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| Lee 'The Wild Gourmet' Gray, photographed at Lincoln City by Emily Leiper, Oregon Coast Today. |
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| Dining in the tidepools, with 'The Wild Gourmet'
[Published April 18, 2008]
By Niki Price
Oregon Coast Today
Perhaps you understand, intellectually, that it is possible to eat barnacles. You can tell yourself that they are arthropods akin to tasty species like shrimp and crab. You might have read that in Spain and Portugal, goose barnacles are a delicacy, served tapas-style in the finest coastal restaurants.
There can be a wide gap, however, between knowing that something is edible and actually wresting it from the rock and putting it in your mouth. That’s where Lee Gray comes in.
Gray has been foraging in the tide pools, sandy shores and forests of the central coast for the past 28 years. He not only knows what’s safe to eat, but how to find, harvest and prepare it. Known as “The Wild Gourmet,” he spends his weekends leading culinary field trips to the beaches around Lincoln City. Most importantly, at least to the skeptical, he’s always willing to eat it first.
He starts with sea vegetables that grow in the upper zones; that is, the areas that are first to be exposed by the receding ocean. He’ll stop mid-stride, pick off a stem like it’s a strawberry, rinse off the sand and pop it in his mouth. He’ll tell his tour groups what it’s called, then pass samples around.
“This is sea lettuce. It’s great in salads or soups. This is Turkish towel. It’s used in all kinds of things.”
Once they taste these slippery, gritty or crunchy specimens, the group moves on. Gray talks about California mussels, which are prolific on the basalt rocks here, and how to harvest them when they’re no bigger than a man’s thumb. If you have your shellfish license, you can pluck six dozen of them for your dinner.
Then, it’s time for thatched barnacles, the scourge of boat owners and whales alike. They grow by the millions on these rocks, their outer shells stuck tight to the surface with one of the strongest glues in the natural world. Gray finds a large one, about two inches at the base, and uses a large screwdriver and a sharp knife to pry it off intact. He turns it over, bottoms up, and slurps it down like he’s at an oyster bar. Delicious, he says, as he struggles to remove another determined barnacle from its wave-crashed home. Everyone who’s willing gets his own single-serving sessile arthropod, ready to eat.
Gray introduces his students to limpets, chitons, urchins and other tide pool residents that are easiest to find during the lowest tides in spring and early summer. Don’t try to stump him. You name it, he’s eaten it, from sea stars (“There’s really nothing to eat there, it’s all rocky”) to green anemones (“the bottom half was OK, but the green parts gave me an ulcer that I didn’t get rid of for 15 years”).
Before you go, Gray will help you harvest your limit of goose-neck barnacles (officially 10 per person, per day). These creatures look altogether different from the thatched variety, and are a good deal easier to remove. But unlike the acorn barnacles and the sea vegetables, which are yummy raw and right off the rock, the goosenecks are best when cooked. Your guide will give you a few pointers, such as how to steam them in wine and which part to eat. Then Lee Gray, The Wild Gourmet and your official “if it didn’t kill me, you can try it” tidepool tour guide, bids you adieu.
Stuck on you
At home in your kitchen with 10 strange-looking, leathery goose barnacles, and the Wild Gourmet is nowhere in sight? Take heart, amigos and amigas – the Spaniards know a thing or two about food, and they like these so much they’re almost extinct near Galicia.
So how hard can it be? Here’s one way to attack. First, treat them like you would any other perishable shellfish. Refrigerate them as soon as possible; on ice in the fridge is even better. If they’re kept very cold, they’ll be fresh for up to 48 hours.
To prepare them, fill a stockpot with 1 inch of white wine. To this you might add fresh herbs or the same spices you might use with crab or shrimp, but plain wine will do nicely. Set it on a high flame with a steamer basket placed inside.
While you’re waiting for the wine to boil, clean the barnacles with cold water. You won’t be eating the outside, but excess grit could be annoying. When the wine starts to bubble, place the barnacles in the pot and steam them for 5 to 8 minutes.
