Jumbo Shrimp: Globalization comes to Waldo County

Oxymorons: Bird dog, a new classic, ham steak, and my favorite, jumbo shrimp. It makes me smile every time I see the phrase in print or hear it uttered. I love big little crustaceans. What's not to like about them dipped in cocktail sauce, or sauted and served over pasta, in a sandwich, stew or fried. A local product served up at a reasonable price. I wish it were that simple, but shrimp are pretty complicated these days, starting with size. The photo above is 61-70 Maine shrimp.

Shrimp size references the number of the acquatic anthropods needed to make a pound, so super jumbos (U/15 or less to the a pound) are bigger than jumbos (16/20 per pound) down to small (41/50). I'm talking wild, Gulf of Mexico shrimp as compared with an imported, farm raised product. Down in the Gulf shrimpers in Alabama get about $4.50/pound for jumbos and $1.60 for 41/50. My local store gets $7.99 for Gulf jumbos peeled and cooked. These are much larger than shrimp caught in Maine, and cheaper in the local grocery store as well. Sound wrong to you?

In the same store I can buy farm raised, cooked shrimp from Thailand or Vietnam for $7.79 a pound or frozen Maine shrimp from Maine for $8.87 a pound. How can it be less expensive to raise shrimp thousands of miles away (where it has to be fed, medicated and nurtured with care) and ship it to Waldo County. I just don't get it. Shrimp is landed on wharfs within 50 miles of the store. Boats with names like High Roller, Susan Jessica and Bad Penny (it keeps coming back) are paid $.50-$1.00 per pound for the wild caught shrimp and the peeled and cooked meat can be bought for $5.00/pound from trucks all along the mid coast area. There's so much that doesn't make sense here that I don't know where to start. The most expensive shrimp in the store is the local product. The same item can be bought a hundred yards away, outside the store for about half the price. Maine shrimp at $8.87 a pound makes the distant, farm raised product a better value for the casual shopper.

No wonder Maine shrimpers are struggling. With lots of shrimp to catch they're competing in a market where globalization means everything. Native products slug it out with domestic, and imported farm raised products in grocery store freezers and fish cases for even a modest share of the market. The outlook should be good here as Gulf of Maine shrimp are plentiful. Unlike a lot of sea food, they're not over fished at this point. This should be a bright spot in the the regional economy. But it isn't, because of persistant troubles competing in the global market.

Fresh Shrimp Ahead!

Last week my friend Dick told me he bought 20 pounds of shrimp for ten bucks off the boat about an hour south of here in Boothbay Harbor where he lives. I was surprised. Fifty cents a pound is really cheap for protein. For a seafood delight like shrimp, its a fire sale. We're smack in the middle of the Maine shrimp season right now and I headed out to the grocery store to check out how Maine shrimp's holding up against product from Thailand, Brazil, China and the US Gulf Coast. The last time I tried this, the grocery store didn't have any Maine shrimp while the tailgate peddler I passed on the way to the store had a truck full. When I asked at the store why they didn't have local shrimp I was told the supply was unreliable. Why not sell it when you have it I wondered. That got me thinking about the whole buying in season perplex.

I did a little better today. Whole Maine shrimp was $2.99 inside the store and $1.00 from the truck. Shrimp meat was $6.99 in the store and $5.oo from the truck unless you were willing to buy a 10 pound bag of frozen meat for $40. They didn't have any Gulf shrimp at all inside [more on that later], but there was a good variety of imported product over a range of prices.

Maine or Northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) is smaller than the other types and many people think it tastes better. It's caught by towing nets behind boats or in traps, like lobster traps only different. The design is not really the same, but if you are far enough away a pile of shrimp traps looks like pile of lobster traps. Maybe that's not such a good description, after all if you were far enough away I might look like Johnny Depp. While I'm on the subject of being far away, that reliable shrimp from Thailand sure traveled a long way to get to a Waldo County supermarket, didn't it.

Pooh Island Whale

The joy that both Native Americans and Colonial Settlers experienced when they came upon whales on Cape Cod beaches has been replaced with sadness and dread for the future of the marine mammals. In Leviathan; The History of Whaling in America, Eric Dolin describes how the Pilgrims soon realized the commercial advantage to be made in the taking of whales and got busy. A couple of hundred years later, I take the problem to heart. Stories of lost whales in harbors and strandings always make me uncomfortable, anxious now. In my carefree youth I ate whale. I didn't know any better. I went to a restaurant where broiled whale was featured on the menu and on a neon sign with a spouting whale out by the road. I tried it, just once. I hope you can forgive me. I suppose it was offered as a novelty item like the incongruous espresso bar in a local McDonalds or the all you can eat [AYCE on the sign out by the road] alligator at a place up the road. More for the curious than the hungry, I suppose.

I haven't seen whale on a menu for a while, but I did see an interesting snippet on ONN [Onion News Network] about Japan developing a new hybrid whaling ship, bigger than a Prius, but still gets good fuel economy. And will there be work for those new whalers you're wondering? I recently read that whales are coming back. An article provided by Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management suggests that “There is now strong scientific evidence that several species of baleen whale and possibly the sperm whale, have recovered to levels that would support commercial harvest.” I don't think I'm ready for US whaling, but if the numbers are up, I fear the harvesters won't be far behind.

The whale pictured above washed up on on Pooh Island, Hancock County, Maine in 2008. Don't bother Googlin' it, Pooh's too small for an official name, but locals need something to call it other than "the big ledge on the south side a hundred feet offshore that's only uncovered about half tide." The smell was so bad I couldn't get near enough to really look it over, but even from an olfactorily satisfying distance it was impressive and I was sad to see the it rotting in the sun. I didn't have to watch it very long. Somebody threw rope around the tail at high tide and dragged it couple of miles offshore much to everyone's relief. Was that legal? I don't know.

International Lunch

I ripped the top off a can of sardines and made a sandwich for lunch today. I guess the humble sardine, once popular in the working man's lunch box, has been eclipsed by drive through fast food. For years herring provided an inexpensive, healthy sandwich for lunch, but I think it has largely fallen out of favor lately. The fine print on the can says" Brunswick Sardines in Mustard Sauce. Distributed by Connors Brunswick LLC, So Portland, ME; Product of Canada." I buy Maine sardines when I can, but sometimes I can't find them in the grocery store and fall back on other brands. I'll admit I can't tell a Canadian sardine from a Beach Cliff once the top's off the can.