Christopher Kimball: This is Milk Street Radio from PRX, and I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Today we're going inside an international black market. The goods were smuggled in duffel bags. The deals were made at night on back roads, and it came crashing down in an undercover sting operation. All of this happened for a taste of eel,

Otis Gray: Even people that would never put an eel to their mouth. Oh, I'll never eat. I'll never taste that. And then they have it. Oh, my goodness. And they love it.

CK: Later on, in the show reporter Otis Gray brings us the story of America's eel boom. But first, I'm joined by my co-host Sara Moulton to answer a few of your cooking questions. Sara is, of course, the star of Sara's Weeknight Meals on public television. Her latest book is Home Cooking 101.

Sara Moulton: Chris, I have a very important question for you. You know, in the New Yorker magazine, they interview authors. The last question always is, if you could have three people over for dinner, alive or dead, who would they be?

CK: I think we've talked about this before. Lincoln, absolutely, because I gather he was a master storyteller and he had a wry wit and sense of humor. I think Genghis Khan, who was probably the most interesting historical figure. Of course, he killed millions of people, but (oh details, details) He was a bit ruthless, (okay) but he created a 4000-mile empire. So, he's pretty amazing guy. And the third one of my favorite people of all time I never met, Richard Feynman. He was a physicist with an incredible sense of humor. He was the guy who figured out why the O rings had a problem with the Challenger because it was too cold. So, one of the things he used to do is he used to challenge people. He’d go into their office if they had a safe, and he would say, I could crack your safe within an hour. So, he go in, he cracked the safe in 30 seconds because he realized no one had reset the numbers from 000, so he'd open the safe, he'd bring a sandwich and a book, and he'd read it for an hour to make it look like he was working hard. He had a sense of humor, and he was a brilliant physicist. So those are the three people. And what about you?

SM: Well, mine are contemporary, and I keep thinking, well, maybe I'll just call them cold, even though I don't know them, just because I love them. One (was Cher?). No one would be somebody you just interviewed recently. That'd be Dwight Garner,

CK: Oh, yeah, he's great, book reviewer for the New York Times.

SM: Oh, I just love everything he writes. (He's outstanding). Oh, you know, maybe also Pete Wells, he's the restaurant reviewer for The New York Times, and he just resigned, (right) And I read everything. He's a great writer, even if I have no interest in the restaurant whatsoever, it's just such great, terrific. And the third one is Roz Chast the cartoonist, (yes) yeah, particularly during covid, she was hysterical.

CK: Well, is she good at conversation?

SM: No idea. I don't care. I just adore her.

CK: That's a great list. (Yeah) The most interesting thing is, I want to have dead people and you want to have living people. Well, that's a difference.

SM: Well, because you sort of wonder what those dead people would be like, and I guess I wonder what the live people would be like, but I pretty much have an idea, because I read them all the time.

CK: Two people, very different lists. Yeah, there you go. Let's take a call.

SM: Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling?

Caller: This is Debbie McKinnon from Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Debbie,

SM: Hi, Debbie, how can we help you?

Caller: Well, I have a family recipe that I've been making for decades that calls for cake yeast, and since I moved from Chicago to Louisville, I can no longer find cake yeast, so that's a problem. And I did try making this recipe with dry yeast, and it just didn't turn out right. Now, the recipe calls for first proofing in the refrigerator, and when I used the dry yeast, I did not proof it in the refrigerator, but just at room temperature. And

SM: And what happened with the rolls that you didn't like. How were they different?

Caller: They were different in texture and taste. These are butter horns, and they normally should have a very almost satiny taste to them, or satiny feel to them. And these were a little bit less satiny, and the taste was just a little bit off, just not as tasty, just a bit flavorless

SM: Probably because they didn't rise as long because you didn't do it in the fridge, right? You normally do it in the fridge you said

Caller: I do, but they seemed also to overproof or rise too quickly at room temperature.

SM: Well, here's a question. How about so you used active dry yeast, which ironically has the least amount of active yeast in it of all your choices, the better choice would be the instant yeast. That's what I would recommend using. And you can look for the proportion of how much instant dry yeast you should use in place of the cake yeast, and then you could certainly let it rise in the fridge. Chris, what do you think?

CK: Two questions, what proportion were you using of active yeast to the cake yeast?

