Jenmenke

Road Warrior

cabin

A Blast from the Past: Baked and Stuffed Northern Pike

 

Baked northern as it comes out of the oven

I really do wish my mom would stop correcting my memory every time I try to tell a compelling and nostalgic story. Saying “That’s not how it happened.” Or, “You didn’t even live in that house then — you were only 5.” Blah blah blah. Like HER memory is all perfect. Actually, her memory is pretty good. It’s in the fleshing out of details where she fails. As in, she makes them up and then argues with you, when you were usually the person who told her the story in the first place. In other words: she tells your own story back to you with all kinds of colorful yet completely inaccurate details. Then argues with you about it.

Yes, yes. I realize now that I’m basically writing about myself.

Are you listening Morgan Menke? This is your future.

Anyway. One of these vivid memories is of eating baked, stuffed northern (fish) and actually liking it. I wasn’t much of a fish lover as a kid. I did love shrimp, crab and lobster — much to my dad’s displeasure — and I tried to order it every time we were out for dinner.

Remember Mr. Steak? Let me just say: their deep fried shrimp was sublime. [It was also the most expensive thing on the menu.]

And the reason I remember the stuffed northern was because it tasted so mild and we ate it with melted butter. It tasted more like lobster than fish. Of course, I didn’t TOUCH the disgusting pile of stuffing baked under it. So gross.

It has been years and years since we had northern prepared this way — 35? More?

So: my mom and dad have had a dear friend staying with them in Hayward and… he LOVES to fish. What has me scratching my head, though, is that he is actually catching fish. Dave fishes that same lake with dogged determination and has been largely unsuccessful. [Dave calls Round Lake The Dead Sea.]

And now we find out that it isn’t?

Is Dave boating around the corner and napping, rather than fishing?

It is not unlikely.

Anyway, somehow Stan even got my mom into the fishing boat, which I am trying hard to even picture. I have never seen her fish. I know she was there, though, because I got this picture in my inbox a couple weeks ago:

Mom and Stan's northern

She not only reeled it in successfully, but she held it for a picture. Crazy times. [The trouble was in trying to get one of my parents to send it to me at a size larger than a postage stamp. Since you are looking at it and it is the size of a postage stamp, you will have realized that I was unsuccessful.]

Then I got word that we were having it baked and stuffed over the fourth of July. I immediately shared the good news with Dave, who was completely baffled since he had never had it — or even heard of it — prepared this way.

I always thought the recipe was handed down lovingly on my dad’s side by my Grandma Esther. In fact, I was saying this very thing to Dave while my mom was within earshot and she nearly jumped down my throat, saying “That wasn’t Grandma Esther’s recipe!” [The printed word can’t actually convey how strongly she objected to this startling bit of apparent misinformation.]

It was an easy mistake to make. My Grandma Esther practically lived on fish and wild game. She was a bit of a renegade (and illegal poacher) and larger than life in my memory. She is also the one who taught me how to make popcorn balls, which live on at our house — and on my hips — year after year. I only remember eating this fish recipe at my grandparent’s cabin on Roosevelt Lake, where I’m pretty sure she fished the lake dry of big northerns. There was always a big cane pole baited with a perch (illegal) stuck into the pipe at the end of the dock and left out overnight (also illegal) hoping to snag a big one. Sometimes we would wake to find a northern. Sometimes we would wake to find a snapping turtle that ate the northern that ate the perch. One time, she made soup out one of those snapping turtles. I will not be sharing that recipe.

Anyway.

The recipe apparently came, not from my grandma, but from an old neighbor of my parents. Carol Feck, to be exact. My parents also neglected to ever write the recipe down.

Hello internet.

We found a very close version of what they remembered the recipe to be in a very old forum discussion and went from there. It turned out delicious — though my dad wished he would have taken it out of the oven a little earlier.

Here is the process:

First you need a big-ass northern. Like 27″ or more. Why? I don’t know why. But that’s what my parents say and that’s also what all the discussions on the internet say. Maybe it’s a myth. Maybe it makes the recipe more special. I just don’t know so stop asking.

Don’t fillet the fish. Instead, gut it and scale it. I wasn’t there for that part, so I can’t give any details. Basically you don’t try to Y-bone it or fillet it — just gut and scale.

Make your preferred stuffing recipe. Stovetop will work or make what you do at Thanksgiving. Salt the cavity of the fish. Stuff with the dressing. Sew up the fish and place it on a foil lined baking sheet. Cover the fish with bacon and bake at 400 until internal temp is 140 degrees (1-3 hours depending on size).

northern ready for the oven

When it’s done, carefully remove skin (it will peel off fairly easily). The fish should be flaky and opaque and lift away from the bones without much effort. Remove the pieces of fish to a serving platter leaving the bones in place.

