Cornucopia Wisconsin

Marie’s (Fish) Cheeks

/ mariezhuikov / 15 Comments

Did you know that fish have cheeks? And did you know you can eat them?

Well they do and you can. Several species of fish, both saltwater and freshwater have cheeks that are large enough to harvest. These include halibut, grouper, cod, walleye, whitefish and lake trout. About the size of a scallop, fish cheeks are prized for their firm texture and tenderness.

They’re usually not available in supermarkets, but if you’re near a commercial fisherman, you might be in luck. For work, I recently meandered along Lake Superior to the Bayfield Peninsula in Wisconsin. I stopped by Halvorson Fisheries in Cornucopia where they had frozen lake trout fish cheeks for sale. I’d never had them before, so was intrigued. I bought a half pound and took them home in my cooler.

To find out what happened and get a free recipe, please visit a blog post I wrote for work. You can visit it here.

An Unexpected Wander of Cornucopia Harbor

/ mariezhuikov / 11 Comments

A coworker and I meandered over to Cornucopia, Wisconsin the other day. This is a small town (more officially known as a census-designated place) on the South Shore of Lake Superior, population 98.

Our goal was to speak with some of the good folks with Halvorson Fisheries for our “Fish Dish” podcast. Our next episode is about burbot – a slimy bottom-feeder of a fish that tastes great and is under-appreciated. Halvorson’s is a fifth- or sixth-generation commercial fishery in Cornucopia and they know their burbot and other, more typical Lake Superior fish like lake trout and whitefish.

We arrived at their business on the harbor, but nobody was around. While my coworker made some calls and wrote texts, I had a chance to wander and take photos of the icy harbor and boats. These are the results. I felt like it was time well-spent!

After cooling our heels in the only open restaurant in town (along with about 40 snowmobilers), we were able to meet with the Halvorsons, do our interview, and get burbot. The problem was they had decided to stop fishing for the season but hadn’t anticipated that when my coworker made arrangements to speak with them a few days previously. But that’s life on the lake. You gotta go with the flow.

We haven’t cooked the burbot yet. That comes this week. I’ve never eaten burbot before, so am looking forward to the experience. I’ll include a link to our podcast in this post once it’s available.

In the meantime, please enjoy the scenery.

Update: You can hear all about my burbot-eating experience on “The Fish Dish” podcast. The eating part comes at about 18:18. It was great! Today I’m going to make burbot chowder – substituting burbot for steelhead in my chowder recipe you can find here.