Shell shocked
Scallop costs a lot of clams
New York City restaurateurs and fishmongers have been hit by a tidal wave of bad news.
Normally at this time of year, they would be selling — and making big money off — the prized Peconic Bay scallop off Long Island. But more than 90 percent of the shellfish have mysteriously died this season.
“They’re just gone,” said Jason Weiner, co-owner and executive chef of Flatiron restaurant Almond. “There’s maybe a bushel here and there as opposed to thousands of bushels in past years.”
The East 22nd Street eatery normally serves the delicacy, which Weiner described as “candy-like,” as a plat du jour during scallop season, from Nov. 1 through March.
Eating Peconics is “part of the days getting shorter, a nip in the air and getting the fireplace going,” he added. “Now it’s like if the Fourth of July came and there was no corn.”
Local chefs say the high price — $39 a pound, versus last year’s $20 — associated with the scarcity is simply too high to justify.
“I could not afford to put them on my menu [this season],” said Sandy Ingber, executive chef at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, who used to regularly serve the scallops in a garlic-herb butter sauce. “I’d have to charge $50 or $60 for a five-ounce portion. No one will pay for that.”
Popular retailers including Citarella, Dorian’s, Fish Tales in Brooklyn and Midtown Catch Seafood have no Peconic Bays this year.
“Fishing has been really dismal, very few Peconic Bay [scallops] have been brought into the fish markets,” said Stephen Tettelbach, an ecologist who works for Cornell Cooperative Extension.
“We will lose out on a lot of money and so will restaurants, [other] shops and the baymen themselves,” said Stephanie Villani, owner of Blue Moon Fish market.
Braun’s Seafood in Cutchogue is one of the only fish stores to stock the few Peconics that remain, but admits the shortage is painful.
“We’re losing probably $100,000 this season. It will be a tremendous hit,” said Bruce Hopke, the shop’s shellfish chef. “Instead of getting 1,000 pounds a day, we’re getting 20.
One day we only got four.”
Still, some fans are willing to shell out big bucks for a bite.
“People are buying them, asking for a plastic fork and going out to the parking lot and eating them raw,” said Hopke.
The scallops are native to Great Peconic Bay to the west and Little Peconic Bay to the east between the north and south forks of eastern Long Island. Bayman Nathaniel Miller pulled about 900 pounds of meat, minus shells, last year, he said. This year, he’s barely caught 100 pounds.
Cornell researchers are looking for the cause of the shortage. So far they’ve narrowed it down to a few potential factors including an increase in water temperatures, low oxygen levels or a very hungry cownose stingray, said Tettelbach.
In the early 1990s, Peconic Bay scallops nearly went extinct after harmful algae blooms, also called “brown tide,” devastated the population. Ever since, Cornell researchers began planting lab-grown scallops to replenish the population. It worked like a charm, until this season.
But Weiner is hopeful that the tide will turn. “I’m hearing there may be a comeback in February,” he said. “Fingers crossed.”