Sea Urchins Are California Gold: Hunter Gatherer

California gold is Unni it's the color it's the texture it's the taste it's essentially what everyone strives for when they want me hanna-barbera sea urchins are definitely sought-after it's the best my name is Stephanie month I'm a fan of our sea urchin diver yeah I can fit it myself a hug there together but they don't run very fast for me [Music] hey what's going on I've had one cup I'm ready for more hey get the picnic on the road all right cut up listen let's go I paid Meijer and beer de clima coolers most common fishermen currency we're listening to the weather as we like to call it the box of lies because we really want to go to work just go to work if you don't want to go to work listen to the weather deciding on where to dive depends on the weather it depends on the ocean conditions you want to go to a place where this consider amount of kelp which is the food of the sea ayrton weird a little miss mermaid go sir man it's usually not surveying bare-ass most surgeon divers in California are male being a female I mean you definitely have to prove yourself first through yourself that you're gonna stick to it prove yourself that you're capable so see you like customs you've got an air compressor on the boat run by a like a five horsepower engine we call it huka easy the surface applied air essentially it takes air from the atmosphere and compresses it into a tank and then there's a hose that runs from that tank when I first dive down I'm gonna rake in a bag [Music] I've been diving for about five years now ocean diving for five years now but I've been scuba diving and diving on the code floor I'll be like 15 I got into ocean diving by deck Hanning first I was finishing up my dissertation in grad school and as time went by I enjoy fishing a lot better than the politics [Music] I do crack open quite a few urgency to get a good representation of the area if they have good color good consistency and yield I'm going to pick them [Music] the duration of a typical dive I mean if you're lucky if it's good all things going well you know I'd say a couple hours and a good number bag so the urchins are the boat good they're just on the rocks it's not a certain thing it's called fishing not catching I do have a market I do have people that count on me and I don't want to let them down the bottom ones I think they're like [Applause] Perry keeps me from learning everything the hard way the average age of his health for an urchin diver is like 62 in order to ensure that the industry continues on they need to share some of their secrets you're investing in the future of the industry by educating the younger divers now the restaurant market that's $500 for the processor market is about 50 bucks in the bank [Music] on the menu tonight we've got sea urchins good so right now I place either Wednesday or Thursday and I fish on Friday I realized early on that I couldn't catch the quantity for selling to the distributor that I'm selling to direct markets I can catch less and make more money or the same amount of money after a day of diving sometimes and I Drive around Santa Barbara it's a different restaurant we deliver some merchants to the hungry cat Santa Barbara [Music] [Applause] we actually sat down and enjoyed a few like going down on a bourbon I sell sea urchins to restaurants in LA I deliver to them once a week a typical day would be 30 met Connie and Ted versus have another big swell on Sunday and then it'll go back down again I'm okay with that just then I mean well you can go fit so that sneaks in past the island yeah because it's outdated Stephanie delivers to us twice a week it's all kind of weather dependent and everything of course there's swell running might make a little bit difficult for her to dive but twice a week usually Thursday and then early Saturday morning Jake's a delivers to us on her way to another market down in Newport she definitely wants to deliver us the best quality we need we can buy then point elleny oyster what are some of those amazing things you do with sea urchins big thing right now it's pastas sometimes I like to make a butter with them and I use a butter and different sauces sometimes upstairs and the raw bar will just cut him open and disturb him like right there on the UH niacin gravelly Stephanie brings seafood in alive first of all and we know exactly where the Providence of the seafood she catches it she treats it with respect Stephanie puts it on ice on her boat brings it directly to us on her truck and we get to review everything with her and that she brings it in and we get to cook it that night so everything that we get from Stephanie we know exactly how it's been treated and what's been done to it the second it comes out of water is Jared upstairs hey I'm gonna make my ocean like fantastic yeah thirsty why you always do the hurt scene that you're used to getting most places when it comes in a wooden box actually is has been treated and most people don't know that this is the only way to get them without any contaminants on them often when they're this fresh we just crack them open serve them with a little bit of either ponzu a soy citrus what-have-you just fresh and clean we're just gonna brulee this slightly those are Stephanie's relate our Chin's with toybox melons and some Evelyn garden clippings I got up at 4:30 this morning something always goes wrong something always takes more time so I like to just get up early take my time I've got to be methodical and the things that I do I don't want to make mistakes I don't want to let these guys down they depend on me for their you know disturb their customers as well some chefs have reminded me I should slow down and have a chat and you know be personable have a conversation you know how the urgent's been what's the quality like how's business [Music] my Saturdays I get up at 12:30 1:00 o'clock in the morning load the truck and drive down to the door easily get here about 5:00 in the morning there's already a line and then we open the doors at 5:30 in the morning every Saturday I guess like I never know how many to bring I don't know what how many people gonna be here how am I going to want oceans guessing game here they come my first time here every Saturday we are the best we have the best variety so we're open Wednesday through Sunday Oh so Wednesday Thursday Friday there's fish Saturday there's [Music] julene is an open-air market the Newport Beach California on the base of the Newport Pier the Dory Prix was established in 1891 there's about seven of us fishermen could sell our cat people come down to one place and get a diversity of the freshest seafood the thing that makes a Dory fleet so unique is it's got quite a bit of history the fishermen would come in the fish all night and then come through the surf with their boat and literally sell their fish right off the boat as time progressed the fishermen at the time got a bit more organized Newport Beach established lockers in a designated area [Music] so cracking the urchins open to clean them out and then you spoon out with the Oney spoon out the yellow stuff this one looks like it's a female if I guess if it chooses some yellow those are the eggs and that's a female if it chooses out some white at sperm and that's a male different because the one in preparation of usually doesn't have water flavor generally people like it some people like it a lot more than others it's definitely an acquired taste the urgent tastes like a sweet ocean then sweet with salty the creamy texture nutritional values just Leslie protein it's fat-free its organic it's natural it's all those fancy keywords $5 you get them right over there 95% of our customers area most of my customers has been coming to the dory be longer than been alive a lot of them don't speak English so I have to be very respectful I have to be very straight with my conversation answers use my phone to to communicate I can definitely better recognize the different cultures because I'm like I've got some gay yes some gay is urgent and Korean lately because of Technology and because like the first-generation immigrants are older the second generation third generation they'll come down to their cell phones and video everything and then be on the phone and tell them the price and tell them and then basically the first-generation person the elderly person's at home shopping and that's what it's all about you know to having this conversation and this appreciation for a resource it's connecting with your community it's learning cultures it's learning about other people or providing something that they need and they want and also knowing in the same moment because you have that connection with your consumers we know that all versions are being utilized or being appreciated we know how they're being used different ways of preparing of preparations and sharing the knowledge because we're limited by whether we're limited by market we only have a certain number of fishermen in the state of California it's pretty difficult to over fish this resource have I seen things changed in my short tenure of urgent diving yeah I mean but if they change seasonally when they spawn they're changing when the water gets warm is changing and the kelp grows and and goes away and swells come and go they're constantly changing you know the deaths and downs in every industry there's ups and downs and every job for the most part I'm having fun you totally when you're going to be out when it's a bad day it's how I'm gonna how am I gonna fix this you know and a good day it's [Laughter]

