One of the reasons I stay here in the Florida Panhandle, a remote land of pine trees, cabbage palms, and warm tranquil water, is the astonishing amount of animal life. When I ride my bike in the mornings, I see white-tailed deer dash across the road, brindle boar rooting in the grass, bob cats streaking through the woods. I see great heron, white egrets, eagles, osprey, and wild turkey. I see alligators and turtles, armadillo and raccoons, marsh rats and rabbits. And in the late September, when the summer sun still warms the beach, I walk through clouds of orange butterflies.
I love the sense that people are guests here. As I sit in my room over-looking the bay watching a great heron fish off the dock, a white squirrel vaulting through the pine branches, a mullet leaping four feet out of the channel water, I feel as if I am in a zoo, only I am the one in a cage with the animals passing by, looking in, curiously.
The tiny fishing towns on the gulf have survived because of the abundance of seafood in the bays and estuaries—shrimp, redfish, trout, grouper, oysters. Every autumn the locals hold a mullet festival, a pagan celebration in honor of the most abundant local fish.
A word about the mighty mullet.
(It has nothing to do with a mullet haircut, which comes from mulet, the French word for mule, so named because the mule has the long tail of a horse and the short bristly foretop of a donkey.) The mullet is a sleek silver fish, handsome and athletic, a vegetarian that crowds the warm shallow waters of the gulf. It jumps out of the water, four, six feet—nobody knows why—powerful, awesome leaps. Mullet are abundant and easy to catch. The only problem is the taste—oily, fishy, with the texture of hard erasers. The locals deep fry mullet in huge vats of oil, and it is awful.
A smart fish, I guess—their defense against overfishing is to taste ghastly. Perhaps that’s why they jump so gaily. Like the Girl from Ipanema sauntering down the beach, their athletic grace taunts us. You will never taste my beauty.
This year I headed to the Mullet Festival to sample the local fare, to view the mullet queen, and to participate in the famous “mullet toss,” a contest to see who can throw a dead mullet the farthest. But most of all I wanted to see if the famous chefs who were making a guest appearance could come up with some way to make the fish palpable.
Disappointment. There was no mullet toss this year (the mullet fishermen, sensitive souls that they are, decided it was disrespectful to the mullet), and the famous chefs demonstrated shrimp recipes. When pressed, the official Florida State Chef offered up a mullet recipe. I tried it at home, but despite the ginger, orange, and garlic, and a cup of Mad Housewife Chardonnay, it still tasted like rubber dropped in an oil slick. I hated to waste even a glass of Mad Housewife wine. Humph!
So I offer instead a recipe for shrimp, our second most abundant seafood. Unlike its clever, foul-tasting cohort, the shrimp is scrumptious!
Caribbean Shrimp with Mango Salsa
12 Jumbo Shrimp
Spicy Jamaican jerk seasoning
4 limes, juiced
1 teaspoon sugar
2 mangos, diced and/or papaya
1 stick celery, chopped
½ red bell pepper, diced
4 scallions, chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 large jalapeño pepper, diced very fine
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons rum
1. Peel shrimp leaving tail. Season with juice of 1 lime and jerk seasoning.
2. Mix rest of the ingredients for the salsa. Let sit at room temperature.
3. Grill shrimp, 2 or 3 minutes per side. (Or sauté in butter and garlic for 3 minutes.)
4. Serve with mango salsa and hot sauce.
Mad Housewife White Zinfandel pairs beautifully with the spicy shrimp and sweet mango. Here’s to pink!
It looks delicious from pictures only! Wow what a dish ! Ya it has a enough calories but we can make it once in month, isn't it? Ya I am going to try it on my daughter's birthday. this weekend only. Hope it will become good as It shown in pictures. Wish me best of luck.
Posted by: heilpflanzen | October 29, 2009 at 04:07 AM