians, we do have at least two or three vegetarian meals a week along with a seafood dinner. In addition, I’m always on the hunt for more seafood recipes. For one, fish is easier and faster to prepare than many other dishes. That fantastic salmon main course takes only about 15 minutes from start to finish. You can also make an  easy meal by what the French termed “en papillote” – wrapping your fish and some vegetables along with herbs, citrus, and spices in aluminum foil or baking parchment and roasting them in the oven or even on the grill.

And from the reefs and shoals

Now that we’re in comfort food season, there are all those chowders – those yummy, creamy soups that usually include potatoes, vegetables, and seafood. They’re part of the history of this region. They probably originated as a shipboard meal as a seafood stew thickened with the use of hardtack and common from the Canadian Maritimes down the seacoast to New York. This week I’ll be making a take-off on chowders, cod with potatoes and leeks that calls for gently poaching the cod fillets in milk and the other ingredients for an effortless dinner. Another I’d like to try when I can get good Alaskan salmon on sale is an Orange Maple Balsamic Salmon that infuses the fish with a sweet and tangy flavor.

How about you? Do you have an easy, creative fish recipe? Why not share? Especially you pesky pescatarians.

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