a word on frogs and the many ways they taste good

It is once again time for frogs. In the beginning of March, before the season closes for a couple of months, a brief window exists for the harvesting of wild bullfrogs (Rana catesbiana) in Louisiana. The weather has just warmed up enough for the frogs to shake off their winter stupor, and the crawfish haven't started coming in heavy (the arrival of the crawfish is important because no one wants to mess around with frogs when there's money to be made in crawfish). Before getting to the hows and whys of frog cookery, I hope the reader will permit a brief (and hopefully relevant) explanation of the Louisiana frog fishery...

The overwhelming majority of fisheries in the United States are both large and industrial. Commercial concerns like it this way, as a larger share of the market is guaranteed (if you want fish, and all that is for sale is salmon, you're probably going to buy and eat salmon). State and federal regulatory agencies like it as well, as industrial or fleet fisheries are easier to manage. Unfortunately, this means that our choices of seafood and fisheries products are limited. It also means that a great many products are simply not available commercially, as the time invested seldom brings an adequate reward to the harvester. Artisan fisheries are by and large a thing of the past, except in a few pockets of the US.

The good news is that Louisiana is one of those few spots where small-scale commercial fisheries are still alive, which brings me to frogs.

No one catches frogs anymore as a full-time job. The money is just not there. However, lots of folks do catch frogs when there is little else going on. As I was recently told by my frog guy, "They do it to have a bit of fun and to make ends meet until the main fisheries start up again."

Allow me an explanation of how the frogs are harvested. Two men go out in a small boat, armed with nothing but a spotlight. Frogs are of course nocturnal, which dictates night-time hunting. One man steers the boat close to shore or substrate, and the other man hangs over the front edge of the boat, shining his light at the shore. When a frog is spotted (their eyes shine in the glare of the light), the boat eases over and the spotter grabs the frog by hand. Hand nets may legally be used, but by hand is the preferred method. On an exceedingly good night, a boat might catch 100 lbs. of frogs....and that's live frogs. Dressing the frogs out (heading, skinning, and gutting) takes half the weight. So, two men out all night fishing, and they might end up with 50 lbs. of ready-to-sell product. It takes only a few moments of reckoning to realize that no one is going to get rich on frogs.

The price of domestic frogs is an issue, and one that is rarely examined. Certainly, the price of Louisiana frogs is several times higher, but, given the harvest methods and regulations, this should hardly be surprising.

Now, on to cooking. As I wrote above, we get our frogs in headed, gutted, and skinned. They are, at this point, ready to cook. Though most folks are familiar with only the legs, the rest of the frog is quite useful as well, and really this is the best way to use the frog, both in terms of economy as well as taste. The frogs generally come in two sizes- small (4-9 to the pound) and large (less than 4 to the pound). Both are equally good, though the large frogs have a better meat yield.


I love eating frogs, and my wife and kids eat even more than I do (I suspect that my wife loves them so much because she doesn't have to catch them anymore). At my house, we often make soups, stir-fries, and curries using the whole frog. Simply hack the body up into several pieces, and use like that. Admittedly, using the frog thusly will necessitate picking small bits of meat from the bones with your fingers....which shouldn't bother anyone, considering that, the last time I checked, all animals have bones, and all meat that humans eat comes from animals (until they perfect Soylent green or Mr. Singer has his way). Using the meat like this also has the added benefit of flavor- frog bones make a tasty sauce.

Or, the whole frog may be battered and fried (which turns eating around the bones into a crunchy tasty pleasure), or the frogs may be skewered and grilled, as is commonly done in the north of Thailand (though there they leave both skin and heads on).

Of course, one may use the legs for the 'meat' and the torsos for the sauce (as Mr. Gossen does when making his famous sauce piquante).


Whilst working in France, we fabricated the legs into 'hams', then cooked the torsos, pulled the meat, made a nice garlicky ragout, and served the ragout with the 'hams', which was a noble use of the whole animal.

