We were on a regular foray through Pike Place Market today, looking for
dinner options. Lo and behold, what did we see at the Pure Food Fish
Market? Live conch. SO (alias Florida Boy) had never seen live ones
for sale, even in Miami. These were not the huge pink and pearly shell
specimens; rather these were smallish and rather grey-brown. So we got
half a dozen of them with chowder in mind. Since neither of us had ever
cooked fresh conch, we had to consult references to figure out how to
cook and clean them. Cleaning them fell to me: "You're the biologist."
(Translated: SO is a wuss.) It wasn't difficult, but it was fairly
messy.

For those of you who have never had it, good conch chowder is similar to
Manhattan clam chowder, but with more spice to it. Some Floridians have
gone over to the dark side and make cream-style conch chowder, but that
seems to be a more recent development. We're going to take the
leftovers down to SO's mom at the nursing home, because she hasn't had
conch chowder since well before she moved to Seattle. A fine meal.

Cindy

--
C.J. Fuller

Delete the obvious to email me

On Jul 21, 10:01?pm, Cindy Fuller wrote:

> We were on a regular foray through Pike Place Market
> today, looking for dinner options. Lo and behold, what did
> we see at the Pure Food Fish Market? Live conch.

Where did it come from? I can't remember ever seeing
conch in the Pike market or - for that matter - anywhere
else in the Puget Sound area.

In article . com>,
KevinS > wrote:

> On Jul 21, 10:01?pm, Cindy Fuller wrote:
>
> > We were on a regular foray through Pike Place Market
> > today, looking for dinner options. Lo and behold, what did
> > we see at the Pure Food Fish Market? Live conch.
>
> Where did it come from? I can't remember ever seeing
> conch in the Pike market or - for that matter - anywhere
> else in the Puget Sound area.

[The SO chimes in...]

We didn't think to ask the fishmongers where these specimens originated.
We used the conch chowder recipe from Steven Raichlen's "Miami Spice"
cookbook. In that book, Steven writes that Florida stocks of conch have
been depleted, and it's now illegal to catch them there. He says that
most of the commercial product now comes from Costa Rica and the Turks
and Caicos islands in the Bahamas.

For all we know, the stuff we bought might actually have been whelks,
which are often confused with conchs. Italian-Americans have another
name for them: scungilli.

Visitors to Seattle and the Pike Place Market are always told to visit
Pike Place Fish. The employees put on a big show, throwing whole salmon
around, yelling, and mugging for the cameras. Instead of fighting
through the crawds, we go to Pure Foods Fish, just down the hall. PFF
often has better prices, too, and they occasionally offer some exotic
items.

BTW, the best conch chowders are a real treat, with lots of complex
flavors: conch, bacon, veggies, herbs, peppers (Habaneros or Jalapenos),
rum, sherry, limes, etc.

--
Julian Vrieslander

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 05:01:17 GMT, Cindy Fuller
> wrote:

>We were on a regular foray through Pike Place Market today, looking for
>dinner options. Lo and behold, what did we see at the Pure Food Fish
>Market? Live conch. SO (alias Florida Boy) had never seen live ones
>for sale, even in Miami. These were not the huge pink and pearly shell
>specimens; rather these were smallish and rather grey-brown. So we got
>half a dozen of them with chowder in mind. Since neither of us had ever
>cooked fresh conch, we had to consult references to figure out how to
>cook and clean them. Cleaning them fell to me: "You're the biologist."
>(Translated: SO is a wuss.) It wasn't difficult, but it was fairly
>messy.
>
>For those of you who have never had it, good conch chowder is similar to
>Manhattan clam chowder, but with more spice to it. Some Floridians have
>gone over to the dark side and make cream-style conch chowder, but that
>seems to be a more recent development. We're going to take the
>leftovers down to SO's mom at the nursing home, because she hasn't had
>conch chowder since well before she moved to Seattle. A fine meal.
>
>Cindy

Although I'll surely never see conch, alive or dead or just stunned,
in Cow Hill, I'm curious about cooking time for the meat. Is it tough
if you over cook it?
--

modom

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

In article >,
"modom (palindrome guy)" > wrote:

> On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 05:01:17 GMT, Cindy Fuller
> > wrote:
>
> >We were on a regular foray through Pike Place Market today, looking for
> >dinner options. Lo and behold, what did we see at the Pure Food Fish
> >Market? Live conch. SO (alias Florida Boy) had never seen live ones
> >for sale, even in Miami. These were not the huge pink and pearly shell
> >specimens; rather these were smallish and rather grey-brown. So we got
> >half a dozen of them with chowder in mind. Since neither of us had ever
> >cooked fresh conch, we had to consult references to figure out how to
> >cook and clean them. Cleaning them fell to me: "You're the biologist."
> >(Translated: SO is a wuss.) It wasn't difficult, but it was fairly
> >messy.
> >
> >For those of you who have never had it, good conch chowder is similar to
> >Manhattan clam chowder, but with more spice to it. Some Floridians have
> >gone over to the dark side and make cream-style conch chowder, but that
> >seems to be a more recent development. We're going to take the
> >leftovers down to SO's mom at the nursing home, because she hasn't had
> >conch chowder since well before she moved to Seattle. A fine meal.
> >
> >Cindy
>
> Although I'll surely never see conch, alive or dead or just stunned,
> in Cow Hill, I'm curious about cooking time for the meat. Is it tough
> if you over cook it?
> --
>
It's sort of like squid or abalone--you either lightly cook it or you
cook the bejeezus out of it. Recipes usually call you to pound the meat
between the pre-cooking and the cooking, also similar to squid or
abalone.

When we lived in Dallas, we found precooked scungilli in the fish
section of the Fiesta Market in Oak Cliff once or twice. It may not be
found in Cow Hill, but you may get lucky in Dallas.

SO reminded me that his mother HAD had conch chowder at Bahama Breeze at
Southcenter Mall here in Seattle. It's a safe bet, however, that she
hasn't had homemade conch chowder in many a year, if ever.

Cindy

--
C.J. Fuller

Delete the obvious to email me

As a follow-up, the lunch at the nursing home was a success. We brought
the chowder, a potato knish from Leah's, and some One True Cobbler®. We
brought her old microwave to the room in the nursing home, since it's a
kosher facility and conch and bacon aren't. (One can bring non-kosher
items into resident rooms, except during Passover.) She enjoyed the
chowder with a good splash of sherry (traditional accoutrement).

Cindy

--
C.J. Fuller

Delete the obvious to email me