"I've never seen so many, so early." When the bluefish season hit on May 1, he put out the word on the ship-to-shore radio chatter to the sport-fishing boats that he would buy any extra bluefish for his smoking operation in Chesapeake Beach, Md. The bottom has fallen out of the market and he is even tired of catching them. A record-setting bumper crop of bluefish has moved northward along the Atlantic seaboard, rushing the season on their migratory passage from warmer waters to the cooler north.Ĭalvin "King Smoker" Tyler never wants to see another bluefish. Hersey's book is on the shelves just when the bluefishermen are too busy to read. The best advice is: Know your dealer enough to trust his shipment, and never buy one if you can't see bright shiny eyes.
Some say the spring ones are better than the fall ones that the small ones are better than the big blues and the northern water bluefish are better. The bad rap on blues comes from fish that have been mishandled, not iced down immediately. They don't freeze well, and shelf life of a blue is 1 to 2 days. If they kept nicely frozen they would be an attractive commercial catch. Blues are an oily fish and very perishable. There is a reason for the love/hate attitudes about blues. And, he gives the stranger some fabulous dinners with their catch-of-the-day.
In the process, the fisherman gives the stranger (and the reader) a dizzying education that ought to qualify for three hours college credit. The fisherman invites the stranger to join him for a summer of fishing beginning and ending the bluefish season in Vineyard Sound. The literary device is a prose dialogue between a fisherman and stranger he finds standing forlornly on the dock - a man who wants to understand the magic of the sea, but is reluctant to become a killer of fish. He has done it with meticulous research giving his readers that longed-for flash under the mirror surface of the sea revealing some of the wonder and mystery. Hersey, now 74, has verbalized the passion of the bluefisherman. "Better still," goes the old joke, "throw away the bluefish and drink the gin." Hersey includes a now-famous recipe from Nat Benchley of Martha's Vinyard in which the lime-marinated bluefish gets a healthy splash of gin then flames under the broiler. And nothing worse if it is old or handled improperly. There is nothing better than a sweet, fresh, moist slab of broiled bluefish. To eat bluefish within hours after it has hurled its body completely out of the sea to snap viciously at an iridescent whirling lure is to know heaven.īut beauty and flavor die rapidly in this fish. John Hersey, a toast before dining on the day's catch. It may be one of the few classics that will get spattered and dripped upon while lying open on the kitchen counter while the reader spoons mayonnaise, grates ginger, slices onions and checks the recipes that conclude each chapter.īy mere scent of my food, to life again." Or, call him by his real name, John Hersey, a Pulitzer Prize author who turned his 20-year-long obsession with bluefishing in Massachusetts' Vineyard Sound into one of last summer's best-sellers: "Blues" (Alfred A. Carefully take it out of the oven and serve with any leftover sauce on the side.Call him Ishmael. Put the fish in the pan, sauce side up, and broil until done, about 7 minutes for my inch thick ones. Once the pan is hot, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the pan swirling to coat (use a hot mitt!). While the pan is getting hot, sprinkle the fillets with salt and pepper, then spoon the mustard sauce over the top. Put a large frying pan or griddle under the broiler to heat up for 5-10 minutes (one that doesn’t have any plastic handles that will melt).
Mix everything except the thyme together until smooth, then add the thyme. I didn’t actually measure anything, so those are approximate measures. It’s loosely based on this NY Times recipe. Mike’s favorite way to have it is broiled with a mustard sauce so that’s what I did. For context, that’s an 8 inch filleting knife in the picture that is about a foot long if you include the handle.Īfter filleting the fish, I had to decide what to do with it. When I picked it up I realized that the fish was HUGE – it just barely fit in the cooler. Bluefish is a favorite with our family although it may not be familiar to a lot of people. I was thrilled today when I got the email from our CSF to say that today’s share was Bluefish.
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