Finally, you may simply cook the frogs whole in a flavorful broth, then pull the meat and use in any number of recipes (Mr. Grossman at Branchwater Tavern produced spectacular pot pies with pulled frog meat). Don't forget to pick all the torso meat, making sure not to neglect the slips of meat covering the shoulder blades, the 'skirts', and the rib meat. Though there's not much there, the differences in texture and flavor is wonderful and adds a great complexity to any dish...sorting of like using all the bits of meat off a pig's head.

So eat some frogs and remember that, as always, I've only scratched the surface concerning frogs and their potential in the kitchen. Louisiana frogs will never be a staple item at our tables, but they make a delightful seasonal treat- and a treat which may be traced directly back to the waters of the Atchafalaya basin and the communities that have survived there for hundreds of years. Just try tracing Chinese frogs back to the source.

Mangez les grenouilles, et pas que les cuisses!!

The magnificent Pen Shell

I've been making an attempt to inhale everything there is to read about shellfish in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, and there is not much on the subject without delving into specialized scientific material, which is not as much fun to read as you would think. Little material for the interested layman is what I'm trying to say, and next to nothing about how, when, or possibly where to find live shellfish (oysters aside, of course). All of this has made shellfishing a matter of knowing what could or should be in a certain area, and then finding the critter where the books say it might be, using methods that the books say might or might not work, all the while keeping an eye out for something completely unexpected.

The day after christmas was spent in a good bay. The water had blown out and was staying out. The bay, which is never very deep, was beautifully empty, and there was not enough wind to stir up the few inches of water remaining. Clamming was the game, as the southern quahogs were spitting water everywhere, and it was only a matter of trudging over to a lump and digging the clam up. We were almost at our limits when my clamming partner noticed what appeared to be a long, strange oyster poking just above the surface of the sand, valves open, in three inches of water. I reached down and felt the surface of the shell, and I knew that we'd found a Pen Shell.

The Pen Shell, also called the Sea Wing, Fan Mussel, Jambonneau, Tairagai, and Hoy Jawp, is one of several species of Atrina, and shares characteristics with oysters, scallops, and mussels. They grow to be as long as a foot or more in our waters- none of those pictured above were less than ten inches, and a few were over thirteen. They have the general shape of a mussel, complete with a long byssus, or beard (incidentally, this bysssus was used in the eastern Mediterranean to produce a fabric reportedly finer than silk, called byssa, which was one of the more costly fabrics in history). The shell is black or brown, but if one chips it away, a brilliant metallic inner shell is exposed.

Pen Shells will only be found on sandy or grassy bottoms exposed by very low tides. The good news is that they usually can be found in loose clusters, with two to five animals in a ten square foot radius. As stated before, the Pen Shell lives buried almost up to the tips of its shell. Happily, excavation is quick. Work your hands down the sides of the shell, then slowly pull when you can get a good hold. It would be much easier to use a face mask to find Pen Shells, but I for one have no interest in swimming in the bays during the winter.

Most bi-valves, Pen Shells included, are quite easy to keep alive for several days. Simply fill a cooler with clean seawater that has been strained through a paper towel, and put in the shellfish, starting with clams and heavy creatures on the bottom. Straining the water about once a day is all that is necessary to keep the water barely oxygenated and clean. An added benefit is that shellfish will purge nicely in a day if held this way.


Opening a just-harvested Pen Shell is challenging if one is trying to keep the fragile shells intact. On the other hand, it is easy to remove the meat in one piece if one simply snaps the narrow tip off of the shell. Admittedly, you lose the shell, but otherwise you need to wait for two or three days for the adductor muscle to relax somewhat.
A knife may then be slid between the muscles and the shells. Though you should crack the shell over a bowl to catch any liquid, the majority of the juice that pours out of the shell is water (The Pen Shells valves close imperfectly, allowing in some water all the time). True Pen Shell liquor will be slightly viscous, and the liquor is the last liquid to come out of the shell- don't worry, you will know it when you see it. Upon opening a Pen Shell, one is struck by the very large adductor muscle, which resembles a scallop muscle- though it tastes much better than your average scallop. This muscle is apparently used in Japan for sashimi, and it's the reason I don't care as much for steaming open Pen Shells- you will lose the raw 'scallop'. Don't forget the small disk of meat adjacent to the adductor muscle. When cooked, this little portion looks like jumbo lump crab meat with the the taste of lobster.
Do NOT discard the rest of the organs. They are as edible and tasty as clam and oyster and scallop guts. Due to the size of the Pen Shell, the texture of the guts might not be appealing to all at the table.
However, if minced and used in stuffings, or to thicken sauces or soups, or suitably poached, Pen Shell organs are exquisite. When cleaning the Pen Shells, be sure to carefully inspect all organs, especially the mantle muscle and gonads, for they are known to produce black pearls. We have a small box at home containing 14 pearls we've gathered so far.


