The Shore Lunch : Eastern Woods and Waters

An enjoyable element that is integral to the fishing ritual and a celebration of our heritage as hunters.

Every spring it was the same: the unaccustomed warmth of an afternoon sun on the face, song sparrows in the meadow and a heavy running brook newly released from winter's grip. It was just plain great to be alive and spirits soared with the reawakening.

After maple syrup season, my old friend would arrive, fishing rod in hand, empty creel over his shoulder and a smile on his face. He had seen many more springs than I, yet he seemed to treasure the annual joy of it more with each passing year, for taking time for granted is folly reserved for the young.

Upon reaching the stream, we began the ritual.

After each fish was landed, it was cleaned with an old knife with a birch bark handle and laid in the creel on a bed of damp moss. After six or so had been so landed and preserved, we would retire to the shore and light a fire and boil a kettle.

Then out came the iron frying pan and a couple slices of bacon, flour, salt and pepper. With the bacon sizzling, the trout were rolled in flour and dropped in the hot bacon fat. They curled and browned up and were eaten off a birch bark plate.

If there's better tuck out on God's green earth, I've never had it!

Time eventually ran out for my old friend in this life, and when generously asked by his family if there was anything in his fishing collection I would like to have as a memento of our long buddyship - I asked not for tackle, but for the creel, knife and frying pan.

I've had shore lunches since in Oregon, British Columbia, Manitoba, the mid-west states, Newfoundland and Labrador, and I serve them to clients at my Nova Scotia Lodges every summer. The shore lunch ceremony has become, for me, an essential component of the wilderness angling experience.

(In terms of any risk of contravening generally accepted conservation principles, the species and size of the fish dictates what can be served without endangering any fish species. I believe most anglers are perfectly capable of responsibly making these decisions.)

Fish is the most perishable of all the meats. Cleaned and cooked as soon as landed is about as good as it gets! Usually, however, there's an obvious delay between catchin' an' cookin' - so, it's usually feasible to keep fish alive until lunchtime either with a live well in a boat or a rock pool fashioned at the water's edge (don't try it with salmon). If this is not possible, and the fish is destined for the pan, (except for salmon) remove the intestines and store in a cool place.

Two potential problems exist in a dead fish; enzymes and bacteria. The digestive enzymes exist in the stomach and at death can pass through the stomach wall and contaminate the meat.

Cooling is to prevent the spread of bacteria. A fish fresh out of the water, for instance, has very little smell. We would describe it as "clean". (If this comes as a surprise, you're in for a treat and fish counters will never be the same.)

Most of the fish I prepare require filleting. My favourite shore lunches originate with white and yellow perch - and no, I'm not kidding. Perch is one of the best eating fish that swims. The filleting method is used on all coarse fish and all fish too large to cook while in a pan. Remember we are dealing with a quick shore lunch.

Use a sharp filleting knife with a narrow flexible blade (I use a Rapala and it does the job well) and be aware that you should use a proper sharpener from the start, and not a rough stone. (I have, however, fish filleted with a double bitted axe - but for the beginner, a filleting knife will keep things simple.)

First, lay the fish down on a clean surface and hold it by the head. Place the blade diagonally from the back of the head to behind the first fin, cut down until you are approaching the backbone. Turn the blade and cut towards the tail keeping the blade just off the backbone and pressing down fairly firmly with the thumb as you cut. Your free hand should be open and pressing lightly on top of the fillet to hold it steady as you slice underneath.

Remove the fillet with the skin attached. Trim the tiny bones by the stomach cavity and lay the fillet, skin down, on the surface. Carefully cut underneath enough of the skin at the tail end to grip with thumb and forefinger.

Now, grasp the tail end of the skin with your fingers and run the knife next to the skin towards the front. If all goes well, you will have a boneless, skinless, fillet. Rinse and store in a cool place until ready to use.

This basic shore lunch described is about as simple as it gets. Let's expand upon that one and add more ingredients. After a morning's fishing in your favourite spot, a meal in the outdoors will be memorable and food will never taste better. No restaurant, no matter how fancy or expensive, can begin to compare.

And the spot you choose to eat is as important as what you eat - by a brook, or a big flat top pine, or a flat rock above a falls, or any number of picturesque little places away from the worst of the flies.

No matter how fancy the flatware or exquisite the china or gleaming the silverware; city-folk meals simply can't hold a non-drip candle to even the most basic shore lunch properly prepared.

Upon landing at the site, a fire is started and a kettle is placed to boil. Setting the fire should be done if possible on a bed of rocks or sand and flat-top rocks placed around to support cooking grill. It is critical that the fire be allowed to burn down to a glowing bed of coals, or close to it, before cooking proceeds. In this way, we produce a more even heat and lower the risk of fly ash contaminating the grub.

A large iron frying pan is placed to heat and lard, butter or equivalent amount of low fat oil or margarine placed in the pan. While the fat heats, slice potatoes approximately one quarter inch thick and fillet your fish. Drop a slice of potato in the fat and when it comes to the top and bubbles in the fat, only then is the fat hot enough to place potatoes in to cook.

While the potatoes bubble, take the plastic bottle (in which you mixed milk and an egg before you left home) and drop your fish fillets in the mixture. Turn your potatoes. Take your fillets from the milk and egg mixture and place in a plastic bag with flour and shake. Remove the potatoes from the fat and place on paper towel to drain off excess fat. Open a can of baked beans and place in pot
to heat. Place fillets in the pan and cook quickly just until the coating turns a golden brown.

Serve fish, potatoes, beans on a plate with pickles and brown bread. Season to taste and enjoy with steaming hot tinker's tea from your kettle.