Lift fish off the bones to a platter

You will be left with the fish skeleton over the dressing. Carefully lift that up and discard it.

_MG_7822

i wasn't lying. this looks just awful

Scoop the stuffing (which looks absolutely disgusting, but now — miraculously! –tastes delicious to these 50 year old tastebuds — or maybe it’s my bad eyesight,who’s to say) into a serving bowl. Serve the fish with lots of lemon wedges and melted butter.

Yum.

I can say with certainty that it satisfied this group of Namekagon River tubers:

Tubing down the Namekagon

My Heightened Sense of Smell

Welcome to my writing office in Hayward, WI. Very tranquil.
Welcome to my writing office in Hayward, WI. Very tranquil.

We have arrived in Hayward for the 4th of July. It’s so nice to be up north, away from it all, in the North Woods, where they have… blazing fast internet and cable TV.

Ahhh.

I’m kidding.

Only partly.

Anyway.

Today, while ruminating on life, two things stood out as being worthy of dissection on these hallowed pages.

  1. Life with a Heightened Sense of Smell, and
  2. The Terrible State of Online Reviews.

I had to pick just one of these topics to write about, though, because I know what usually happens, and… I don’t have time to write a novella.

Life with a Heightened Sense of Smell

You could argue that, due to a few things about me, I am biologically superior to most other humans. While I still have my pinkie toes, I do not have any wisdom teeth. You can thank my dentist, the original Dr. Veker (not to be confused with his son, the current Dr. Veker), who, when I was about 16 years old, planted that oft-repeated phrase into my repertoire. Upon discovery that I do not harbor any lurking and evil wisdom teeth, he explained that, due to evolution, we no longer need wisdom teeth to grind our food, and since I did not have any, I was “biologically superior.”

I have taken that and run with it pretty much my whole life.

Recently, I have decided I have another tick-in-the-box compared to the normal human: my Heightened Sense of Smell. I capitalize it because it is a Real Thing. Something to be Taken Seriously. Plus, I prefer that name over the one I found online: hyperemia, which actually sounds like more of a curse.

But as I sit here and think about my Heightened Sense of Smell, I wonder if maybe it is a curse. Surely it will save my life — and those of whom I love — someday and I will thank my lucky stars — as should my loved ones — for such an evolutionary blessing. But for now, I find it often makes enemies out of friends when I say things like “What do I smell?” when I walk into their house. I certainly know my college roommates did not appreciate my Heightened Sense of Smell, but that’s just because I was the only one who could smell the cat poop in the plants and they did not like to be made aware of the fact that their adorable cat was pooping in the plants. The fact that, one day, my dog then ate the cat poop and subsequently barfed it up all over my very hungover roommate as she lay prone in bed, perhaps did not help matters.

Anyway.

The good news for these people is that they can do something about it. Like: get a new roommate or, avoid having me come inside of their houses.

My family does not have the luxury of disinviting me over. I think, if you asked her — and actually listened to her long-winded response — my mom might, amidst several unrelated tangents, admit to very much disliking this one-and-only-objectionable trait in me. Several years ago, after watching me turn my head this way and that, slightly angling my nose into the air and, well, let’s be honest, looking an awful lot like Lola when catching the scent of a dead animal to roll in, which was then followed by me dropping from my chair onto all fours — Shit. Again, like a dog… I never really thought about this that deeply — crawling around on my hands and knees, sniffing the ground — I swear to God this is true — finally and triumphantly announcing, “I found the smell! This rug reeks!”

I did some version of this dance over and over and over, year after year, finally graduating to simply sitting in my favorite chair, making terrible faces and stating the obvious: “Oh my GAWD. I don’t know HOW you can stand the smell in here. That rug just stinks. Don’t you smell it? It makes me sick. Can’t you smell it?”

[ Don’t let anyone tell you that writing isn’t therapeutic. I think I have learned some valuable insight into Life with Jennie today. — And I will attempt to make amends some time this weekend. I promise. ]

Suffice it to say, the rug no longer graces the living room in the cabin.

–Thank GOD.

And yes, I do feel a little bad about that.

But only a little.

Because seriously. Most likely, it was releasing terrible toxins into the air and by it’s removal, I have added precious years onto my aging parents lives.

You are welcome, mom.

Now lets talk about this weird broccoli smell I just noticed hovering around the entryway…