Just A FEW FEET ABOVE THE OCEAN

HOW I LEARNED WHAT ‘FRESH’ TRULY MEANS

Fresh seafood is one of the best things on earth, and I would know. My childhood was spent directly on top of the Pacific Ocean, in a floating-house, with the fishing industry all around me. Off the very north-eastern tip of Vancouver Island, you can find a small community, population less than sixty, varying by season. To get there you must charter a float plane, or hire a fishing boat to take you out. Crossing the Johnstone Strait is a testament to the wilderness of the sea that far North. 

Pilots and Captains carry loads of groceries, supplies, booze, and people. The flight out to the Broughton Archipelago is only twenty minutes, but the boat ride is closer to two hours. For a girl only seven years old, those two hours felt like an eternity. The troller would chug along, and on nice days we would sit out back, soaking up the rare sunshine. On wet days, we would huddle in the cab, chatting about who caught which biggest fish that week, or what was the next storm on the forecast. 

Without roads or an actual town, there was only a general store and post office, so those monthly trips to Port McNeill to stock up on supplies were key to survival. We would buy as much dry goods as we could afford, which often wasn’t much. Cooks and Fishermen don’t exactly earn top dollar. Most of our proteins came from the sea beneath our feet, and it was bountiful. My Step-Dad was a Fisherman of all kinds. He guided tours for wealthy American tourists to catch salmon, and he pulled nets of crab and prawns with my Uncle Albert. Greg is the typical fisherman you’re picturing, rugged and rough, a large wet mustache, a cigarette clamped in his brown stained teeth. 

I can see him in his rain gear smiling at me, standing in the stern of the fishing boat, tossing me the day’s catch. Yellow slicker, tall rubber boots, still the cigarette, burning despite being soaking wet, that tan and wrinkled face grinning at me. I was an only child to my mother, and I did my best to give them the son they never had. Bringing home a colossal thirty pound king salmon, or six full sized dungeness crab, perhaps five pounds of still-alive spot prawns, was a daily thing. My mother came up with every recipe you can imagine, but we had one favorite that always seemed to win over everything else. 

Greg would haul the bucket of swimming prawns to the front of the house, and drain the water off the edge of the deck. A free-floating structure, our decking was just a few feet above the ocean. Prawns are beastly things, sharp saw-like blades on their noses, and little spikey bits that would stab you when you least expected it. It was, of course, my job to clean them. I didn’t like this job at all, and though I loved the end result, I would complain and moan when it came time. When I say ‘clean’ the prawns, I mean rip their heads off. 

In my white ked deck shoes, bright yellow hand-me-down pedal pusher pants, and Calvin and Hobbes sweatshirt, I would sit on the couch in our living room, and watch my parents bicker in the open kitchen. It took some amount of courage, and another even larger amount of prodding by my mother. Wooden spoon in hand, glasses perched on the tip of her nose, her German upbringing showed through. 

Peering into the bucket, larger than my outstretched hand, dozens of prawns lay still, on their sides. Though I had just watched my step-dad drain their water, I told myself they were dead. Gingerly, slowly, carefully, I would grip one by its head plate, little armoured sea dragon that it was. Sometimes it wouldn’t react, and other times it would. Like a jack in the box, I never knew it was coming.

Holding the striped and spotted sea creature tightly in one hand, I would grip the whole tail in the other. This was the moment of truth. In the bucket were easily fifty prawns, which meant there would be fifty truthful moments. I groaned, and my mother shouted in reply. 

“Dinner is waiting on you! Get crackin’ kiddo!”

This may be the start of my villain era, my origin story, now that I look back on it. “OKAY” I would shout back, and in one swift motion, I would twist and rip. If it was done right, the head and tail section would separate cleanly. In one hand I would hold what you imagine as a perfect shrimp tail, and in the other, dripping with brains and goo, was the head. Perfect bait for crab traps, they were tossed into another bucket to be saved for future use. 

If it wasn’t done right, or done quickly enough, the prawn was likely to buck and thrash in my hand. Stabbing me if it could and startling me right out of my dirty white sneakers. I cannot recall how many times I accidentally threw the prawn in the air with a shriek. It was often enough that our cats came to know the routine, and would race me to the unfortunate shellfish I had launched behind the sofa.

Over and over I would twist, and rip. Twist, and rip. The end of the bucket never seeming to get closer. “Only with great sacrifice comes great gain,” was the admonishment Ingrid gave me, as I cried when it was time to wash my wounded hands. So many tiny cuts, all stinging like fire in the cold water. 

“How long til dinner,” I would whine, feeling justified, wringing my little hands in front of me like a peasant.

“As long as it takes,” came the standard reply. 

I would hover, not too close to be in her way, but close enough to know when supper would be ready. Garlic, piles of it. One of those items that can be stored without refrigeration, it was an ingredient we always had plenty of. Butter as well, and mom would use gobs of it. 

“Parsley, chives,” she would bark, handing me scissors. Obediently I would run outside to our deck, the corners stacked with potted herbs and vegetables, my mothers desperate attempt at feeding us something green. Once she had her mise-en-place assembled, supper was just around the corner.

The scent of her kitchen, on the ocean, the air crisp, salty, and tasting slightly of cedar trees, the creaking of the wooden house as rocked gently with the sea, lemons, garlic, and herbs, and the luscious depth of prawns. Without much to keep me occupied, I read a lot. Prawn meat is very similar to Lobster, unlike shrimp. It is a little known fact, but prawns are carnivores, and shrimp are vegetarians. Triumphantly, I announced to my parents, “we are eating mini lobsters!”. I wasn’t right, but I also wasn’t entirely wrong. 

Our propane oven had an old fashioned broiler setting, and those fresh as fresh can be prawns would be split open lengthwise, and then slathered liberally in the herbal citrus garlic mixture. Under the flames they would go, only a few quick minutes. I’m sure the wolves that roamed the wild hills behind our house could smell my mother’s cooking, and looked at each other wondering. With no one around for miles and miles, our meal fit for royalty, my mother, my step dad, and I, dove into the seafood feast. I didn’t know how special those seafood nights were until I moved away and became a Chef myself, and tried to find fresh seafood. Nothing will ever come close to Garlic Butterflied Prawns, in my mothers kitchen, in Echo Bay BC Canada. A high standard to set, ma.

Garlic Butterflied Prawns

As many of the freshest and biggest spot prawns you can find (in shell)

Garlic - Tons of it

Salted Butter - Even more than the garlic

Lemon - A few of them

Fresh Herbs - A handful

Salt, Pepper, Old Bay

~ With kitchen shears, carefully snip the tender belly flap of the shell, and press it open. Lay it shell side down, prawn-meat side up. 

~ In a bowl, mix softened butter with the minced garlic, herbs, lemon zest and seasonings. 

~ Spread a LIBERAL amount onto each little prawn belly. Fire into a very hot oven (450 degrees) under direct flame if possible. 

~ Broil just until done, only minutes!