From water to fire
Smoking blues
MARSHFIELD -- On clear nights, Michael Biviano sets up a $30 Sunbeam smoker in his backyard while Kitty, his tiger cat, patrols the area. Six hours, seven pounds of charcoal and mesquite wood chips, and many beers later, Biviano, 25, who fishes daily in waters near Humarock, and his friend Dana Biagini dig into Cajun-flavored bluefish jerky that Biviano describes as ''mellow and consistent."
Baking bluefish may be fine for some blue lovers, but smoking bluefish is for the hearty. Go out and catch the fish yourself, as so many sport fishermen do this time of year -- 80 percent of the catch off our waters is the domain of spirited outdoorsmen -- and you're also inclined to set up a smoker so the rich meat and fire-cooked fish give you months of pleasure.
Bluefish, fishermen will tell you, is a fighting fish. It will bite your hand with smacking canine teeth that rattle when they go after prey. The meat is oily and soft and barely flakes. When smoked, it turns savory and smooth. The dark fish, however, is an acquired taste. In this region, where it is treasured, smoked bluefish was common long before smoker appliances became widespread. Only the technology has changed. ''We've come a long way from the days when guys used to put a hot plate in an old refrigerator and slammed the door," says Louie Larsen of Martha's Vineyard. That old-fashioned method was for diehards.
Today, smoked bluefish is a small but steady commercial enterprise. New England smokehouses such as Fox Seafood of Narragansett, R.I.; Spence & Co. of Brockton; and Sasquatch Smokehouse of Gloucester include the rich fish in their product line. For wholesale distribution, smoked blue fillets have to meet the Food and Drug Administration's salinity requirement (salt acts as a preservative).
That requirement doesn't apply for small-scale smokers. Larsen, owner of the Net Result seafood market, has his own system, using a portable cook shack. He fills it with bluefish fillets (skin and scales still intact) and smokes them at 175 degrees for six hours. Then he reduces the temperature to 145 degrees and retires for the night. The results are dependable -- and so is his following. His smoked fillets are less salty than commercial brands, and his smoked bluefish pâte has been featured on the Food Network. When bluefish season ends, the Net Result and other markets carry smoked bluefish from Fox Seafood.
In Boston, Gloucester, and points north, where the season is nearly a month shorter, there's less culinary romance with a fish that heads to the Carolinas for the winter shortly after reaching the Gulf of Maine. ''The truth of the matter is," says Alan Spence of Spence & Co. smoked seafood, ''only when you're within smelling distance do they sell very well." Especially when it's darker-fleshed meat like bluefish -- or, more to the point, not salmon. Spence, who supplies smoked bluefish to Whole Foods and Wild Oats, says customers ''want it nice and red, or nice and white."
Paul Cohan of Sasquatch Smokehouse agrees. ''The farther into New England you go, the more people just want to eat haddock and flounder," he says.
Outdoorsmen have no such prejudice about light versus dark. They are keepers of the flame, glad to spread the know-how for smoking blues, because it's less involved than setting up a pup tent. ''It sounds complicated until you do it the first time around," says Frank Sweeney of Westport. ''Compared to smoking turkey or ducks it's a cinch."
Other than a pickiness they share for fresh fish that's been properly handled, which means cleaned and put on ice immediately after it's caught, most have their own particularities about cooking times, brines, marinades, and wood chips. But the procedure is always the same. (See related story.)
Smoke comes from smoldering wood chips. Sweeney insists on Nature's Own, a natural charcoal from Canada. But he also uses chips from tree branches in his backyard.
Wet-smoked fish is brined first. For dry smoking, the fillets are sprinkled with a rub and placed directly on a grill inside a smoker. George Zedalis, a hunter and fisherman from Winthrop, who smokes bluefish for horseshoe meets at the Elks Club there, says, ''Some [members] wrinkle their noses at first, but once they try it they go wild over it." He laments that young people today ''don't have enough fish in their lives. They aren't learning to hunt and fish."
Marshfield resident Biviano, however, has owned his own boat since he was 8 years old. He has even kept the menacing teeth of a bluefish that bit his hand -- just to show who had the last laugh. When he's smoking, he's not opposed to shortcuts. A packaged Cajun rub on his fillets is good enough for him.
While Biviano's small smoker limits what size fish he can use, Sweeney can get about a dozen 17-inch fillets, cut from young 2-to-3-pound bluefish, on a Brinkman smoker. Smaller bluefish are generally sweeter and healthier than mature bluefish, which can weigh more than 15 pounds. ''When they're younger, they're less likely to have an accumulation of toxins since they have less body fat," says Paul Caruso, senior marine fisheries biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. The concern, as it is with any large fish that eats other fish, is mercury and PCBs. The FDA recommends that pregnant women and young children avoid all such fish.
Many fishermen cut off the darker meat, which cats love, either when filleting or after smoking. Larsen removes the thin, dark layer of fat because without it his pâte tastes milder. ''For health reasons, that's not a bad practice," says Caruso.
Gloucester fisherman Cohan smokes fish as a side business. He brings ''very, very fresh bluefish right out of the boat, right onto the cutting table, and straight into the brine as quickly as possible." 