{"id":9806,"date":"2014-06-20T08:21:16","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T12:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=9806"},"modified":"2021-03-11T16:12:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T21:12:53","slug":"my-one-uni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/my-one-uni\/","title":{"rendered":"My One & Uni"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summerguide 2014 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

From prickly pest to lucrative export to spine-tingling domestic delicacy, it\u2019s been a long, strange trip for the Maine sea urchin.<\/h3>\n

By Claire Z. Cramer<\/p>\n

\"My-One-and-Uni\"<\/a>At Yosaku on Danforth Street, an order of uni sushi arrives on a narrow wooden tray: a tiny, orange, volcanic eruption of sea urchin roe heaping from a single vertical cylinder of nori seaweed. The sushi-bar garnish trinity of shaved ginger, dab of wasabi, and tiny saucer for soy are arranged alongside. This minimalist, two-inch, two-bite masterpiece is $4.<\/p>\n

Fuji on Exchange Street has a similar uni presentation; Eventide Oyster frequently offers urchin specials served in the shell. King of the Roll on Congress has a \u201csake shooter\u201d\u2013a lobe of uni with a raw quail egg yolk at the bottom of a stemmed pony glass of chilled sake. Not for the timid!<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much to love about this low-calorie source of protein and omega-3s that\u2019s low in fat and cholesterol\u2013the silken texture, the sweet, faintly briny, ethereal flavor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to make an emulsion of urchin with cream and saut\u00e9ed shallots and toss it with fresh pasta,\u201d says Chris Miller, general manager at Browne Trading Company. Browne carries urchins\u2013both whole and cleaned and packed in trays\u2013at its retail store on Commercial Street. It supplies restaurants\u2013Hugo\u2019s, Eventide Oyster, Benkay, and Sapporo in Portland, for example\u2013and around the country, particularly in Boston and New York.<\/p>\n

Checkered Past<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 1970s, a few Maine divers were exporting sea urchins to France,\u201d says Margaret Hunter at the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). \u201cMuch earlier, there was a small seasonal market for them,\u201d in Boston and New York for European tastes. My father-in-law used to fish for them back in the 1940s using a long-handled rake with a bag attached from the back of a skiff in the Boothbay area. He could get a couple of bushels on a low tide, earning $3 per bushel, pretty big money back then.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings took off in 1987, shipping urchins whole to Japan and then shucked shortly after, when urchin processors opened up on the East Coast for the market in Japan.\u201d Why Maine? \u201cIt had to do with a combination of the decline of stocks in other parts of the world, an overabundance of them in Maine, and very importantly, an improved yen\/dollar rate that suddenly made shipping them to Japan profitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early 1990s, media coverage of the Maine urchin industry marveled at the \u2018gold rush\u2019\u2013an unbelievable Japanese market for what was considered a useless, spiny nuisance full of squishy, unappealing roe here. Urchins harmed kelp beds and snagged fishing nets. Until 1992, a commercial license to harvest urchins with essentially no restrictions was just $20.<\/p>\n

But Then\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe depletion began almost immediately,\u201d says Hunter. \u201cLandings peaked in the 1992-1993 winter season. Casco Bay was probably\u2026depleted by then. This was masked as harvesters moved to other areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1993 and 1994, the DMR began regulating, which continues today, dividing harvesting grounds into zones; increasingly restricting the season every year; and requiring surcharges on harvesters, buyers, and processors. \u201cBut the horse was out of the barn.\u201d By 1994, \u201c1,725 divers and 1,000 draggers were already licensed.\u201d In 2013, this dropped to 114 licensed divers and 83 draggers. From annual harvests spiking to 40 million pounds in the early \u201990s, the take in 2010 was less than three million.<\/p>\n

In the intervening years, \u201cAmerican chefs discovered urchins as a delicacy,\u201d says Hunter. \u201cMaine\u2019s green urchins are smaller than the West Coast reds and purples, and much better tasting.\u201d Maine urchin shells must be no smaller than two inches and no larger than three before they can be snapped up and sold.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrime time for urchins pretty much matches day-boat winter scallop season\u2013the coldest winter months. We are so lucky here to have access to these delicacies,\u201d says Chris Miller at Browne Trading. \u201cAs the water warms in spring, urchins are harvested farther north in Canada. In summer they\u2019re harvested in Chile.\u201d Browne sells four-ounce packs of urchin roe for $16.99. They carry whole, live, prickly urchins, but most demand is for the cleaned roe, since neatly removing the meat from the delicate shells takes skill.<\/p>\n

Urban Urchin
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a big gray warehouse behind Becky\u2019s Diner on Portland\u2019s waterfront, Atchan Tamaki\u2019s ISF Trading is where urchins and their shells part ways. The roe is cleaned, processed, and packaged for travel. Tamaki became Maine\u2019s first urchin processor \u201c28 years ago,\u201d he says. ISF was the biggest U.S. exporter of sea urchins to Japan. \u201cI still ship to Japan when they order it, but now most of my business is domestic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plastic totes full of dark, diver-caught, spiny urchins are everywhere in the processing work room within the brightly lit ISF facility. These are from Canada because Maine\u2019s season has just closed.<\/p>\n

Workers in snug white rubber gloves face each other across long tables. Using metal tools like tiny golf putters, they quickly scoop lobes of urchin roe from the spiny shells. In minutes, empty shells pile up; plastic trays fill with roe. The trays are shallow sieves. At another work station, they\u2019re submerged in tubs of water so the clinging bits of shell and dark connective viscera can float away, leaving shiny, clean roe in shades of light and dark orange. \u201cThe female is lighter and yellower,\u201d says Tamaki. \u201cThe males are sweeter.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the final work station, a few women perform the finishing step: arranging neat rows of roe into 50-gram and 250-gram wooden boxes and capping them with raised plastic lids, ready to stack and ship. The spiny husks are dried outdoors, causing the spikes to fall off the dreamy green shells that are then sold into the gift shop and craft trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cSea urchin pasta is so popular now it will probably turn up on the menu at the Olive Garden by the end of the year,\u201d wrote New York Times<\/em> restaurant critic Pete Wells in a recent review of a new Italian spot in Greenwich Village. He\u2019s joking, in a snide, New York way. Sure, urchin\u2019s trendy, delicious, and no longer just for sushi, but it\u2019s hardly to everyone\u2019s taste.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we don\u2019t serve it,\u201d says Dan at Old Port Sea Grill. \u201cI think we have a sea urchin in our aquarium in the dining room, but that\u2019s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summerguide 2014
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