Danny Shoosmith and Wayne Martin are partners in a 4-pond network of prawn producing land in Chester, Va. Using juveniles shipped in from Texas, the co-op members of the Virginia Aqua-Farmers Network, LLC. seed the 2-acre ponds in June for a late September/early October harvest. The ones I saw today are in the 10-11 count range per pound -- whole. The prawns are grown with a natural fish feed heavy in a combination of corn, soy, wheat and other foods. No hormones, additives or preservatives are added. The ponds can be populated when the water temperature reaches 70 degrees and everything must be harvested before the water temp drops below 57 degrees. Right now the ponds are about 75 degrees but cool Fall nights are bringing down the temperature of the water.
In some of the pictures you can see the nets that were used to bring in small amounts for the samples for our group of chefs, farmers market folks, distributors from US Foodservice and Sysco as well as interested state agriculture personnel. One woman came over from the foodservice arm of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. While the aim is to figure out how to get prawns to market (the local dilemma), right now the Greystone Farm that we toured sells his crop on successive harvest weekends where he drains the ponds and sells for $10/pound the bounty of the 4-5 month feeding frenzy prawns like to indulge in before coming to our kitchens. The pond is drained through a pipe at one end (think bath tub) and the shrimp rush through the pipe to be stopped in a small reservoir. There they are placed in a water bath in the concrete tank ... and after 20 minutes of prawn purging in the oxygenated water, they are placed in a ice water slurry to die stress-free and quickly without releasing any enzymes that will turn the prime meat to mush.
For my consumer friends, Danny Shoosmith's Greystone Farm is at 5911 Nena Grove Lane in Chester Va. From my house it was a 2 1/2 hour trip (that means any normal driver can probably do it in two.) Danny places the GPS coordinates on his business card: N 37 degrees 20' 35.0" and W 77 degrees 28' 49.4"
His phone number is 804-839-0069.
For my restaurant friends, your best contact is the Direct Marketing Services Manager Leanne DuBois who set up my tour. leanne.dubois@vdacs.virginia.gov
foto: Mike Hutt, Virginia Marine Products Board with Tim Miller, Mike Hanratty and Carolina Gomez of Mie N Yu. For a view of my FOTO GALLERY recap of the morning, visit my COLLECTION.
Now, I've got to go and cook some shrimp for dinner.
WEDNESDAY MORNING NOTES (9-30-09) I prepared dinner last night from samples given us by Greystone ... one bag of prawns harvested during the tour ... and one bag of headless harvested from the previous weekend. I want to make a shrimp bisque in the upcoming weeks so I deheaded the fresh and saved them for making my shrimp stock -- into the freezer they went. I did a simple sautee in butter, olive oil, salt/pepper, shallots and tossed with pasta. In the deheaded bag I found a mix of 10-12 count, including females with roe, and some fingerling by-catch that I added to my stock bag. The females are less desirable in size and texture and were tossed back during our tour. Obviously when the whole pond is drained, you have a certain percentage of roe carrying females. I just peeled them all and cooked them all together. What I got was a mixed bag and I realized my mistake. I believe the females became the mushy or oddly textured shrimp. Overall, the meat is not the "typical" marine texture or taste -- with the good ones tasting closer to langostino than prawn/shrimp. As I was eating this, I realized this is a matter for a chef with a greater knowledge of fresh water prawns than me. I need to get some schooling ... and that's on my list for the immediate future. I go next week to a sustainable seafood seminar at the World Bank with a group of my chef associates -- it's at the top of my topics to cover. More in the the November issue of Foodservice Monthly.
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