A Feast on the Beach

This, is ooligan. Ooligan, you ask? What the heck is that? From the name, you’d think it has something to do with Eliza Doolittle cursing out an Arsenal fan, but actually, and obviously from the picture, it’s a fish.

More specifically, it’s a sea-going variety of smelt that lives along the British Columbia coast, prized among the native people for its rich oil. Ooligan (or oolichan or oolican or eulachon) is caught in rivers and bays in the spring, then drained of its grease and dried or smoked. The grease is a precious commodity — a valuable trade good and often the most prized gift at a potlatch.

And the fish, after pressing and drying, can be turned on end and lit with a match like a candle. It’s that oily.

It’s also quite tasty. Especially the head.

How I got to eat an ooligan is a somewhat long story, but I’ll try to make it brief (or at least I’ll try to get to the part about food quickly).

It all started many years back when my father was working with the Samish people (just east of here in Washington’s Skagit Valley). The Samish were struggling to be recognized as a tribe, and thanks to my father’s scholarly input, they succeeded. After my father died this spring, members of the Samish tribal council spoke to us about honoring his memory, and not long after that, the first opportunity arose: The San Juan Nature Institute was hosting a multi-tribal salmon picnic. It was the perfect place for the Samish to present my mother with a gift of thanks for all of my father’s work.

At this point, Chopper and I were just hoping for a chance to attend, but in mid July, just a couple weeks before the picnic, we had the good fortune of running into our family friend Farhad – who was not only the picnic’s organizer, he was also the picnic’s chef. Five minutes of conversation later, Chopper offered his assistance and the two chefs were knee deep in menu planning.

The picnic was to take place at Fourth of July Beach, just a half mile down the road from our house. The prep work was in the other direction, back toward town at the Mullis Community Center kitchen. We met there on the morning of the event and dove in.

First up, 110 bread rolls from a big bowl of homemade bread dough. While we filled sheet pans, Betsy, the third member of Farhad’s crew (and our local health inspector!) set to work on his fish stew.

Farhad’s stew was a traditional style recipe that included halibut, clams, carrots, celery, and the stand-out ingredient of herring roe. Farhad explained to us how the roe is harvested. Sea farmers dig pools along the beach and line them with kelp. At high tide, the herring swim into the pools, and the farmers block their exit. The herring, perhaps confused by their captivity, spawn a second time, covering the kelp with their roe. The pools are then reopened, the herring swim out to sea, and the farmers gather up their roe-covered sheets of kelp.

After we finished with the bread, it was on to the giant cooler of crabs. 28 Dungeness crabs to be exact, all gathered off the beach just a short walk from Farhad and his wife April’s home on Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands). The crabs had all been cooked and then frozen, so it was our job to defrost, gut, and quarter them. (And I have to say that 28 crabs later, I’m now an expert crab cracker!)

In the next room, while we quartered crabs, Farhad prepped the contents of the second giant cooler (and the results of his most recent fishing expedition): King salmon.

Needless to say, all of this made us quite hungry. Fortunately, we had snacks for the crew: three varieties of smoked salmon – maple, alder, and best of all the rich, oily belly meat, smoked in mesquite. I have a feeling I probably ate more than my share.

An hour before the picnic’s start, we drove home for a quick respite, then headed off to the beach. We arrived shortly after three, and since the salmon dinner wasn’t scheduled to start till five or so, this gave us our second break of the day and a chance to attend an ethnobotany talk presented by the San Juan Nature Institute.

I took copious notes during the talk (enough to make for a lengthy post on native uses of local plants… sometime in the future… ahem), and continued my note-taking during a lively round of plant identification on a hike down to the shoreline. If we’d been graded, I would have scored a high B or an A, with massive thanks to all those childhood nature walks with Dad.

Just a few of the edibles we encountered included Pacific crab apple, Sopalali, yarrow, wild beach pea, and below the tide line, nori. I immediately entertained grand thoughts of harvesting our own nori, only to have my hopes dashed by the revelation that to do it proper, we’d need scuba gear and a shellfish permit. Damn.

After the talk, Chopper took to assisting with the dinner set-up, while I attended a second talk – this one on ornithology. After that: meal time!

Chopper and Farhad at the grill; serving dinner.

The glorious fish stew.

A full plate — but leave room for ooligan!

While Chopper stayed at the grill station and attended to the salmon, I patrolled both the cooking and the eating areas, snapping pictures – but not too many pictures. I had to have disc space left for the presentation of my Mom’s gift from the Samish, and for the evening’s entertainment: Haida dancers.

The dancers, led by Haida artist Christian White, hailed from the town of Old Masset on the northern coast of Graham Island, Haida Gwaii. Traditions are strong there; children learn the native language in school, and not only are the old songs passed down from generation to generation, but new songs are written as well.

At the end of the picnic, in true potlatch tradition, the Nature Institute distributed gifts to all the attendees: smoked salmon, seaweed, wooden boxes and coffee mugs, and a beautiful commemorative print of a starfish created by Haida artist April White. Oh, and leftovers. Tons and tons of yummy leftovers.

Oh, and about that gift presentation: I have to say that it went by a bit quickly and I spent so much time scrambling for a good spot to take a photo that I missed the photo I wanted to get. Not too worry though. Two weeks from now we’ll be attending a Samish potlatch and all I can say for now is that the Samish have come up with a way to honor my father that is so incredibly, amazingly cool that I turn into a little blubbering ball of emotion just thinking about it. Stay tuned…

Want more photos? Good, because I got carried away, set up a Flickr account, and uploaded a ton of them. Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2005 at 9:22 pm and is filed under island local. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.