on air on bayfm 99.9 community radio in Byron Bay on 19.12.2011
A very spiky belly today, looking into the mysterious world of the sea urchin, those sea creatures that look like balls of spines. I wanted to finish the year with a good news story from Tasmania. As some of our politicians still argue about whether there is such a thing as global warming, a Tasmanian company has not only seen the evidence, but built a thriving business on the consequences. Sea urchins from NSW are invading warming Tasmanian waters, but they are being held back by getting turned into a delicacy.
Dave Allen with ready to eat sea urchin roe - photo by Simon De Salis
MARKETS UPDATE
Faith, who has been bringing wonderful bread to Byron FM from the early days, full of produce from her garden in tiny Whian Whian, will be at the Byron Bay farmers market for the last time next week. She doesn’t want to be up all night baking any more, but will keep teaching, so hopefully her skills will not be lost. Enjoy sleeping at night Faith, & thanks for all the pumpkin bread & olive bread & fruit scrolls & seeded spelt & mandarin rolls & panforte.. if you are gluten intolerant you’re probably reaching for an epy pen by now.
And now for the good news… as of last Thursday you can now get fresh pasta at the Byron F.M. The weather is really warming up and lovely strawberries have finished but blueberries are still in full swing. Try making blueberry ice lollies, fun for kids of all ages, by just rinsing them and freezing them. You could also try dropping the frozen berries in drinks. Finger limes are here in time for xmas oysters, more waves of new potatoes, plenty of bananas. According to Craig our banana growing bellysister, farmers who rely on the big stores for sales are getting such low prices they are digging fruit into ground, as customers haven’t yet gone back to bananas and some large supermarkets are often still charging quite high prices. Chokos are back, there are plenty of good leafy veg, zucchini and squashes, plenty of capsicum and a good variety of tasty tomatoes. Good cherries have hit the shops but not markets quite yet.
Some changes with Christmas week markets. On Christmas Eve, there is a Lismore twilight market (2 to 7pm). The week 4 Sunday is Christmas, so the Bangalow market will be on Boxing Day this week. Next week, Byron Bay market also moves to January 2. Some evening/afternoon markets are on for summer : a Thursday produce market in Lismore (3.30 to 6.30 pm); also a farmers market in the Coffs Harbour mall on Thursdays.
BELLY TOUR DE TASSIE
Goat cheese maker at the Hobart farmers market - he has the accent to go with the look too
I finally went to Tasmania last week, & will be going back again soon I hope, it is bellysister paradise. A very beautiful place, very peaceful after Byron. And a great food lovers’ destination. There are the famous apples, wineries, at the moment lots of berries, but also many people trying new things. Much like in this area, but with very different weather & environment of course. Fresh wasabi roots & saffron for example. At the Saturday Salamanca market in Hobart you can buy saffron bulbs & Australia’s first hard raw cow milk cheese, from Bruny island, lovely but very expensive. Salamanca market was the only really busy place we went to, some really interesting stalls among the usual market suspects that you see all over the world, but if you want just interesting food, check out the city centre farmers market on Sundays in Hobart. Along the coast, oysters and crays just out of the water. One business, based among the oyster leases at St Helens on the East Coast, has very successfully started to sell a major invasive pest of Tasmania’s waters to
A beautiful garden made with "glazed turnips, carrots + society leek, nettle sauce, lovage oil, toasted quinoa" at les Garagistes. Toasted quinoa is an idea to try, it gives a lovely crunch to the dish.
some of Australia’s best restaurants – sea urchins.
