Fish Boil
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| A sight to see. |
Door County offers a mouth-watering array of culinary treats. There are great restaurants to please any palate, farm markets abound, and foods rooted in the county’s rich ethnic heritage are available and worth a try. But one meal is synonymous with Door County – the fish boil.
The Door County fish boil is not just a meal, it’s an event. Held in the open air over cedar-fed fires, massive cauldrons of bubbling salt water are filled to capacity with red-jacketed potatoes, luscious sweet pearl onions and freshly-caught fish from the local waters.
At the precise moment, the master boiler steps up and douses the cooking fire with diesel fuel, the erupting rush of engulfing flames sends the fish oils and cooking residue boiling up and over.
The fish boil’s history is enmeshed with that of the county’s early economic development. The Peninsula drew legions of lumberjacks and fishermen anxious to capitalize on the abundant natural resources. Both of these groups are in position to claim bragging rights for the creation of the fish boil.
The mid-nineteenth century found lumberjacks hard at work clearing timber from the Peninsula’s vast forests. With the requirement of lots of food readily available, easily prepared by those not necessarily qualifying as gourmets, the lumberjacks would have had the opportunity and the resources to have taken the fish boil to heart.
Others believe today’s fish boil is an outgrowth of the early fishing industry and the “Domer” cooked fish. Steam was the power that propelled the early fishing fleets. Out on the lakes, a fresh catch, stuffed with potatoes and onions, wrapped in layers of newspaper, would be set on the boiler, where it would steam in its own juices, providing a delicious feast. Back on land, the fishermen used the same concept of the steam boiler to cook larger quantities of fish.
Whether the lumberjack or the fisherman deserves our eternal gratitude for the fish boil, we’ll probably never know. If you are one of a handful of the uninitiated, you might well be wondering what the shouting is all about. After all, boiled fish, while nutritious, doesn’t usually inspire so many exclamation marks when mentioned in a menu. But a Door County fish boil is not simply a “boiled fish,” it’s an experience!
