Living in the Midwest, we have an abundant supply of fresh meat. We have beef, hogs, lamb, chickens and more kinds of wild game than I can count. All year round, we can find something great to do with all that meat. During spring and summer we grill constantly, come fall we start doing roasts, and throughout winter we run through our repertoire of braised dishes.
Notice that I didn’t mention seafood. Generally, it is really hard to find good fresh seafood at an affordable price in the Midwest. Most of the stuff we find at the markets has been frozen, and while not a bad thing, it does take away some of the flavor. Now there are some great seafood purveyors that get fresh fish and seafood flown in every few days, and that is where I go first, however it isn’t always the most economical way to feed myself.
I worked for a chef a few years back, who had just moved to Indianapolis from the U.S. Virgin Islands. He understood that it was a necessary evil to either get frozen seafood or pay the premium for fresh flown in. Either way, it still wasn’t what he wanted. He explained to me that from his restaurant in the islands, he could literally watch his nightly dinner special being unload from the fishing boats in front of his restaurant and paraded through the dining room. It made some of the tourists squirm, but the locals loved it. Now, that’s fresh.
A year or two after working for him, I got to see first hand how true that was. I was visiting another friend down in St. Thomas, hanging out at the local bar. A regular came in with a two foot Caribbean lobster, which was still really mad at the person who had just caught him. He walked right into the bar, lobster in hand, and asked if they could throw it in a pot for his dinner. Sure enough, ten minutes later, a freshly boiled lobster came out on a plate with fries and a cold beer. I have to admit I ate a lot of seafood that week.
More recently, we were on our annual “It’s getting to cold in Chicago; I need to go sit on a beach trip”. We found this great little dive bar a few blocks from the beach and decided to get lunch there. They had the best blackened grouper sandwich I have ever had. The gentleman next to me had the same sandwich and was talking to the waitress about how good it was. She was telling him that sometimes it was either grouper or wahoo. It all depended on what the fisherman caught that morning. Amazing for an eight dollar lunch. We also went to a Peruvian restaurant and tried a fantastic assortment of ceviches and tiraditos, which really highlight the flavor and quality of fresh seafood.
While I understand not everyone is a fan of seafood, I highly encourage you to try truly fresh seafood. It not be the most convenient or economical, but it is well worth the occasional splurge. It might even change your mind to what fresh really is.
Tags: braise, caribbean, ceviches, fishing, fresh, frozen, grill, grouper, lobster, market, meat, roast, seafood, st. Thomas, tiraditos, wahoo