Hartwood: Bright, Wild Flavors from the Edge of the Yucatán by Eric Werner Mya Henry

Author:Eric Werner, Mya Henry [Eric Werner, Mya Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Artisan
Published: 2015-10-19T17:00:00+00:00

Getting Grouper

At Hartwood, we always use wild-caught fish. There’s a different taste to a fish that was caught and killed by hand: you can distinguish its true flavor on the plate, as opposed to it just tasting like . . . fish. And so all of the fish that we serve is caught by line—as in rod and reel—or spear.

Down here, you catch grouper by hunting. The fishermen will go four or five miles out to a reef. Some grouper are small, but when they spot a big grouper—say, 80 pounds—they’ll slowly circle around, following it, seeing where it goes into its hole, what time it comes out in the morning, what time it goes back at night. Then they’ll wait behind a rock, titanium spear in the gun (grouper will break any spear that’s not titanium), hold enough breath to get underwater, take aim, and shoot. Hopefully they make a hit. That spear is connected to a line, and when the tip hits, the battle starts. Grouper are fast, aggressive, and big—they fight. Bull sharks that sense the blood will start circling in the shallows. (Sometimes a fisherman will also bring in a shark that we turn into empanadas or shark dip.)

Some days a grouper will come in that’s 100 pounds. It takes two of us to carry it into the kitchen, where we need to break it down immediately so it will fit into the ice chests. We always cut around the part of the fish where the spear hit—the flesh there is traumatized and doesn’t taste good. The rest of it? It’s so magnificent, we serve the head and collar too.

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