Fish of the Great Lakes

To anyone who is reading this, the thoughts of fish in the Great Lakes may have never crossed your mind. Now granted, our country is in between two of the biggest, most abundant bodies of water in the world, which explains why we recognize salt water fish. What about all the fresh water inland lakes, not even to mention the five largest bodies of fresh water in the world, The Great Lakes. Why is it that when I mention tiger striped perch, bluegill, crappies, sunfish, northern pike and walleyes that no one understands what I am talking about? I grew up on these fish. Ever winter through the ice we would plunder the local lakes and stock up the freezer, having a fish fry every other night. In between nights of braised squirrel or rabbit, but those are other stories in and of themselves. To me there was no other fish to eat. What the hell was tuna? I had a hard time believing it was a fish at all, how could a fish come from a can? And look like that? That was just ignorance though.

Fresh water fishing industries were once life sustaining jobs that created cultural and gastronomic foundations in small fishing towns dotting the Great Lakes. Delicacies such as smoked whitefish and lake trout can still be found in tourist towns, but it is merely that, a tourist novelty. Much like the famed “Pasties” of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is very similar to a samosa or empanada, filled with potatoes and ground beef then smothered in gravy. When I was cooking in Michigan I would ask my fish purveyors what kind of fresh water fish they could get for me. There answers were always short. What happened to these fish. Why has it been reduced to a handful of people who do it only for a hobby or to preserve a tradition? Why aren’t people still out there making a decent living doing what they love to do, on bodies of water that should produce more than can be handled? There is a Department of Natural Resources for a reason, right?

Turns out the DNR and the states bordering the Great Lakes, notably Lake Michigan, are in quite the debacle. Thirty years ago they noticed a problem of too many feeder fish in the Lake. For that particular imbalance I am not sure. The DNR turned to salmon for the solution. Salmon, a fish that is not even native to the Lake. Six million salmon were spawned by the DNR each year. Feeder fish problem was eliminated. Literally. Now there are too few feeder fish for all the predator fish to go around. This being part of the decline in native species. Another issue, sport fishing; this industry has thrived. It has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry in Michigan alone. The solution should be simple for the feeder fish; stop spawning salmon and let nature take its course. The DNR started to, they cut back almost by half, but in recent years anglers have noticed a decline in quality in salmon fishing. Fish are smaller and less abundant, this creating a weaker sport fishing industry, this creating less tax revenue for the government, that leading to pressure on the DNR to up the spawning of salmon again. Nice catch-22.

Learning these facts pushes me deeper into confusion about the how’s and why’s, and now, what to do’s. Looking at the big picture make one realize how much humans continue to change. What may once mean everything to life, may soon mean nothing. Anthropology and the human history depicts many lessons like this one. Someday a scholar might be dusting off a desert floor and come across a small skeleton of a feeder fish, stand up and realize, this once was a Great big Lake.

Welcome

   The idea of this website is to create a space where a person can share their ideas and thoughts based on current and historical culinary theories. The point is to establish a foundation of knowledge that will shape the way we think about food in our daily lives. America is living a double life right now. There is a new trend in the media. Celebrity Chefs, books and television shows being pumped out faster than information can be processed. People are actively searching out the best quality of food as close to home as possible. Yet those same people still crave fast food, and giant food manufactures sprint to keep up with the current food trends. Organic isn’t cool anymore. Sustainable and Local is. As great as this is, I feel that even this will come to an end. It almost seems as if people are forcing themselves to do this. They feel they have to know what risotto is and how to properly make it. Don’t get me wrong, this is all good and encouraging stuff here, it is just annoying how the media is promoting all this and one day like everything else; the hype will stop. There is a thin layer of knowledge in the American culinary scene. People want this beautiful cuisine, and the prestige that goes with it, but the idea is all wrong. We don’t have to preserve anymore. We don’t have to kill our own chickens. Pull the weeds from our own gardens, make stocks and soups from the carcass of last nights meal. All we have to do is go to Whole Foods and buy something that might be better than what we could have produced anyways. The reason behind all these old recipes and traditions are what made cuisine beautiful. The beauty is when all the mother did was cook her way from one meal to the next to feed her family.Now…I fully understand that if one chooses to live in America, one can not really live that life anymore. You will end up being more upset because society will eat you instead. I would love nothing more than to have my own self sustaining farm, and live that life; but I also love walking down the street and buying a gallon of milk at eleven thirty at night. In the following posts, I want to hear peoples stories on how they look at food. How they would be willing to change their lives, if at all?