Cook Pen Shells in any way suitable for scallops or clams, or let your imagination run wild. Given the number of different textures of meat in the Pen Shell, there is no end to the possibilities. If you are lucky enough to come across them, don't pass up the chance to eat one raw- they have an impeccably clean and sweet flavor. They are certainly one of the best tasting shellfish I have found in our waters.

The common oyster drill

Ask any oysterman in Texas about the oyster drill and the response you get might be laced with expletives. Ask an oysterman in Louisiana about oyster drills and they will say the same thing...and then they will tell you how to cook them.

Oyster drills are a species of carnivorous snail against whom oystermen have been waging a war for well over a century on the Gulf Coast. This is because oyster drills love to eat oysters. Specifically, drills love to eat young oysters, called spats. The drill bores a hole through the thin shell of a young oyster and sucks the sweet innards out. A drill can bore through and eat about a spat a day. They move fast, and have a finely tuned sensory system perfectly equipped to find whatever food is available, including mussels, barnacles, detritus, and the aforementioned oyster.

All that aside, the oyster drill is still a snail. And, being a snail, the drill is delightful fare for the table. Happily for those of us who are lucky enough to live near the Gulf Coast, drills are plentiful and easy to find. They are not consistently found, but a solitary drill is rarely encountered. If you see one, chances are you will soon find enough, with a little patience, to provide a fine meal, if nothing else. The first picture shows the results of about 15 minutes' work in a good spot. Look for them in saltier areas of bays, around oyster reefs and on rocky areas. They are usually not found in very sandy areas.

Alas, though snails are eaten throughout the world, on all continents where they are found, very few Americans are these days familiar at all with the humble snail. Even most chefs are at a loss when presented with a live gastropod, which is not at all surprising, considering the only snail most chefs will see comes out of a can. Don't get me wrong- high quality canned snails exist, and they are a joy to eat, but they are still a far cry from the animal in situ. I have been very lucky, and have had many chances to cook, clean, and eat fresh snails- vineyard snails in Paris and Aix, rice field snails in Chiang Mai, Apple snails in Udon, marsh periwinkles, drills, and whelks in Texas and Louisiana. Let us not underestimate any snail.

What follows, with apologies to any who consider it elementary, is a bit of an introduction to the humble oyster drill. Most of the following comments apply to all snails- though our marsh periwinkles and other small snails do not require the same treatment to render them tender- though they certainly don't suffer from it.

First- a drill may not be cooked like a bi-valve. The edible part of the drill is the 'foot', which is used for locomotion and feeding. Hence, the muscle is quite strong, and the meat is consequently quite firm. Not tough, but certainly firm. A bit of further processing is necessary if you're looking for anything with a less crispy texture.

On the other hand, my wife has certainly done them right with just a quick boil in 'laab hoy'.

The edible portion may be extracted in one of two basic ways- raw or cooked. If you are looking for raw meat: one swift blow with a claw hammer will bust the shell. Pull out the whole animal. Pull off the large sac of guts. There will still be another section of gut which is attached to the head. Look for antennae (or small stubs) right at the base of the 'foot'. Slip your nail under the head, and pull toward the 'tail'. With a little practice, this piece is easily removed. The 'operculum' (the 'shell' on the 'foot') may be cut off with a knife. The picture shows whelk meat, but the idea is the same. I might recommend wearing gloves if you shell the drills raw. The drills secrete a chemical which, when exposed to oxygen, turns purple. Though it is completely harmless, it will stain hands for weeks (incidentally, it is a species closely related to drills that was used in the ancient Mediterranean world in the production of a fabulously expensive cloth dye).

