Let them eat fish

Saturday, June 14, 2008

A few weekends ago there was a free fishing weekend in Pennsylvania - no license needed.  I was at my dragon boat team’s dock on the Schuylkill River (near St. Joe’s boathouse), and ran into a guy from the PA Fish and Boat Commission.  He was there with fishing poles to encourage people to fish.  We chatted a bit about the water quality on the river and fishing (he was thrilled that my husband fishes local waterways and routinely brings me freshly caught trout), and then he told me something that stunned me: the water quality has improved in the Schuylkill that not only can people eat fish that are caught in it (although there are limits to the number of allowable fish eaten in a month), they’re planning to reintroduce salmon into the river.  In fact, they’re planning to reintroduce salmon into several waterways in the region.

The very idea of eating salmon caught in a local creek or river is something I just can’t fathom!

Speaking of those trout my husband catches, he brought one home to me Thursday night…a nice, big trout, too!  We ate it for dinner last night, accompanied by the last of the spinach from last week’s CSA share and some peas from Fifer Orchards (via Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal).  No doubt I was quite a sight on the train ride home - I shelled the peas to pass the time.  You’d have thought I grew horns, turned purple, and was eating kittens or something - people were looking at me like I was crazy.

My husband cleaned the trout (happily) and took charge of cooking it, too - he grilled it stuffed with rosemary and tarragon and topped with onions.  I steamed the spinach, and sauted the peas in butter with a little mint thrown in for good measure.

I can definitely count this meal toward my tally for this week’s One Local Summer challenge -

trout, caught in a creek down the street - 5 miles
onions, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
rosemary and tarragon, my garden - 0 miles
spinach, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
peas, Fifer Orchards - 76 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
mint, my garden - 0 miles

Not local: salt and pepper