Eyre Peninsula, Day 1- Mussels

Two weeks ago I was luck enough to be invited to attend this years Seafood Mission in Port Lincoln, SA. The Seafood Mission has been running for the last 4 years and is organised by the Eyre Regional Development Board. The idea behind it is to get a group of suppliers, from around Australia, and their clients down to the Eyre Peninsula for 3 days to showcase the local produce. Its a solid 3 days of early mornings, fantastic fresh seafood and a few late nights with a group of chefs, suppliers and fishermen.

I met Wayne my supplier from Christies Seafood at 5.45 a.m. at Sydney airport. We were joined by Massimo Mele (Hugo's Lounge) and Carl Middleton (Four Seasons). After a swift coffee we boarded the plane to Adelaide were me met up with the guys from Melbourne; Shannon Bennett(Vue de Monde), Frank Camorra (Movida), Andrew McConnell (Cutler & Co) and Marty Boetz (Longrain). We then transferred to a rather smaller charter plane and made the journey across the peninsula to Port Lincoln. Luckily it was a beautifully calm and sunny morning so the small plane didn't sway about too much. I think its safe to say that I wasn't the only one who was a bit weary of a plane with little electrics and the captain sitting right in front of you. I was still tired and managed to get a little bit of a snooze on the plane. Once on the ground we met up with the rest of the guys from around the country and then hopped straight on to a coach. First stop Kinkawooka Shellfish and a chance to see the mussel processing plant. The guys there pack the mussels live in sea water and ship them all over the world in 1 kg pot ready bags. At the moment I probably order over 150kg of this a product a week so it was really good to see how the process such a high quality product. I've always wondered how they get the beard's off (I had visions of a room full of old women pulling them out with pliers- how wrong I was). After a tour there we popped round the corner to see the guys at Boston Bay Mussels. These guys had a very similair set up and at the end the treat us to a big bowl of freshly cooked mussels. Beautifully steamed in there own juices and fresh from the sea that morning. It has to be the best way to eat mussels. I learned the difference between the male and female and also the very distinct difference in flavour of each.

After the mussel processing we stopped of for lunch at the newly refurbished Port Lincoln hotel. Here we were introduced to the chef Davin Pedro and a local wine producer (Lincoln Estate Wines)and was then treat to a fantastic BBQ using all local seafood. Again a lot of the fish had been caught that morning and were all in amazing condition.

After lunch it was back on the coach and a short ride down to the harbour to catch a boat out to the mussel beds in the bay. As I said before it was a beautiful day and the sea was pretty calm. It took about an hour to get out to the beds and we saw the guys harvesting the mussels and seeding new ropes. It wasn't until we got out on the boat that you realise how clear and clean the waters are in Boston Bay. Its the positioning of Port Lincoln that makes it such a fantastic place for seafood. There are no rivers in the area so they don't have any issues with pollution. Also the continental shelf drops of not to far out to sea so they get a fantastic amount of nutrients carried up from the currents. These two factors make for some of the healthiest, nutrient rich stretch of waters in Australia.. It was getting really late in the afternoon by the time we got back to shore but we still had one more visit to make.

The last place we visited on day one was the Spencer Gulf and West Prawn Fishermen's Association. The association is one of the industries world class fishery management programs and is used by countries all over the world as a model. Here we tasted the newly branded Lincoln Wild Kings.

After the prawns it was back on the coach to be dropped of at our accommodation. We had a quick freshen up and then back on to the coach to be taken to the venue for the evening dinner. Dinner was held at the Boston Bay Winery. We were all pretty tired by this point in the proceedings but after a few glasses of Riesling everybody seemed to get a second wind.The format for the night was this. "Welcome to the winery and the Eyre Peninsula, there's a boat, on the table full of the finest local seafood, the kitchens open and there's a large BBQ over in the corner, help yourself"

...and that was it. With in minute you had everybody scrambling to get there hand on there favourite products and then straight into the kitchen to cook and prepare it. It was great fun and really helped everybody to get to know each other. The food was great and the wine was great too. Some interesting things on the night, Shannon cooked up the 'tuna collars'. This is the meat just behind the gills and below the side fins. Really good, really fatty and so tasty. Also there were more of the beautiful 1/2 shell queen scallops from Coffin Bay with the purple roes. We'd had these earlier in the day for lunch and they were phenomenal. No dressing just straight from the shell sashimi style. Beautiful and sweet. I opted to cook a whole kingfish and stuffed it with Asian mushrooms and greens and a little pickled ginger. Its actually my wife's recipe that she cooks when we go camping.

Back on the bus again and straight to bed. Another early one tomorrow 5.a.m. on the tuna boat.