Eel’s a Kiwi delicacy – overseas
A slim, slippery dark fish with a subtle flavour has become something of an unsung culinary hero from our local waterways, writes Denise Irvine.
Lewis Woods was one of those people who didn’t think he’d like eel. That was until he actually got to taste it. Then he thought it was pretty good, particularly good if it’s smoked and on a cheeseboard with a fine walnut blue from Mercer Cheese in North Waikato.
Woods manages the New Zealand Eel Processing Co factory at Te Kauwhata, just 20 minutes from Mercer Cheese, so his cheeseboard is a quick and easy assemblage of tasty local products.
Woods is at the eel factory the day I visit, talking about a somewhat unsung culinary hero from the Waikato River and other local waterways. Eel is a slim and slippery dark fish with subtly flavoured flesh that is an important traditional food for Ma¯ ori. It has an appreciative audience outside New Zealand.
For more than 50 years, the modest
Te Kauwhata plant has been exporting wild freshwater eels to countries in Europe, Asia, the United States, and Australia. In the past year, it processed 100 tonnes of shortfin eels and 11 tonnes of longfins. The bulk of the catch went to offshore markets.
The smaller shortfin (Anguilla australis) is the main export eel and is found throughout the Pacific. The bigger, meatier longfin (Anguilla dieffenbachii), endemic to New Zealand, has tighter quotas and is mostly used locally for smoked products and marae events.
Most eels processed at Te Kauwhata come from the Waikato’s rivers and lakes, and a lesser number from Ka¯ whia, Palmerston North, and Hawke’s Bay. NZ Eel works under policies and guidelines specified by the Ministry of Primary Industries, and Woods says the company looks after its fish as carefully as possible.
Depending on customer requirements, eels are dispatched whole-frozen, smoked, segmented (for jellied eel in Britain), or live to restaurants in New York, which require the freshest stock. Live eels are anaesthetised and transported in insulated containers with compressed, breathable air.
‘‘In a few days, they come from the Waikato River to the factory for processing, and they’re flown to New York where they’re instant celebrities,’’ Woods says.
Closer to home, the Te Kauwhata factory’s smoked eel has become something of a celebrity at the Taste of Waikato degustation lunches – ‘‘exquisite farm dining’’ – launched recently by Bridgette and Lance O’Sullivan at their Red Barn venue at Hinuera, near Matamata.
The six-course lunches showcase the best of Waikato foods and wines and include comestibles from about 20 local suppliers.
One of the courses on the menu, by head chef Leith Davidson, is smoked tuna arancini (tuna is the te reo word for eel). The elegant dish melds smoked eel, baby spinach and Meyer vintage gouda with risotto cooked in a robust eel stock.
Bridgette O’Sullivan was another reluctant starter on eel when Davidson suggested it for the menu. She’d never eaten it and wasn’t about to until Davidson insisted. She loved it: ‘‘It’s like smoked fish, it’s so delicious.’’
Woods is delighted to see eel make the cut at the Red Barn. He says the eels for the launch function were caught by long-time fisherman Mike Holmes at Karapiro, just a few minutes from the Red Barn.
Holmes has been fishing for eels for 40 years,