A very spiky belly today, looking into the mysterious world of the sea urchin<\/strong>, those sea creatures that look like balls of spines. I wanted to finish the year with a good news story from Tasmania.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Sea urchins from NSW are invading warming Tasmanian waters, but they are being held back by getting turned into a delicacy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dave Allen with ready to eat sea urchin roe - photo by Simon De Salis<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n MARKETS UPDATE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n BELLY TOUR DE TASSIE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Goat cheese maker at the Hobart farmers market - he has the accent to go with the look too<\/p><\/div>\n I finally went to Tasmania last week, & will be going back again soon I hope, it is bellysister paradise.\u00a0 A very beautiful place,\u00a0 very peaceful after Byron. And a great food lovers’ destination.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Fresh wasabi roots & saffron for example.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Along the coast, oysters and crays just out of the water.\u00a0 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<\/p>\n 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.<\/p><\/div>\n some of Australia’s best restaurants – sea urchins.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But mainly they taste great, although they can be a bit of an acquired taste.\u00a0 Luke Burgess, chef at Les Garagistes <\/a>in Hobart, has urchins on the menu pretty much all the time.\u00a0 He has now started to offer them as an optional extra because lots of customers were leaving them on the plate.\u00a0 And that is on an adventurous fun menu full of offal and obscure ingredients.\u00a0 I was even inspired to order tripe there.\u00a0\u00a0 If one of the wonderful people who invite me to dinner ask what I don’t eat, the answer is always “tripe”.\u00a0 I will have to change it to “vegemite”, because Luke’s tripe was my favourite dish when we ate there.\u00a0 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),\u00a0 sharpened with pickled shiitake mushrooms.\u00a0 I actually got a little annoyed because the guy next to me at the shared table kept asking me questions and I did Cracking into a sea urchin - Photo Simon De Salis<\/p><\/div>\n 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n The urchins at Les Garagistes, Tetsuya’s and a bunch of other demanding Australian restaurants come from Seafoods Tasmania.\u00a0 David Allen, who dives for urchins and is one of the owners of Seafoods Tasmania, has seen how hungry urchins are.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n processing sea urchins - photo Simon De Salis<\/p><\/div>\n Dave\u00a0 first ate an urchin about 15 years ago, and spat it out, saying “you’ve got to be kidding”.\u00a0 They are also a bit\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And the useful part is tiny, only about 8-9% of the whole spiky creature on average.\u00a0 If you didn’t catch the show, the whole interview audio is below, or check out the Seafoods Australia links to more info.\u00a0 Tasmanian Regions spring 2011 magazine (available online) also has an article about these tasty little pests.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n COOKING SEA URCHINS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n sea urchin roe, ready to eat - photo Simon De Salis<\/p><\/div>\n 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. I made an urchin pasta on the road with coriander & lemon zest & cauliflower & way too much butter mmm.\u00a0 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. <\/p>\n SEA URCHIN AND CAULIFLOWER PASTA – from the belly mobile lab Steam or microwave some cauliflower, cut into small florets<\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Finely chop a little garlic, roughly chop a lot of coriander leaf.\u00a0 If you want to get fancy, the root is nice cooked in butter and finely chopped in this.<\/span><\/p>\n Cook the pasta in lots of water even if you are on the road and have to use two pots.<\/span><\/p>\n Mix together hot pasta, cauliflower, coriander, garlic, salt, pepper, a little of the cooking water if the sauce is dry, and way<\/span> too much butter.\u00a0 Serve raw cleaned urchin roe separately so everyone can add to taste.\u00a0 This pasta works even without any sea urchin.\u00a0 I didn’t forget the parmigiano, you don’t need it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n LINKS TO INFORMATION ABOUT TASMANIA AND SEA URCHINS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 He is a very talented professional photographer and now the editor of a magazine called Tasmanian Regions (ex TasRegions).\u00a0 It is available online here<\/a>, and has lots of great photos and interviews with people doing interesting things with food around Tasmania.\u00a0 Thank you very much Simon for the tasty tour de Tassie and the urchin photos, and may the surf gods smile on you.<\/p>\n Seafoods Tasmania has lots of photos and info about sea urchins on their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are lots of urchin videos on youtube, from an urchin eating a biscuit (disturbing), to underwater footage of urchin barrens, a whole Ironchef\u00a0 ‘urchin battle’, and lots of guys trying to look tough by eating live sea urchins.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SEA URCHIN SAFARI – INTERVIEW AUDIO<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n what sea urchins eat<\/a><\/p>\n why should we eat sea urchins, & who does<\/a><\/p>\n sea urchins and global warming<\/a><\/p>\n processing sea urchins<\/a><\/p>\n why you should choose very fresh urchins & ways to cook urchins<\/a><\/p>\n sea urchin seasons & simple ways to eat them<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n MUSIC<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Ludwig van Beethoven – the ode to joy – for Faith the Whian Whianbaker<\/p>\n Bamboo love shack and Moon Shaker, by Water Melon, from the cd “Fish smell like cat”<\/p>\n Lovers who drink the sea, by the Oyster Murders<\/p>\n Passacaglia in C minor by JS Back, from the cd ‘Sea Symphony”, Sydney Symphony Orchestra<\/p>\n Aphrodisiac, by Ganga Giri, a little Byron sound for Simon De Salis<\/p>\n The future’s so Bright…, by Abbie Cardwell<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MORE BELLY TOUR DE TASSIE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/dave03.jpg\" "\\"dave")
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>not manage to finish every speck of tripe while it was hot.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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).\u00a0 But mostly the flavours work together really well and each element is prepared with great skill.\u00a0 I finally saw the point in wagyu for example, with a delicious simple smoked brisket (with alexander mayonnaise, a new herb to me).\u00a0 It is<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>
\nDave 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.
\nMaggie Beer has a lovely recipe for urchin butter<\/a>, made with lemon zest, pepper, butter, and urchins, dolloped on grilled scallops.\u00a0 (Maggie says sea urchins are her secret indulgence)
\nOr make urchin butter sandwiches<\/a> like Dave’s Pacific islander customers, or eggy urchin fritters or omelettes.\u00a0 Maoris call urchin roe ‘kina’.
\nItalians 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.<\/p>\n
\nThe 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.\u00a0 And if after all that you are left wondering what they taste like… well they taste like nothing else.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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