How will you know when they’re done? A good rule of thumb is to look for any pink flesh that is exposed; when that foot muscle has turned from dark pink to light pink, the barnacle is probably done. You can also pick one up, and try to separate the crown from the skin. If they won’t separate easily, it probably isn’t done.
Or, set your timer for 6 minutes, keep the wine at a brisk boil, and hope for the best. While you’re waiting, melt some butter with a little garlic salt. Remove them from the steamer basket and arrange them on the plate with the melted butter.
Nature’s fast food
Once at the table, the rest of the gang will be looking at you – suddenly, you’ll be the wild gourmet and they’ll be skeptical about these wrinkled, brown-black elephant feet you’ve arranged so artfully on the good china.
Pretend you know what you’re doing. Grab the shelled crown with one hand, and the leathery sheath with the other. Put your thumbnail where the two connect, and gently pull. When they separate, the barnacle’s peduncular stalk, or foot, will stay attached to the crown. Using the shell as a handle, you can dip and eat.
It’s hard to say exactly what this meat tastes like. It has a delicate flavor that Lee Gray says resembles lobster and crab, while other people believe that the goose barnacle — called “percebes” in Spanish — tastes something like a snail. Either way, the goose barnacle is a memorable tidbit that can even make you feel superior to a Spaniard. According to a New York Times food story, in 2007 chefs in Madrid were paying up to $65 a pound.
That’s nothing compared to the real value of harvesting and serving barnacles at your kitchen table. When you do, you’ll have made an intellectual, culinary and visceral leap that is, in a word, priceless.
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Learn more
• Click to watch the OCT’s (very, very fun!) video of Lee Gray sucking barnacle
meat off a rock.
• Lee Gray leads foraging field trips throughout the summer. This
Saturday, April 19, he’ll be hosting a Tidepool Edibles adventure; to
take part, meet at Lincoln City’s NW 15th St. beach access at 6 a.m. On
Sunday, April 20, he’ll be hunting for clams on Siletz Bay; to join
this group, meet at the Siletz Bay Park Gazebo at 7 a.m. The price is
$15 per person, and you should provide your own shellfish license and
container. To register, call Lee at 541-992-3798. To check out Lee’s
other wild food adventures (including videos about fiddlehead ferns,
mushrooms, and more), head to his web site, wildgourmettv.com.
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| Goose barnacles harvested at Lincoln City, with drawn butter. (Hungry?) OCT photo. |
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More information
Harvesting
goose barnacles
• The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife regulations allow for 10 goose barnacles per day, and a shellfish harvesting license is not required. A license is required to harvest mussels, however, with a limit of 72 per person, per day. For the full regulations, turn to the 2008 guide, which is available anwhere you find fishing licenses.
• Like other filter feeders, the barnacle is susceptible to ocean algae events that can be dangerous to humans. For the most up-to-date information on testing and closures, call the ODFW shellfish safety hotline at 800-448-2474.
• All the plants and animals mentioned here are residents of the intertidal zone, and the best time to find them is during a low tide, the lower the better (see the OCT tide tables, page 25). Barnacles and mussels often grow together in areas that are exposed to strong wave action, so be careful when exploring.
• Look for specimens that are
5 inches or more in length (test the depth by sticking a screwdriver or other tool down into the patch), and at least 1 inch wide at the crown. The best, according to Lee Gray, are those that grow in small patches within mussel colonies; they don’t suffer from excess competition and tend to be larger.
• Grab the barnacle by its crown and use your hand or tool to follow the neck down to the rock. Twist, pull and pry out the animal, but be gentle. To get the most meat, try to remove the foot cleanly where it meets the rock.
• Take pains to remove just the barnacles you plan to eat; leave the rest to maintain the ecosystem. Once they’re removed, they can’t easily reattach to the rock.
• Refrigerate or ice your catch as soon as possible.
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