Feb12013
Daily Drakesteeldinner

steeldinnerThe meal. Lentils the color of cocoa. A piccalilli of summer beans in deep gold mustard. An emerald drizzle of pureed Turkish parsley. And, in the center of it all, a six-ounce fillet of steelhead. In a new article from Seattle Met, author Allecia Vermillion details the journey of Hoh River steelhead from tribal gillnet to stoner fish monger to a restaurant called Hitchcock on Bainbridge Island.

In its blatant glorification, the article conveniently sidesteps the plight of Washington’s wild steelhead. These runs remain in a world of hurt in large part thanks to the process outlined here, hatchery-infused excuses, and a marketing machine that values high-dollar locavore dining over common sense. Bottom line: Killing one wild steelhead is one too many. 

Via Seattle Met: “Finally, the day’s third steelhead awaits in a net set earlier in the day near the riverbank. Its silvery scales bear few marks from its brief entanglement, but the really bad news is the gash at the base of its tail. “This was a $13 fish; now it’s a $4 fish,” says Sampson, heaving it onto the boat’s well-worn floor next to the others. By 4pm he is back on the pebble-paved shore, drinking a Red Bull while Onkst’s assistant cleans the day’s catch—six steelhead, 57 pounds—and harvests the vivid orange roe from their insides on the back of a maroon pickup truck.”

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Tom Bie
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Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

Category: Daily Drake
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Author: Tom Bie

Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

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