Guerilla Grilling Part 12: Seafood Specialties

 

[The Shiners!]

Working in the seafood business, whether it’s hauling fish onto the deck of a cod boat on the sixth day at sea, meeting customs on the runway at 5 AM, digging clams with the tide throughout the year, or cutting fish eight hours a day, is not for the faint of heart. It’s hard physical work with no glamour and risks galore, but somehow it captures people and doesn’t let them go.

Christopher Edelman, owner of Seafood Specialties and our host for June’s Guerilla Grilling adventure, was seduced by fish about 7 years ago, but has the energy and passion of someone who just started. He’s a compact youthful man with a shaved head, goatee and intense eyes who never stops moving or talking and is a bit of a showman, which makes for an informative and entertaining time. He was born in New York City, grew up in Southern Connecticut and did a short stint in college before heading to Vermont to be a ski bum…which of course goes hand in hand with being a dish washer.

[The animated Chris Edelman]

He found a spot in an exciting kitchen, caught the cooking bug and enrolled at NECI in the culinary program. With a degree in hand, he entered the restaurant scene back in New York City as a cook in 1994. Then back up north to Maine where he built and ran a small, intense, busy restaurant. But this wasn’t quite right either so he sold the restaurant and met with a career counselor. “The counselor picked up on my three major interests: fish, trucks and forklifts. It made perfect sense. So I got a job driving a delivery truck and scrubbing fish totes for two feuding brothers who’d owned Seafood Specialties since 1987 and were ready to sell,” Chris told us. “It was a trial period to see if I would make it. I did. I worked around the clock for a year, transformed from chef to fish guy and then bought the business.”

[The Seafood Specialties big wheels]

When Chris generously invited the Rialto GG team to get a taste of his crazy world and spend a day by his side, we jumped. The plan was to visit a number of other shops, tour a cod boat and then cook up a storm in the driveway of his loading dock. We would gather under the single tree in the neighborhood at the side of his building for a picnic. I had fantasized for several years that we would all go out on a boat and Chris had jollied me along, but when it came down to planning a fishing expedition, he put the kibosh on my idea.

“Here’s how it’s going to go down”, he explained on the phone several days earlier.

“Your people have to know this is a crazy dangerous business and there are rules to follow. There are big pieces of moving machinery, things are fast and unpredictable, it’s wet and slippery so someone could get hurt. These fish guys are protective of their businesses and not everyone would allow you in. Don’t touch anything; no pictures unless we get the okay from an owner; and don’t get in the way. To be invited into this world is a rare experience, I made it happen and am happy to do it, but appreciate it…don’t screw it up.”

[Sensible shoes]

We were prepared to follow the rules and all wore sensible shoes. We had great fun in the rented van and at the helm, I felt like a soccer mom with a cheery, but sleepy team. We exited the Pike at the Haul Road, and promptly got lost. Ultimately we saw Nuno’s white pick-up and spotted the “nice” tree that Chris had mentioned we could picnic under. We parked across the street and Chris came to meet us dressed in his official fish guy uniform, khaki pants tucked into high rubber boots, a green worker shirt with rolled sleeves complete with a name patch and an American flag, sunglasses and a baseball hat. He stopped the traffic like a veteran crossing guard and guided us into his shop where we met most of his team: Desiree, director of operations, Marvin, a driver, Mr. Le and Victor, expert cutters, Alex, lead packer and Conroy, the shop foreman and Chris’s second in command.  They have worked together since 2004.

 

[Our crew gets the run-down]

First things first…our initiation into the fish guy world was a stop at the mobile coffee truck that came by his shop at 8:10 each morning. Everyone stopped to take a break and have a snack. There was everything from doughy pizza to scary looking chicken. We stuck close to the coffee.

[Peter, Katie, and Jody at the snack truck]

Chris seems to know just about everything there is to know about the seafood industry…both in Boston around the world. From the beginning he chose to do 80% of his business outside of Boston. It makes sense. The fish business is competitive and complicated and not stepping on the toes of established fish guys was an incentive to look for customers around the country.

The shop at Seafood Specialties reminded me of Clear Flour… compact, efficient, and low tech. A total of one thousand cold square feet housing refrigerators, sinks, cutting tables, scales, knives and lots of stacking plastic totes. There was a line of totes along one wall labeled with the names of restaurants waiting for orders to be filled. All of the processing work…scaling, cleaning, cutting, weighing and packing…takes place under this roof, but in the course of the day, Chris and his team cover miles of territory. They start early and work late and treat each day as a game. They have won if they never had to say, “Not available” to a customer, and they net out with zero product at the end of the day…an unusual goal. Most companies buy large orders and then find customers, holding onto the fish as long as it takes to sell it out. Chris fills the orders that come in by phone and email every day with fresh product from sustainable and organic fisheries. It means racing around, to the airport and back, from one fish shop to the next, and to the collection of Boston restaurants he services in the course of the day. Most fish guys don’t work this way, but then again, most people don’t have the energy of Chris Edelman.

[Victor and Mr. Le hard at work!]

Just as integral to their daily lives as the movement of fish through the shop, is the documentation of it each step of the way. Temperatures are taken; yield charts are maintained and species with the risk of toxin development are tracked.

