(curious bouncy music)
(water splashing)
- It's definitely a lot easier in daylight.
A lot of times we have to come out here at this time
just because it's what the tide will allow.
We have to time it up specifically
to be able to access this.
So these are gooseneck barnacles.
We've harvested these off of Barview Jetty
in Tillamook Bay. (gentle music)
These are a type of crustacean
closely related to shrimp and lobster.
Really popular ingredient harvested in Spain and Portugal.
We have one of the most abundant populations
of this species in Oregon, but they're not
a huge commercial product.
The Pacific Coast is typically the only place
that these are found.
Puget Sound down to Baja.
(waves crashing) (upbeat piano music)
(slamming)
Most of the things that we serve
are not yet in the market or a part of the culture
of things that we eat yet.
So that's kind of what we're trying to show here.
So basically, the barnacles all grow
down here on the rocks.
When the tide is high the surf hits them.
We're gonna try to find some that appear
when the waves come back down
and we're gonna swoop in and harvest them.
What do you think?
You see anything?
Yeah, we should just get down there.
This is the tide that you want
cause it's coming in like crazy like that.
Just wonder, do we have access to anything?
Should we call it off?
- [Nick] I like this wave approaching.
- We're bout to get wiped out here right now.
(laughing)
So we just kind of wanted to show you in the daylight
where we are gonna harvest the barnacles.
The tide's a little bit too high right now
but we're gonna come back a little bit later
this evening when the tide's low.
It's gonna be dark outside though.
So we're gonna change locations
to Three Graces rock formation.
It's also in Tillamook Bay, it's just right down the street.
And there we gather several different varieties
of seaweed, as well as sea snails and limpets.
(water gurgling)
About 30% of the menu we source ourselves
and those are kind of the more spotlight ingredients,
like, hey, this is something that could either
become a market or it's something that is a market
somewhere else that we're just trying to say,
hey, you can eat this too here in Oregon
because it's plentiful.
Cause it's all about rotating the fisheries,
instead of always, always, always hitting the exact
same fisheries one after another.
We're trying to present these things
and show that it can be done in a fine dining aspect.
(waves crashing)
- So this is a limpet.
It's a variety of sea snail.
They attach themselves to the rocks here
on the intertidal zone.
If we hesitate and you don't immediately scrape it,
it attaches itself and it's really difficult
to take off without damaging it.
You don't see this on anybody's menu.
These are really popular in other parts of the world,
but I'm not aware of any other restaurant
serving these right now, in the states at least.
(water gurgling)
- We've also harvested three different
kinds of seaweed here.
And then last are the dog whelks which are braised
and then served at the end of the meal
as one of the savory courses.
You have to hit these with a hammer
to get the meat out.
(gentle piano music)
(footsteps crunching)
(distant talking)
We can access certain clusters
when the tide is high,
but depending on the weather,
sometimes that's a little bit dangerous,
so we typically go at a lower tide.
A lot of times that happens
to be in the middle of the night.
So we go in the dark, lanterns, headlights.
We try to map out the are as much as we can
and access things that are further out
at really good low tides.
We save clusters that we can come back
to when it's not as good of a tide
or even a higher tide.
(scraping)
Kinda doesn't make any sense cause they're like everywhere,
but we're kind of like hemming and hawing around
cause it's a pretty invasive process.
You're literally uprooting something off a rock,
so you just wanna make sure it's the right thing
before you take it off cause you can't really reverse that.
The way the regulation works is that can you only harvest
them from a manmade structure, such as a pier or a jetty.
And also, you're only allowed to take one cluster
every 10 feet, that's maybe the size
of a volleyball or something.
We think that the size of them is really important,
so they kind of have to be about as wide as they are tall.
See how this one's like real long?
Like, it's not an ideal, it's not a perfect one.
But these little chubby ones
are exactly what you're looking for.
It takes about 20 years for barnacles
to grow to this size,
so that's why we only take such a small amount
in the cluster because if there's a cluster established,
a lot of the seedlings can attach to that cluster
and regrow a lot more quickly.
