My inspiration for the dish I made that night � bluefish with farfalle in
a sauce of roasted tomatoes, capers, white wine and lemon juice � was
the
ineffable mullet with farfalle I first tasted in a seaside fish joint
in
Viareggio, on the Tuscan coast. Blues are often thought to have a
particularly "fishy" taste that turns people off. This happens only
when
the oily flesh is exposed to the air for a long period, which turns it
rancid. In fact, mackerel, salmon and tuna share this characteristic.
But if you go straight home from the boat, skin and fillet the fish
and
cook it, you would be hard pressed to find flounder that is milder in
flavor. (You can also buy bluefish at most fish markets.)
Catching and cooking a striped bass is a taller order � or at least a
longer one, given the size fish you must catch to keep it. (Buying one
is
only a little easier. Farmed striped bass are readily available in
fish
markets, but legally taken wild ones are far less abundant.)
Through the summer, the big bass are often off Montauk, Cape Cod,
Nantucket and on up to Maine. Their return to local urban waters is
heralded by the advance guard of the autumn run, false albacore. These
green and blue relatives of the tuna are among the speediest and
strongest
fish to battle on light tackle. They are good sport, but awful eating.
Still, on a warm afternoon in early October, I met a guide named
Brendan
McCarthy at the River Caf�, under the Brooklyn Bridge. On a rising
tide,
we spent most of the afternoon chasing and catching albacore in the
East
River, from Castle Clinton at the Battery up to the Harlem River.
It was just a matter of time until the bass showed up. And last week,
after a series of storms bestirred the horde of fish off Montauk and
got
them moving south, John McMurray of One More Cast Guiding Service
called
to report 20-pound stripers off Norton's Point in southeastern
Brooklyn.
That was enough to rouse me at 5 o'clock the next morning to meet him
at
Gateway Marina on Dead Horse Bay.
With wind from the south and an incoming tide, we sped to a clearly
defined rip, which is a current line separating water moving at
different
speeds. Baitfish would be caught in the rip and, we reasoned, would
attract predators: the bass. I cast and retrieved a chartreuse fly,
the
same color as the tiny baitfish. On the second cast I felt a tug. By
the
feel, it was a big bass, which shook its head and took off, peeling a
hundred yards of line from my reel. Slowly I retrieved line, and
swiftly
the fish took it back, which allowed John an opportunity to deride my
technique. But ultimately, the fish surrendered .
At 34 inches and 14 pounds, he was a grand fish, one that demanded an
equally grand presentation at dinner.
I had already settled on fish and vegetables baked in a thick salt
crust.
I first saw this method employed by Francis Mallmann, who was at that
time
a top chef and restaurateur in Argentina. The economic travails in
that
country have since landed Mr. Mallmann on Long Island, where his
Patagonia
West restaurant in Westhampton Beach offers a version of his Andean
haute
cuisine. But he taught me to salt-bake in Argentina, at an outdoor
barbecue in the wine region of Mendoza.