Mmmmm!

Dessert is the sun in your face, fresh air in your lungs, and the song bird atop the big spruce up on the hill behind you. Perhaps even a little south-facing nap in the alders or the moss will round out the occasion.

With practice, the procedure (not including eating) can be accomplished, start to finish, in 15 or 20 minutes.

If transporting an egg and milk mixture is neither possible nor convenient, you could use a beer batter. Put a cup of beer into a cup of flour, add a pinch of salt, a squeeze of lemon and a dash of paprika. (Strange, but sometimes in the backwoods a cup of beer is easier to obtain than eggs and milk.)

This is a traditional shore lunch in much of North America; and one of the great advantages of this method is that the batter seals the moisture in the fillet and the visible browning process assures lunch will not be overdone.

If your eating habits discourage deep fried foods, then foil-wrapped fish, baked in a bed of coals might be just what the doctor ordered for you. It's a method that has been described as a combination of baking, poaching, steaming and braising.

The actual physical method is very simple but it requires a measure of finesse with respect to cooking time.

The basic rule is 10 minutes for each inch of thickness of the fish. Wrap a whole fish, fillets or steaks in a package of well greased aluminum foil, sealed tightly. Diced vegetables, seasoning and a little lemon can be added before sealing. Add five minutes cooking to allow heat to penetrate the foil. Place package on a smouldering bed of coals and cover with coals, allow cooking time, remove, open and enjoy.

Planked Salmon

If time and available resources allow, the Cadillac of shore lunches - the sumptuous planked salmon - is a treat rarely to be forgotten.

Success with this aboriginal Canadian technique requires quite different handling of the fish. An Atlantic salmon is the only fish that doesn't require cleaning upon capture; in fact, in warm weather cleaning allows bacteria to access the meat. The proper handling of a salmon is to leave the fish whole and store in a cool dry place - not in water.

To prepare your salmon for planking, cut the fish down through the back to the stomach cavity, being very careful not to cut through the skin on the belly. Remove the intestines including the kidney (the dark material next to the backbone.)

Preparation of the plank is important. I use a freshly fallen maple (hardwood is essential) cut to a length of about two feet longer than the salmon. Split the round and nail the two halves together to make a flat surface. Lay the salmon skin side down on the flat surface and secure to the plank using maple suckers (or fine wire) nailed down over the fish. Securely prop the plank about 18 inches in front of a large bed of hardwood coals.

About 10 minutes to the inch is appropriate for cooking, but be aware cooking time will vary with distance to the coals. Baste liberally with butter or margarine. The plank heats up and also cooks from the back. (If the plant is dry, soak it for a couple of hours prior to use because a wet plank transfers the heat more evenly.)

Planked salmon is less a meal than it is an experience.

The fat (salmon is a fat fish) drips from the plank rendering the flavour distinctive, while the flattened surface of the fish produces even, moist cooking throughout. Enjoy with a potato and tossed salad with a bottle of white wine, but remember that boiled fiddleheads are the perfect vegetable fare to accompany salmon.

In the proper setting, it doesn't get any better!

Is there anyone else out there who has a favourite old fork, who can't stand to eat off a paper plate, and who believes that eating utensils should be strong enough to break a damn potato chip? Convenience be damned, I prefer to eat with proper utensils off a solid plate and sup from a proper tin mug, thank you!

It is my long and firmly-held opinion that paper plates and plastic cutlery and Styrofoam cups should be reserved for anorexic pygmies. The best rig I've ever seen was a picnic basket from the 1920s. Now those folks had class!

While only rudimentary tools are required to produce a world class culinary experience, some rudimentary tools make the job much easier.

As I have previously mentioned, Rapala makes an inexpensive fillet knife, they also make a fillet board with a clamp at the top to hold the head and tail during filleting. Coleman makes a portable kitchen which sets up and has everything you would need in one folding container. Our summers seem to be drier every year and bans on open fires common. When this happens a propane stove is legal and if gathering dry wood is a problem (after a severe rainstorm for instance), these perform very well also, but nothing adds more to the experience than the familiar and comforting smell of wood smoke!
In dealing with the cooking of fresh fish, you will notice the almost total absence of suggested herbs and spices. The fresher the fish, the simpler its preparation. Fresh fish requires nothing more than salt and pepper and maybe a squeeze of lemon.

When selecting fish for eating, remember bigger is only important to the angler. Arguably, the opposite is true for cooking. In genetic terms, the larger fish are the superior breeders, so common sense and conservation principals dictate that we enjoy catching them, then release them none the worse for wear.

And on a sour modern day note, larger fish are more likely to store potentially toxic contaminants such as mercury, other heavy metals and PCBs and, unfortunately, we have recently learned that Maine and the Maritime provinces are not immune from the effects of such curses, whether airborne and imported or home-grown.

In almost any given species, juveniles and those animals beyond reproductive capability are the most responsible choice for harvesting. This goes against the "put 'em back and let 'em grow"
philosophy - but that philosophy is flawed. It is the larger fish that are the most valuable by virtue of the fact they have lived the longest. Those are the genes, then, that have passed the test of survival of the fittest and those are the genes we wish to see procreated.

It goes without saying, as well, that we have a responsibility to clean up our camp site and make sure a fire is completely extinguished before leaving. I do, however, leave my rock base fire spot for other anglers or for personal re-use.

Shore lunches add greatly to the outdoor experience and with practice can become a virtual gourmet's delight.

The concept of catching, cooking and consuming something from the wild; then leaving the habitat as you found it so that creature may simply be replaced by another, is the fundamental principle upon which the natural order of things is based; the fundamental principle by which our forebears existed - and the only principle.