Researchers have found that the oversupply of sea urchins in Tasmania is caused by the interaction of global warming and the overfishing of their predators, mainly large crayfish. So we should be eating the urchins instead, but not just because they are a sustainable resource. They are meant to be aphrodisiac, possibly because the bit you eat are the sexual organs, and good for you. But mainly they taste great, although they can be a bit of an acquired taste. Luke Burgess, chef at Les Garagistes in Hobart, has urchins on the menu pretty much all the time. He has now started to offer them as an optional extra because lots of customers were leaving them on the plate. And that is on an adventurous fun menu full of offal and obscure ingredients. I was even inspired to order tripe there. If one of the wonderful people who invite me to dinner ask what I don’t eat, the answer is always “tripe”. I will have to change it to “vegemite”, because Luke’s tripe was my favourite dish when we ate there. It was very finely cut, an exploration of delicate textures rather than a lesson in cow biology, and the flavour was rich and deep, warmed by piment d’espelette (a Basque chilli), sharpened with pickled shiitake mushrooms. I actually got a little annoyed because the guy next to me at the shared table kept asking me questions and I did 
not manage to finish every speck of tripe while it was hot. Even though he was a charming man, and the shared seating not only allows you to chat with friendly locals, but to check out everybody else’s beautifully arranged food landscapes. Do try Les Garagistes if you go to Hobart, there is a no bookings policy but you can probably get in if you go early or late. There is a lot there that flows along with current trends, from the presentation to shared small and large plates, smoking and curing, to the gleaned & locavore thing (though the oxalys weed in my dessert did taste just like a bit of pureed weed, and not in a good way). But mostly the flavours work together really well and each element is prepared with great skill. I finally saw the point in wagyu for example, with a delicious simple smoked brisket (with alexander mayonnaise, a new herb to me). It is
Cracking into a sea urchin - Photo Simon De Salis
fun food to eat if you are food obsessed, lots on the plate to keep you interested, and there is very interesting wine list too, with lots of information about the producers. Not the place to go if dessert is the highlight of your meal though, but rhubarb granita is certainly an idea to try at home.
The urchins at Les Garagistes, Tetsuya’s and a bunch of other demanding Australian restaurants come from Seafoods Tasmania. David Allen, who dives for urchins and is one of the owners of Seafoods Tasmania, has seen how hungry urchins are. They are basically a ball of spines, with their bum up and their mouth down, eating. They love decaying seaweed, but they will eat pretty much anything.
Dave told me about about eating invasive NSW urchins in Tasmania, & the importance of creating regional jobs in the food industries. Tasmania is a lovely place to visit, with many interesting things happening on the food front, but has very high unemployment rates.
processing sea urchins - photo Simon De Salis
Dave first ate an urchin about 15 years ago, and spat it out, saying “you’ve got to be kidding”. They are also a bit hard to handle. I told him about urchins I bought, all excited at the Sydney fish markets years ago, to share with friends a wonderful childhood memory of fresh urchins in Italy, straight out of the sea. I opened them up soon after getting them home, and did my best to clean them, but we just couldn’t eat them, they smelled so bad. I could never face urchins in the shell again, and I never knew if I had somehow stuffed up cleaning them until I asked Dave. He says even restaurants who serve them in the shell often throw out the insides and use the shell as presentation for roe processed on site, as urchins really don’t travel well. And the useful part is tiny, only about 8-9% of the whole spiky creature on average. If you didn’t catch the show, the whole interview audio is below, or check out the Seafoods Australia links to more info. Tasmanian Regions spring 2011 magazine (available online) also has an article about these tasty little pests.
COOKING SEA URCHINS
sea urchin roe, ready to eat - photo Simon De Salis
Well the best way is probably not to cook them, but to have them raw, as fresh as possible, maybe with a little lemon juice.
Dave suggests with wasabi, added to any sushi, on oysters, natural or as a variation on Kilpatric, or as a sauce on fish or cockles/vongole, or in fish soup.
Maggie Beer has a lovely recipe for urchin butter, made with lemon zest, pepper, butter, and urchins, dolloped on grilled scallops. (Maggie says sea urchins are her secret indulgence)
Or make urchin butter sandwiches like Dave’s Pacific islander customers, or eggy urchin fritters or omelettes. Maoris call urchin roe ‘kina’.
Italians make sea urchin pasta, cook fresh tomatoes & onion in olive oil 15 minutes, then add urchins, with chopped parsley and garlic towards the end of cooking.
I made an urchin pasta on the road with coriander & lemon zest & cauliflower & way too much butter mmm. I bought coriander just because it was the only healthy looking herb (the St Helen’s herb lady was on holidays) but its funkyness really goes well with sea urchin.