Otherwise, you may extract the meat after cooked. Blanch the snails for 10-15 minutes in salted water. When the operculums start falling off, the snails are ready. Let them cool, then pull the meat out with a toothpick. Pull off all the organs just as you would for raw snails.

Now, what does one do with snails? Raw, they may be pounded then fried or grilled; they very good ground and used in chowders or stuffings. At our house, drill fritters with a pungent dipping sauce are a consistent hit. Large drills are just barely big enough to be pounded into very small 'drill steaks'. Blanched meat may be used in soups, braised with garlic (with stunning results), tossed into salads, pickled, preserved, and simply eaten with a good drawn butter and salt. Or just throw the live snails in a curry, cook for about 20 minutes, and pick the meat out of the shells at the table.
There are undoubtedly dozen of ways to cook oyster drills that are even better than what I've mentioned here. Find out some of them for yourself. Enjoy.

Whelks, clams, and periwinkles (oysters, too)

As I watched weather patterns unfolding last week, I dared not hope that conditions would be right for another foraging trip. Around noon on Saturday, the wind became erratic, trying to decide from which direction it should blow. By late afternoon, though, the wind was indecisive no more. 20-25 mph winds coming from the north/northwest. That, combined with a decent enough low tide predicted for Sunday morning, made up my mind. We loaded up Sunday morning, and hurried down as fast as we could. It was about 9 am when I finally got to a good spot on ___________ bay (find your own foraging spot!). Not a cloud in the sky, and aside from the cold wind, the day couldn't have been nicer.
Before getting my feet wet, I spent a few moments collecting some marsh periwinkles (Littorina irorrata), which were clinging to the bases and stalks of the spartina grass.
Periwinkles in general are pretty small creatures, and our local variety is a touch smaller than others. There is no fast way to prepare them that I am aware of. First, the tip of the shell must be clipped off to eliminate the vacuum. This is accomplished with a strong pair of poultry shears.

After the snails are cooked, the body falls out of the shell easily. My wife eats the whole critter. I do not care for snail guts as much, so I pull them off. Either way, you end up with a piece of meat so insignificant that you would have to clean several dozen periwinkles for a mouthful. But the taste is superb, with a minerally start and noticeably sweet finish. Definitely worth the effort....occasionally.

After gathering more than enough periwinkles, I trudged out to the mud flats exposed by the low tide and high winds. After an hour or two spent wading through thigh-high muddy sand, fruitlessly searching for jackknife and razor clams (the shells were in their death stance EVERYWHERE, but I never got one), I tried the grass flats. Limited visibility, even at 7 inches (again, the wind) hampered my efforts- no scallops, no little clams.

The massive Southern Quahog clam (Mercenaria campechiensis texansis) was another matter. They are usually just under the surface anyway, and the winds had exposed several. Happily, I snatched a half dozen, the least of which weighed about a pound. The coin in the photos is a quarter. These guys went right into the chowder pot back home. They cannot be prepared as a small steamer would, but cooked properly are suitably tender. The taste is exquisite, and the flavor they impart to a chowder is beyond compare.
While rejoicing in my meager catch, I spotted a nice whelk shell (Busycon spp.). These shells litter the bay shore, and usually the most exciting critter inside is an angry hermit crab.

This time, fortune was smiling on me, and I got several live whelks, all with thick fat bodies. Whelk meat has a nutty flavor, with a hint of lobster. The meat has a good texture, being firm while not at all chewy or tough. Because of the paucity of my general harvest, these guys joined the clams in the chowder. I wanted raw meat for the chowder, so I extracted the meat whilst the animal was still living.
All that is needed is a quick blow to the 'sweet spot' on the shell. My trusty shellfish mauler is tops for this (and for chipping apart oyster clumps).
The body will slip out, and once viscera is pulled off, the whelk is ready for the fire. The bony piece of shell attached to the meat (the operculum) falls off during cooking.

