And Just Like That. . .
Pushing through May
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It’s definitely, palpably, unmistakably, trending into summer on the coast of Maine, and it could not be more welcome. The lilacs are in flower (a little early this year) and peony buds are swelling, on the verge of bursting into extravagant bloom. In garden plots asparagus is coming up along with stout stalks of rhubarb and sorrel, alewives and elvers are running in a spawning frenzy up creeks and rivers, bees are buzzing, and, another sign of the season: it’s halibut time, blessed halibut, truly the finest fish of the North Atlantic, meaty and sweet and ready for the grill or the frying pan. Or even, as I had it at Nina June last night, in an elegant crudo, raw, thinly sliced, and fanned across a delicious bed of olive oil with tiny sweet radishes.
Coming after a long, cold, and difficult winter, this is a season of special luxury, voluptuous with the ripening fragrance of blossoms (Korean spice viburnum!) and with all the tones and shades of green on lawns and woods and waters—dark-green somber spruces, acid green trembling birch leaves, the green swirl of streams overflowing into harbors up and down the rocky coast.
On the river banks of the Medomak below Waldoboro, cows and their young calves are out on fresh greening pastures at East Forty Farm and cheese-maker Allison Lakin (she makes Lakin’s Gorges award-winning cheeses) is churning butter—and such butter, delicious butter, butter with an actual complex of flavors, such as you might not realize butter can provide.
Butter? Yes!
I know, I’m a lifelong (almost) proponent of the virtues of extra-virgin olive oil but I am here to tell you that with butter of this quality, I’ll put butter on my toast, butter on my asparagus, and butter even on a smoked alewife if you give me one, boned, on a wedge of crusty bread. This is the kind of farmhouse butter that has almost disappeared from our tables, replaced by a smooth, bland spread that is what it is but, frankly, it isn’t much.
What makes Allison’s butter so tasty that I consume it almost like cheese? Butter, when it’s minimally processed, just churned from fresh Jersey cream, nothing added but salt, Allison explains—butter carries all the flavors of the milk. And this Jersey milk carries the flavors of the pasture, a carefully curated mixture of grasses managed by Allison’s partner Neal Foley. And the meadow grasses in turn carry the flavors of the soil.
Neal has been farming for more than three decades, most of that time herding dairy cattle. Most recently he’s been associated with PASA, a national organization that works with farmers across the country to improve techniques, including soil management, with a focus on environmentally sound practices and farming that’s based in communities rather than corporations. You see, “organic” doesn’t just begin with no spray, no added chemicals; rather, it goes deep into the soil, a rich medium for the things that grow and become in their turn feed for the animals that feed us. To watch Neal “read” a pasture is to experience a kind of superior intelligence at work. I am reminded of an Italian cheese-maker who recounted something like 115 different types of herbage in the pasture where his sheep grazed—that, he said, accounts for the flavor. Just so with Neal’s pasture, their cows’ productive output, and Allison’s cheeses—and her butter! It all begins with the earth and the grass that grows thereon. It’s all inter-connected.
Where can you find Allison Lakin’s butter? For now, you have to be on the coast of Maine and even here, you have to be lucky. Best is to go straight to the source, East Forty Farm, and ask whoever picks up the phone (probably Allison, might be Neal, could be one of their cheerful assistants). Or send them an email. And while you’re ate it, check out their supply of ethically raised veal, beef, and pork (raised, like those fabled Parma pigs in Italy, on the whey from making cheese). (And don’t forget the cheeses—Prix de Diane is my personal favorite but the whole range is seductive.
In the kitchen, I’m working with all this harvest—asparagus, butter, rhubarb, sorrel, halibut, even alewives, and all the other greenery that’s coming along, day by day. Like minimally processed butter, I think the richness of spring is best expressed with minimal effort. Keep it simple, keep it straightforward, enjoy the direct flavors of what nature is offering you.
Asparagus: trim it, lay it flat in a high-sided skillet, barely cover it with lightly salted boiling water, and let it simmer till it’s just tender. Eat with fine butter (see above) or the best extra-virgin olive oil, a crunch of sea salt, maybe a few drops of lemon, nothing else.
Rhubarb: Make a compote to serve with fatty spring fish (salmon, tuna, fresh young mackerel) or with anything porkish. Trim the rhubarb and cut in one-inch lengths, combine with an equal quantity (by weight—use your scales) of sugar (maple if you have it) and simmer until soft and syrupy. Add a pinch of ground aromatics—cinnamon, clove, or cardamom—or a spoonful of freshly grated ginger.
Halibut: Easiest of all, buy a filet or halibut steaks. A pound of fish will serve 3 or 4, depending on what’s served with it. Pat the fish dry and coat lightly with olive oil. Then pound to a paste a mix of finely chopped garlic, parsley, lemon zest, black pepper, and lemon juice. Spread on the surface of each piece of fish and arrange the fish in a lightly oiled baking dish, top with bread crumbs or panko crumbs and dabs of butter. Roast at 375 – 400ºF (175 - 200º C) for 15 minutes, then turn on the broiler to crisp and toast the top layer. Serve with some of that rhubarb compote above.
Alewives (smoked): You won’t be able to find these unless you discover some little hidden outpost on the coast of Maine (Jess’s Market in Rockland, which I mention frequently as my seafood destination, sometimes has smoked alewives in season); if you find them, split them apart, remove any obvious bones, spread Allison Lakin’s good butter lavishly on a crusty piece of whole-grain sourdough bread and arrange the alewife filets on top. Consume with well-chilled Maine lager.
To be continued. . . .
We have a halibut fishery here in B.C. The quality is excellent. We often grill it outdoors...simple and delicious. You are teasing us with the talk of having access to such amazing butter!
Amazing, that huge halibut. Takes my breath away