For me, the word “scup” conjures up instant childhood memories of fishing with my dad, dropping a line from a road bridge, or fly casting from the end of the rocks. We were always hoping for flounder. But more often, the consolation prize was scup. Not exactly disappointing, but not super exciting either.
Decades later, I’m talking to my friend Patricia Gadsby about her own scup memories.
“Yup to scup,” Patricia says. “That used to be actually graffiti underneath the drawbridge in Woods Hole.”
Patricia spent younger years enjoying foodie get-togethers with fellow members of the Woods Hole scientific community.
“We had Japanese friends,” she says. “We knew a lot of people who fished. A lot of people liked to eat sushi and sashimi. So, we used to have these absolutely wild parties where people would fish all hours of day and night, catch one or two hours sleep. Meanwhile, there were brigades making an enormous amount of sushi and sashimi.”
That’s how scup made it onto the table. Scup has a very similar cousin in Asian waters, so it was quite natural for those Japanese friends to slice it up as sashimi. And for those more used to their scup in a skillet, it was a bit of a novelty.
“Not everybody is a fan of scup,” Patricia says. “It is a flat fish with a lot of small delicate little bones. People here are used to nice clean fillets, and I suppose they found that, you know, a little fiddly. But you have to remember that scup has many virtues, and one of the things that's lovely is, scup has a very nice, sweet, firm, almost I would call silky, flesh.”
I am intrigued by just about anything raw fish related. There’s a good chance I was a seagull in a former life. So, trying scup as sashimi moved high up on my to-do list.
Patricia and I met at the Farmers Market, where we could connect with Brett Tolley. He’s the co-founder and general manager of Chatham Harvesters, a local seafood co-op. We talked about how scup is a fish of many names.
“Culturally, I grew up in a four-generation fishing family,” Brett says. “We all called it scup. The community calls it scup. But I've traveled a lot. Once you get down to the Connecticut border and around Long Island, that's where everyone starts calling it porgy. And, in addition, scup just went through another large federal name change, calling it ‘Golden Seabream.’”
Next came the moment of tasting. I forgot to bring soy sauce – or anything – so we just sample thin slices of barely thawed scup straight from the cutting board.
Texture-wise, the fish was phenomenal. There was no “fishiness” at all. It had a delicate sweetness, like what you get at a sushi restaurant. It left a little aftertaste of ocean brine, like you walked into a seafood shop.
We tried pieces of scup sashimi with both skin off, and skin on. The skin provides a tiny bit of chewing resistance, but it’s not a dealbreaker.
Patricia’s favorite way to prepare raw scup is to brush it with olive oil and sprinkle sea salt and pink pepper. But even she agrees fish this fresh doesn’t need much decoration.
“The texture is lovely,” Patricia says. “It's just enough fat in the fish to make it nice, but it's not a fatty fish, but it's it just makes it silky and smooth. It's delicious. I mean, honestly, people who don't like a fishy fish, they should love this because it's just clean; lovely tasting.”
Patricia suggests dipping just the skin surface into boiling water for a few seconds to make it more tender, and I think I want to give that a try.You can also take any skin you remove and roast it for healthy and tasty crackling snacks.
Tony Green is a real estate broker who stopped by to pick up his fish order, but we managed to draw him in to our impromptu tasting session.
“That's really good,” Green says. “And it's got its own distinct and different taste like the aftertaste you get with an oyster sometimes.”
So, chefs of New England, take notice. Scup sashimi might just be the new “thing.” And it’s usually cheaper than tuna or salmon, too.
For additional info about scup sashimi: https://sushieveryday.com/