On my way out of the bay, I grabbed some oysters and saltwort to complete the now ecclectic shellfish chowder (I had decided the snails, in shell, would be added to the soup).

Though I never did get the razor clams or scallops (or the ubiquitous 'little fish' for my wife), we dined like royalty Sunday night.

Bay foraging

Gulf Coast residents are no strangers to the great bay systems. We go and we know what to look for in order to catch a fish- the right tides, birds feeding, slicks, frantic bait fish on the surface, and a hundred other small signs. But we usually only target a few species of fish (redfish, speckled trout, flounder, and sometimes drum), while remaining totally unaware of the food that is all around us. A fishing trip without catching one of the above mentioned species is considered a bust.

In my family, as long as something is brought home to eat, the trip was a success. This has much to do with my wife, who continually opens my eyes to the bounty around us. When I make an all too rare trip to the bays, my wife’s last words are always “don’t forget to catch some small fish”. So I always bring out a little pole armed with a sabiki rig, much to the amusement of others nearby, who assume I am just spending way too long trying to catch some bait
to get some ‘real’ fish. When I explain my purpose, the reaction is standard- either pity, disgust, or disbelief, followed invariably with questions as to which specific little fish taste good and how to cook them. I always suspect that the next time those folks get ahold of a little fish, they quietly put it aside so they can test what I said…of course they probably wouldn’t admit it to anyone they were with, but at least I got them thinking. When I say ‘small fish’, I am not speaking of undersized specimens of game fish, but fish like pigfish, pinfish, whiting, spots, oysterfish, ribbonfish, eels, grass breams, sea robins, bumpers, and the occasional mullet. These are the best eating fish in the bays, and I certainly would choose them over any redfish or trout.


But even a fishing pole isn’t necessary, if you’re willing to get wet and keep your eyes open. Go the shore of the bay, where all the sea grasses grow, and start looking. You will more than likely see snails at the top of the grasses (during high tide), or down in the mud (during low tides). These are, of course, marsh periwinkles, and all you need to find them is eyes and hands. Near the grasses, you’ll also find hermit crabs, which, bizarre appearance aside, are great to eat. Wade out a bit, and you’re sure to see nice fat oysters in clusters of half a dozen or more, which can be harvested easily by hand. Be careful when pulling the clusters apart, because you don’t want to miss the hooked mussels that seem to always be attached to oyster clusters. These mussels are quite small, and the beards are large in proportion to the meat. However, if they are allowed to purge, and are then de-bearded, they make a fine addition to the table. Notice also that large oysters are usually covered with barnacles, both the common and titan varieties. If the oysters are cooked in the shell (and no better way exists to cook oysters than by grilling them whole), don’t forget to pick out the barnacles. The ‘beak’ of the barnacle will poke out of the shell when cooked, and all you need to do is grab the beak and pull.
The edible portion is a small sliver of meat attached to the underside of the beak. When foraging, also keep your eyes open for oyster drills, the most rapacious invertebrate predator of the oyster. Where you find oysters, drills can’t be far away. Drills are snails, and correspond closely to the creature called ‘bulot’ in France (oddly, the Louisiana French name is ‘bigorneau’, which is the French term for periwinkle).

If you find a spot on the shore with a very gentle incline and a sandy bottom, look for vent holes. When you see them, take your shoes off and shuffle through the sand near the holes. If the holes are being made by clams
(either the true quahog or the much larger Southern Quahog), then you will find them with your toes, for clams in our parts generally burrow just a couple of centimeters below the surface.
Large whelks are pretty ubiquitous as well, though take care to only harvest the ‘right-handed’ whelks, as the ‘left-handed’ specimens are lightning whelks, and, as the state shell of Texas, are protected from any harvest. And if you are very persistent, you might just find a clutch of other shellfish in the bays, from calico clams to rangia to scallops to pen shells and beyond. And then there are the edible plants- saltwort, glasswort, purslane, cattails, to name a few. All are highly nutritious, very tasty, and incredibly easy to harvest.