The easiest place to try them is at a good sushi restaurant – they turn up pretty often, or ask your fishmonger to get some in – urchins pack a big flavour punch for a very small weight so we can probably make an exception to food miles rules. And if after all that you are left wondering what they taste like… well they taste like nothing else. At first they taste of the sea, like a natural oyster, as you get into a piece they are soft and rich, nutty and sweet and have a deep and intense flavour, a little like a really rich seafood soup.
SEA URCHIN AND CAULIFLOWER PASTA – from the belly mobile lab
Steam or microwave some cauliflower, cut into small florets.
Finely chop a little garlic, roughly chop a lot of coriander leaf. If you want to get fancy, the root is nice cooked in butter and finely chopped in this.
Cook the pasta in lots of water even if you are on the road and have to use two pots.
Mix together hot pasta, cauliflower, coriander, garlic, salt, pepper, a little of the cooking water if the sauce is dry, and way too much butter. Serve raw cleaned urchin roe separately so everyone can add to taste. This pasta works even without any sea urchin. I didn’t forget the parmigiano, you don’t need it.
LINKS TO INFORMATION ABOUT TASMANIA AND SEA URCHINS
We were lucky enough to have a very well informed friend guiding us around some of Tassie’s most delicious and beautiful places, ex Suffolk Park resident Simon De Salis. He is a very talented professional photographer and now the editor of a magazine called Tasmanian Regions (ex TasRegions). It is available online here, and has lots of great photos and interviews with people doing interesting things with food around Tasmania. Thank you very much Simon for the tasty tour de Tassie and the urchin photos, and may the surf gods smile on you.
Seafoods Tasmania has lots of photos and info about sea urchins on their website.
There are lots of urchin videos on youtube, from an urchin eating a biscuit (disturbing), to underwater footage of urchin barrens, a whole Ironchef ‘urchin battle’, and lots of guys trying to look tough by eating live sea urchins.
SEA URCHIN SAFARI – INTERVIEW AUDIO
Click on the links below to listen to the interview I recorded at St Helens, on the Tasmanian east coast, in the lunch room of the tin shack which currently houses Seafoods Tasmania, with diver and co-owner Dave Allen. Apologies to the blokes whose lunch was delayed because I asked too many questions, and a big thanks to Dave and Julie for the hospitality and the delicious sea urchin tastings.
why should we eat sea urchins, & who does
sea urchins and global warming
why you should choose very fresh urchins & ways to cook urchins
sea urchin seasons & simple ways to eat them
MUSIC
Ludwig van Beethoven – the ode to joy – for Faith the Whian Whianbaker
Bamboo love shack and Moon Shaker, by Water Melon, from the cd “Fish smell like cat”
Lovers who drink the sea, by the Oyster Murders
Passacaglia in C minor by JS Back, from the cd ‘Sea Symphony”, Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Aphrodisiac, by Ganga Giri, a little Byron sound for Simon De Salis
The future’s so Bright…, by Abbie Cardwell
MORE BELLY TOUR DE TASSIE
delicious fruit icecreams at Eureka farm - crabby owner but best icecreams
Since you have made it this far down the page, I’d like to share a couple more tasty places we have come across. Lucky it is small by Australian standards, we were only there for 5 days! I’d love to hear your suggestions for the next belly tour, in Tasmania or anywhere else. One idea we should copy in our area are the farm gate routes, explained in brochures with opening times, seasons, specialties.
cheddar omelette with chutney - no it didn't really need the butter
Pyengana cows pushing to get themselves a scratch from the brush roller
one lucky cow has got the bum scratcher to herself for a minute
just to prove we did something other that eat... a post-cheese waterfall walk
Thank you for listening to belly this year, or making your way to the belly website. A big thank you to Sis Rasela for a year of belly, & to Alison Drover, our ever changing seasonal bellysister & tandem bike racer & to the very very delicious regular belly listeners, may your pot be always full of good things, & remember, cooks WILL save the world, or at least make it better.
I’m back on January 2nd with a very interesting guest, professor Mike Evans, who has lived and eaten in many interesting places, especially focusing on feasts and food and relationships on the Pacific island of Tonga . He will tell us how he somehow managed to not only eat dog, but eat I quote “his own dog – – by mistake”.
Love and chocolate covered sea urchins (you never know, it might work), have a happy and peaceful holiday season,
Sister Tess