[Charts, licenses, and other important documents posted around the facility] 

When asked if they receive a USDA visit each day like meat companies, Chris responded with one of his graphic metaphors, “The FDA regulates Seafood. They are like our personal rectal thermometer…it keeps us regulated…but they don’t visit daily. Seafood is different than meat.  We go so fast and we move so many different species that we have to regulate ourselves and monitor potential hazards like the sanitary condition of our knives and equipment, temperatures and exactly what is next to what, when and how.”

Our first stop was next door at Boston Lobster Company to meet with Lee Smith, sales manager for the past ten years. “His company is big and sells nine out of ten lobsters in the ocean!” Chris tells us. Mr. Smith appears on the loading dock in a bright lobster red hat. He laughs with a big broad smile and says, “I am a very rich man, please come in!”  Mr. Smith was in the clothing and jewelry business for many years before entering the lobster business. When asked how he got into it, he dodged the question, but he did say, “It’s a good business, I’m lucky to be here.” It’s clear he and Chris have an affinity. “Chris is the smartest kid in the business. My mother loves to talk to him. He knows everything about food.” Chris winks at Lee, laughs and tells us they are, “the only Jews in the fish business.”

[Chris Edelman and Lee Smith - two local fish tycoons and "the only Jews in the fish business"]

We see tanks and tanks of lobsters. Lee loves to talk and we don’t stop him. “We move ten thousand pounds of lobster in a day. We haggle back and forth all the time to get the best price. In this business, a nickel, a dime is important. Six months out of the year the lobsters come from Canada. We buy and hold for the winter months. We catch them in the spring, and put them in tidal pools in Nova Scotia that can hold one hundred thousand pounds. It takes six years for a lobster to grow a pound. It takes a five pound lobster to make one pound of meat.”  He shows us a ten pound lobster and tells us, “The Asians are some of our best customers for these lobsters. The steak houses like them too and serve them as appetizers.”

[Mr. Smith shows us some lobstahs!]

We load into the van and head to Freshwater Fish Company where we meet with Tony, “My expertise is species identification” he tells us. “One fish has many names…red mullet-rouget-triglia-goat fish…it’s all the same.” He started fifty years ago buying and selling fresh water fish for recently settled Eastern European Jews who were looking for the fish they had eaten at home. Over the years he’s become something of an anthropologist. He identifies a population and then figures out what they are yearning for and sources it. He knows what Greek, Portuguese, Italian, Asian, and African communities are looking for. He sells sardines, mullet, gar, shark, anchovies, Canadian Croaker or Sheep’s Head, Fluke…“My best customer is an Italian guy with two stores in Detroit.

[Look at these beauties...]

He wants the fish whole. He would want to know what was wrong with the fish if I gutted and headed it before I sent it to him.” It’s clear Tony likes this kind of customer. As he says, the ones who say, “what else you got?, as opposed to the ones who ask about the hottest thing “how much you got.”

We stop in at Pangea Shellfish and see Ben’s very cool wet storage system. It’s a series of stacked flow-through bins that allow for purging of sand and bacteria from steamers and other mollusks. It makes for sand-free steamers, something I don’t think I’ve ever eaten. Unfortunately, the system was empty because the recent rain had brought red tide and closed the shellfish beds.

[Seen around Pangea Shellfish]

Next stop was the Bramante Fish Company for a tour of a fishing boat with Sal. The company was started in 1906 when Sal’s grandfather came to Boston from Sicily. He told stories of then, 1985 when the boat was purchased, and now.

[Just a few of the amazing textures, shapes, and colors we snapped during this month's Guerilla Grilling trip...]

Thirty years ago twelve men were needed to run a fishing boat, now only four because the boats are more automated than they used to be, but it doesn’t mean the work is any easier. It is cold, wet and dangerous. Boats are out for five to seven days and work when the fish is there so it usually means very little sleep. It is a high risk business. Eight to ten men are lost each year in the New England waters. “I got out for three years,” Sal told us. “I had to come back. It’s crazy but I can’t stay away. I was in the restaurant business for those three years. It was too risky.” It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

[Sal giving us a tour of his fishing boat]

John Mantia and Sons, Co. Inc. has been in business since 1895 when John the great grandfather used to sell to people in New York. To collect the bills, he would ride the train from Boston to New York City once a month. Uncle Anthony and brothers Jack, Bill and Bobby- kept us entertained throughout the day. “You can tell us apart” Anthony told us, “whatever goes right, I did. Whatever goes wrong, Jack did.” Their plant is right down on the water and has been there since 1914. “Back fifty years ago, it was a working man’s waterfront. Now everyone wants this realestate. We’ll hold on to it as long as we can,” one brother told us. Laid out on the floor for viewing are boxes of beauties; snappers in various colors and sizes, big tuna, little tuna, bass and the funny square shaped shiners (seen above!)

[Bob Mantia and Chris Edelman goofing off]

When we regrouped back at Chris’s place Jamaican Hip Hop was blasting, Mrs. Mei was delivering Chinese dim sum to Chris, charcoal smoke was billowing from the grill and platters of food were waiting. Conroy had made Jamaican chicken and Nuno was on. As we all tucked into plates of gingered snapper ceviche, steamed mussels with chorizo and garlic and grilled bluefish under Chris’s nice tree, the talk was all about fish.

[Even MORE cool fish to look at!]

There were comments like, “Wow, I am more confused than when I started.” “So is local fish really local?” “I didn’t know most of the lobsters came from Canada.” But mostly it was about how delicious everything was, how interesting it was to see all the different kinds of fish, how generous all the fish folks were, how unbelievably hard a life it must be and how compelling it was.