But if you were to take everything off the rock,
it could take hundreds of years if not ever
for them to come back to that spot.
So it's really important that the guidelines
are followed when they're harvested.
(upbeat music)
There are different grades and qualities
based on where they grow, how hard of surf they're in,
and basically what side of the rock they grow on.
So here in this cluster, we have what we would call
a B grade barnacle.
So this is a cluster and you can see by the color
and just the density of them
that they're just not gonna have as much meat inside.
So this is something that we would sell for a cheaper price
if we were wholesaling them.
These ones here are also a cluster size,
but you can see by the color of them
that they're a little bit denser
and usually that has to do with the fact
that they're in a harder surf area
so they're feeding more often and they become stronger
because they have to hold on tighter.
And then here we have two examples of grade A barnacles
and they're just graded by size and then these are the same
and these are just slightly larger,
so this would be basically a primo gooseneck barnacle here.
So the barnacles are prepared a very specific way.
It's simple, but also pretty easy to mess up.
So we cook them in seawater
that we use from just redissolving salt
that we make from Netarts Bay seawater
into boiling water and then the barnacles are blanched
really quickly for about 45 seconds to one minute.
Taken out, we put them in ice water
till they're chilled through.
Drain them off and then we'll go through the process
of cleaning them back on the cutting board.
And these are gonna sit here in this water
for about 45 seconds to a minute.
I usually cut into one to make sure that the skin
is separated from the meat and the meat has cooked through.
So we kind just check one.
I just cut the end of it off
and you can see that the skin has separated from the meat.
Then we just wanna make sure
that they're thoroughly chilled.
Takes about five minutes for them to cool down all the way,
but it's like blanching anything.
You don't wanna let anything sit in the ice water
for excessive amount of time cause then the flavor
will start to dilute.
So just until it's chilled through and then we remove it.
(upbeat music)
So how the barnacle feeds as it sits on the rock,
this mouth part will open and a long feeler will come out
and they basically grab plankton as it filters the water.
So this is what absorbs the majority of the sand.
A lot of people that use these for the first time
have a bad experience with them being sandy,
so basically we take this after it's opened up
and we rinse this out really well,
right into the mouth of it.
And then we'll remove that piece.
Then we come back to the cutting board after that's done.
We cut the end of this off and then come up the side here.
The skin is really hard so we don't use that,
we just peel it off.
So then we have our barnacle here
and as you can there's the meat exposed.
The head of the barnacle is not edible.
It's basically like a rock and that's where a lot
of the sand storage is that we just washed out.
So we're just gonna clip that piece away.
It's just really crucial that all these are cleaned properly
because one piece of sand can ruin
the entire dining experience.
It is a pretty decent yield, especially 'cause these pieces
weigh almost nothing, so it's about a 75% yield on meat
for these ones that are grade A.
So that's essentially what makes it more valuable.
So then we basically come through here
and we're just gonna slice this into bite-sized pieces
and then we'll serve it with the juice from the barnacles.
So a lot of the smaller ones that we talked about
that don't have as much meat in them,
we extract the juice from them by steaming them,
like as you would like steamer clams
and it's used to marinate the nicer specimens.
(chewing)
So it's really crunchy and then it become tender
and then it dissolves in your mouth,
it's like amazing texture,
really clean, clean ocean flavor.
Really mild, sweet, briny.
Like, if you were comparing this to something else,
I would say it's a lot closer
to cooked shrimp or crabmeat or lobster meat
as it would be to shellfish, clams, or oysters,
which have a much more assertive flavor and texture.
This is one of the easier things to eat
that comes out of the ocean.
We're just gonna be plating them into this shell here.
This is a shell from a cockle.
I just use it for presentation.
And this is a juice from the barnacles
that we talked about earlier, from the young barnacles.
That just gets spooned over.
It's been acidulated with a little bit
of lemon juice and then.
(liquid splashing) This oil that we finish
it with is made from fig leaves
that have been preserved and then grilled.
I'm always curious about new ingredients.
If you have your eyes open
and you're always paying attention
and trying new things,
there are just premium products
that no one even knows exist there.