If you happen to be on the beach, poke around the tide line and you might find several different clams, among them the cutest little clam there is, the coquina. It would take well over a hundred coquina to satisfy a normal appetite, but what they lack in size, they make up for in taste.
A bounty surrounds us all on the Gulf Coast, and all it takes is a bit of knowledge and practice in order to feast happily. The few species mentioned here barely scratch the surface.

rack of grouper and the elusive turkey fish

Anyone who lives on the Texas Gulf Coast and wants grouper caught off Texas waters has certainly noticed that pickings are slim this year. In years past, grouper season opened on January 1st and closed when the quota was met- usually about May or June. Tilefish season ran concurrently. This January 1st saw the formal implementation of the grouper and tilefish ITQ, or Individual Transferrable Quota. The ITQ covers all species of grouper in the Gulf, shallow- or deepwater, which is about a dozen species. The ITQ was initiated in response to evidence of overfishing, most of which was occuring off the coast of Florida, which is prime grouper fishing. In order to qualify for a share of the ITQ quota, fishermen had to have an established history of grouper fishing- which most fishermen around here did not have (snapper has always ruled in the western Gulf, and grouper in the east). So few captains around here can make directed grouper trips. Most will pick up a few grouper when they're snapper fishing. And the most common grouper to be caught off snapper boats these days is Epinephelus nigritus, or the common warsaw grouper.

Consider the warsaw. The biggest commercially available grouper in the Gulf, they reach weights in excess of 400 lbs., though the common sizes are between 30 and 80 lbs. There are many common complaints against the warsaw, the most oft heard being a) it doesn't taste like grouper (or even fish), b) the yield is terrible (around 30%) and c) the texture is strange. I admit all that is true. Then again, if one only took the loin from a pig, would one be rational in assuming that pigs have terrible yields? If one was to eat merely the ear of the pig, could one rationally conclude that the texture of the whole pig was strange? And further, could one say that a large feral pig doesn't taste like a pig? I think not, on all accounts....though one could argue that the comparisons are a bit strained....

The warsaw shouldn't be the stepchild of the grouper family. It deserves its rightful place with its more illustrious cousins. But what can be done with the warsaw? Below are a few ideas we've been working on here in the bowels of the Captain Queeg Institute for the Advancement of Fish Eating. We used a 110 lb. warsaw.



Racks: Exactly what it sounds like: The ribs are left on the forward bottom loin, with belly meat attached. Individual chops may be cut, or two portions of ribs per loin piece. The belly may be rolled up and tied to the chop (we recommend this, as the competing textures of the rack meat and the belly is really quite nice).




Throat: Only the larger warsaws are big enough to produce throats worthy of the name. It resembles a turkey breast, and the meat is remarkably similar, in taste and texture. Definitely a piece of fish for those who insist they don't like fish. Very good roasted, grilled, bar-b-qued. The bones are few and large, so cleaning of the throat is easy. One could even, if one were inclined, make scallopini. Warsaw throat might be one of Professor Fish Heads' new favorites, so good are they.


Cheeks: As the throat reminds us of turkey, the cheek calls to mind a chicken breast. When cooked, it even pulls apart like a chicken breast. Meaty and mild. And, of course, you're talking 6-12 oz. per cheek.








Loins: A fillet from a 100 lb. grouper can be hard to handle, due to sheer size and the thickness of the fillet. Instead, we've loined the fish out like a larger pelagic fish. The top loin is further divided along the natural split (corresponding to the lateral line), resulting in three different loin pieces, all very suitable for sutting steaks. The texture on a bigger warsaw is much firmer than one would expect from a grouper. In fact, it is more akin to swordfish or mako in its firmness. The fish holds together during cooking, so grilling is an option. Expect a cooked piece of fish that is firm, but not at all tough, with an excellent sweet taste. If you're looking for a great steak fish, look no further.