Channel: Munchies

Views: 3,187,988

Rating: 4.7578163 out of 5

Keywords: uni, sea urchin, seafood, Hunter and Gatherer, diving, deep sea, Newport Beach, how to, cooking, Munchies, interview, travel, where does uni come from, gonads, santa barbara sea urchin, gopro underwater, butter of the sea, umami urchin, professional scuba diving, SCUBA

Id: qSeh4CbRUfg

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 03 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/theboat14]

Great to see something like this in this sub!

I am a 3rd generation sea urchin/abalone/sea cucumber dive, and my dad just retired after diving for over 40 years. I chose to go to college and get a desk job , but worked on the ocean for about 10 years during school and though college. My father dove all up and down the west coast from Alaska to Southern California and everywhere in between, and has seen and done some crazy stuff. The Urchin industry is a shadow of what it was in the 80s and 90s. What once was a bustling industry with competing processing plants and hundreds of employees and divers, is now down to just a few divers in Oregon.

Bonus pic of my dad with a load of Urchins: http://imgur.com/tq8no7D

[u/evohans]

I loved this. I've never tried urchin, however now I want to try it. So much passion for such a specific market. I enjoyed the whole video, great share OP.

[u/everfalling]

sorta weird that they have to smash open a few of them to get a sample of what the rest will be like and even then there's no sure thing.

[u/Dakroon1]

So can anyone hop in the water and start cracking open sea urchins to eat? Does she only pick mature urchins? Or just "flavorful" ones? So many unanswered questions and way too much "Vice" editing.

[u/grinbearnz]

I dont understand the craze around "kina" or sea urchin. Here in new zealand you buy them by the sack for 20nzd. Not impressive at all.