The Abalone Farm in Cayucos,
California, grows red abalones in tanks both indoor and out. It
takes four or five years for the farmed abs to reach market size.
Imagine trying to determine
whether a shell is seven inches or five
in frigid, pitch-black waters with the surge
pulsing and kelp strands snagging your flippers. Each diver is
required to carry a fixed caliper gauge to measure the shell before
removal. What with the ab gauge, the ab iron, the cumbersome
wetsuit, and ocean swells, it’s a lot to negotiate, especially
with that pesky issue of your breath running out. Oh, and let’s
not forget the possibility of sharks.
Why do people even dare to embark on this dangerous treasure
hunt? “The entire day is an experience that ab divers love,”
explains diver Bob Palmer. “It’s cleansing and very pure. The
pre-dive organization, the drive, the gear, the conditions, the
sea, the dive, the drive home, the cleaning, cooking, and eating
the abalone are all part of it. You’re bobbing up and down in a
rough sea surrounded by a kelp forest thinking of all the things
that could go wrong, like getting entangled, a shallow water
blackout, or Great Whites. All the while you’re trying to relax
and concentrate on slowing your heart rate so that you can hold
your breath longer. It clears your mind of all other things—you
don’t have time to think about money,
bills, kids, e-mails, work. All you’re
thinking is, ‘I want to get a bigger abalone
than that guy next to me.’”
Abalone seekers are limited to a total
of three red abalones per day; no one
can take more than 24 abalones in a calendar
year. The Department of Fish and
Game keeps track of how many abalones
are being (legally) caught through
an abalone report card, also known as
a punch card, which each diver has to
carry and then turn in at the end of
the season. This tracking, of course,
depends on divers honestly reporting
their catch. Northern California’s precious
abalone fishery is being closely
monitored to ensure it doesn’t collapse,
which could take years to recover—if
ever. The future of wild abalone harvesting
is truly a tenuous one.
That’s why any catch is for personal
use only. And yet there is a black market
of divers who sell abalone, shipping
it abroad or even showing up at restaurant
kitchen doors unloading it for a
pretty penny. It’s risky business: taking
abalone for commercial purposes and
selling—or even buying—abalone
can incur a $40,000 fine and a year in
county jail.
Fortunately many chefs would rather depend
upon a legal supply for their product. There are currently
13 abalone farms in California; only four of them raise abalone
exclusively. Abalone farming began before commercial fishing
was banned. Seeing the numbers of wild abalone plummeting
but consumer demand holding steady, a small group of researchers
launched the Abalone Farm in 1968 in the southern
Californian coastal town of Cayucos; it’s the oldest farm-raised
abalone producer in the United States and the largest producer
in the world, with over a million grown annually.
These researchers understood the painfully slow life cycle of
this mollusk group. It can take up to five years to mature and
reach market size. And since an abalone’s growth tends to slow
after five years, just to reach the sport-fishing-regulated size
of seven inches can take nine years. (Divers dream of finding
the rare 10-inchers.) The abalone is also not the most successful
reproducer—they spawn like fish do, and fertilization in a
tumultuous ocean equates to a massive mortality rate.
The Abalone Farm researchers developed a complex system
to control fertilization and growth sustainably. The farm runs
on a four-year cycle. The abs are moved successively through a
highly monitored series of tanks—starting in separate spawner
tanks, then off to the hatchery for two
months, where the juveniles feed on algae.
They grow in tanks filled with seawater
that is both filtered and strained
so they don’t get buried in silt. Abalone
do well in close quarters, about 7,000
per tank at the Abalone Farm; the tanks
are lined with AstroTurf to keep them
from climbing up the sides.
Next stop is the nursery, where they
remain until they are eight months
old. At this stage they ingest a sort of
smoothie, made from dulse seaweed
that the Abalone Farm grows in tanks; a
separate algae culture is grown in hoses
and harvested as another part of their
diet. Over 6 million gallons of continuously
flowing seawater are pumped
into the tanks. Abs generate very little
waste, and when the tank water is flushed back to the ocean,
the waste actually helps feed the kelp in the ocean.
Once they reach about the size of a thumbnail, they’re
transferred to baskets in outdoor tanks where they begin to
feast on kelp. The Abalone Farm is permitted by the state
to harvest kelp from the water, for which it uses its custombuilt
harvesting boat, but even though it’s the fastest-growing
plant on earth, with a rate of about one inch per hour, the
farmers are very careful to harvest conservatively. The kelp
is harvested in one-ton bags, chopped, and then fed to the
abalone just as hay is to cows.
After a couple years, the abs will be sorted by size, with
the faster-growing, larger ones (1.5 to 2 inches) moved to
grow-out tanks. In order to detach the abalone for sorting, the
farmers temporarily put them to sleep using carbon dioxide
bubbled through the seawater. Finally, after four or five years,
they are large enough for harvesting, usually measuring a
maximum of four inches. The Abalone Farm has recently had
some success in growing some to a whopping five inches,
weighing more than a pound, but this isn’t a common size. (So
if you see a bigger one, it’s potentially been poached—and not
the preparation in butter, mind you.) Just before shipment they
are “purged,” spending three days in mesh bags with no access
to food, which ironically means farmed abalones are often
cleaner than wild and can be even more tender. It’s crucial that
abalones are tenderized, especially before freezing. Tenderizing
takes a deft hand, usually three to five gentle hits with a mallet
in the beginning, and then anywhere from 20 to 30 wallops per
side until the meat becomes soft and pliable.
With all the work and patience that goes
into growing this prized creature, let alone
the spendy price tag, it’s perhaps best to
leave the cleaning and preparation to professional
chefs: improper handling equates
to one tough, chewy mollusk. Abalone
has a delicate and buttery, nutlike flavor,
somewhat akin to lobster or scallops, and
is more fresh than fishy. It can be fantastic
grilled or even eaten raw—but it really has
to be live for this, so just barely sautéed is
the way to go.
Farmed abalone is always in season.
Most restaurants in San Francisco would
agree with Ravi Kapur, chef de cuisine
at Boulevard, that a simple preparation
showcases this delicacy best. Kapur splits
abalone steaks horizontally, dusts them in
flour, and flash-sautés them in butter and
oil. Jai Yun, a cult Shanghaiese restaurant known for its tasting
menus, serves an infinitely tender presentation with scrambled
egg whites. Other local restaurants like Koi Palace in Daly City
have their own saltwater tanks so they can offer guests live abs.
Back in the 1960s, one of my dad’s favorite weekend rituals
was vodka martinis and sautéed abalone for Sunday brunch
along the coast. Those bountiful days are long past. But
through sustainable farming techniques and heavily regulated
wild harvesting, this mythic mollusk continues to hang on to
its precious place in California’s culinary history.
Marcia Gagliardi is a freelance food writer who lives in San Francisco.
She publishes a weekly column about the local restaurant
scene called “the tablehopper” (www.tablehopper.com). She
also writes for Travel + Leisure, San Francisco magazine and The
Northside paper.
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