What is a pan fish? First a fish story about growing up on Shelter Island, NY, off the end of Long Island.
Life can be tough as an oldest child, especially if you are a girl and your dad is an avid fisherman. He would load a sandwich for each of us, six-pack for him and soda for me (I always hated soda, but he never remembered that) onto his old 16 foot Dory. âGrab the tiller Lisa, weâll be setting down over hereâ were my least favorite words.
He would cut up squid with glee (ew!), bait the hooks, and over the side the lines would go. He would grab a smoke, lean back and just start to talk about his life spending summers on Shelter Island. No amount of complaining â and no one can keep that up longer than a teenage girl â would intrude on his bliss.
Somewhere in heaven he is smiling that I married a fisherman and now publish Coastal Angler Magazine. Note to all you dads with teenage girls â donât take any guff. Drag them along with you and tell them your tales. Youâll create memories for a lifetime and somehow your passion will become theirs.
How does this relate to the pan fish? The fish we hoisted out of Dering Harbor and Peconic Bay, or off the breakwater in Greenport, were occasionally flounder, but mostly they were porgies. Now they are known as scup, silver snapper and pan fish. My grandmother just called them trash fish and would complain when my father brought them home. Secretly (although being a teenage girl I still complained) they were my favorite fish. Light, succulent and really delicious.
Porgy still has that reputation of being not-quite-good-enough. However, there is a movement afoot to morph the lowly porgy into the next Chilean Sea Bass, Cinderella style, by renaming and branding it pan fish or silver snapper. The rebranding of ugly yet tasty fish isnât a new concept. Monkfish wasnât anywhere until it became the âpoor manâs lobster.â The poster-child for rebranding success is a fish wholesaler named Lee Lantz who made his big move in 1977. He was looking for a name that would make the ugly and unattractively named, yet tasty, toothfish attractive to the American market. He considered âPacific sea bassâ and âSouth American sea bassâ before settling on âChilean sea bassâ as more artisanal. In 1994 the FDA accepted âChilean sea bassâ as an âalternative market nameâ for Patagonian toothfish, and the rest is history.
Mike Wade of Watch Hill Outfitters in Westerly is a leader of this movement. Canât wait to see what he has to say next month!
Whatever you choose to call them, they are simple to catch with squid as they are frantic feeders, and they also strike worms and clams. Great fish for the kids to catch and eat. They are beautiful with iridescent silver, green and blue scales, easily handled by children. They should be iced on catching, but do not spoil as quickly as many other fish, and are quite mild in flavor. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 6 1/4 pounds Porgy
- 1 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil 4 cloves crushed garlic
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 lemon juice only
- 1 tablespoon oregano
Directions
Scale and gut fresh 1 1/4- 11/2 pounds Porgy. Prepare a charwood fire and allow the coals to burn down to a hot white ash. Brush the Porgy with olive oil (extra virgin) that has crushed garlic cloves mixed in. Season with sea salt and fresh milled pepper. Cook 2 1/2 minutes on each side ; remove. Drizzle more extra virgin olive oil over each fish ; squeeze lemon. Sprinkle with dry Greek oregano.
Recipe courtesy of Oceana
Be sure to look for light, refreshing wine, such as Pinot Gris to balance the delicate fish flavor! Check out www.biggamefishing.com for even more!