Caller: The recipe for the with the cake yeast calls for two ounces, so it's that kind of small, rectangular foil package, and I used three packets of the dry yeast.

CK: You should be using slightly less than half by weight of the dry yeast. The second thing is, how long did the recipe call for the slow yeast in the fridge? Was it overnight?

Caller: Two hours

SM: That's not so slow.

CK: How much flour to the cake yeast?

Caller: Three cups of flour.

CK: It sounds like it has a lot of yeast. (Yeah) for three cups of flour, like, like, three or four times more than you'd think. Okay, here's my first theory. I wonder whether, because it's a slow ferment in the fridge, you're putting a lot of yeast into it and so that, then you take it out, you shape it, you finish it up for another hour. I wonder if the amount of yeast in the recipe is what's giving you that flavor, you're missing with the dry yeast, because I think it's very yeasty by the time you're finished with it, right?

SM: Yeah, that sounds right.

CK: Yeah. I think, I think that's what's going on. You have a massive amount of yeast in this and, you know, you like the flavor, and that's why the dry active yeast is not giving you anything like that.

Caller: That makes total sense

SM: But then she's stuck. What's she going to do?

CK: Buy cake yeast online. I don’t know.

SM: It's a perishable product

CK: Or up the amount of active yeast and do the same thing, right? I mean, double or triple the amount of yeast put in the fridge for two hours and see if it doubles then you know, you have about the right amount of yeast. That's what I would do. If it doubles in two hours in the fridge, you got a lot more yeast action going on than if it doubles at room temperature in two hours.

Caller: So, in general, is there a difference in how bread or rolls going to taste, whether you're using cake yeast or dry yeast?

CK: I don't think so. I think what's going on. This recipe just has a lot of yeast, lot of yeast. By the way, I just pulled out my phone on Amazon, you can buy your fresh yeast cake, two ounces, six pack.

SM: Oh, we like that. There you go.

Caller: Okay.

SM: Alright

CK: That's going to solve your problem. What's the name of the recipe? Again, one more time?

Caller: Butter horns.

CK: Was this recipe, came from, you know, the old country at some point, what was this?

Caller: Yes, Sweden. My aunt immigrated from Sweden. So, this was one of her family recipes she brought with her.

CK: This sounds great. I'm going to go check this out.

Caller: Great.

CK: Okay, thank you, and good luck, and I'm going to try it too.

SM: Yes,

Caller: Great. Okay, well, thank you for your help.

CK: Sure.

SM: Okay, bye, bye.

CK: Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling?

Caller: Hi. This is Tyler calling from Charleston, South Carolina.

CK: How are you?

Caller: I'm doing well,

CK: How can we help you?

Caller: I've got a bit of a conundrum. I was recently given a ridiculous amount of bell peppers. I've been able to give some away, but I've still got about a dozen bell peppers waiting to be used. I've been putting them in soup. We've been doing stir fry. What in the world can I do with the rest of these bell peppers?

CK: You know, it's no good if it calls for, you know, a pepper or two, I would go something, Muhmmara uses a lot of red pepper, you know, that wonderful sort of paste that you have as sort of an appetizer with bread, a roasted or red pepper soup would be great. Right, you grill or roast them, peel them, put them in the freezer, in, you know, packs of two, and then you don't have to worry about it, because you can use it anytime, right?

Caller: Yeah, that sounds like a good way to do it. What was that? The first thing you mentioned,

SM: Spell it

CK: Muhmmara, it’s M-U-H-A-M-M-A-R-A, it's North African.

SM: I'm sure you have a recipe in the magazine.

CK: Yeah, red peppers are sort of the basis for it, yeah, something like that. I'd freeze them in two pepper units after roasting and peeling them. Roasted red pepper soup, you know, would be like or a gazpacho. You know, make gazpacho with peppers instead of tomatoes or some combination. That's the other thing I would do, (right) There are different kinds of gazpacho.

SM: Chris and I are both assuming red. Is that correct?

Caller: Red and green. Handful of the yellow ones in there too.

SM: Second question, why would anybody give you so many peppers?

CK: It's regifting.

Caller: It's kind of regifting. Yes, the company that my girlfriend works for received a donation that was a lot of red peppers, and they can't use all of them, and we just don't want them to go to waste.

CK: Wait, wait, wait, the company got a donation of red peppers.

Caller: Yes, she works for the local zoo, and occasionally they will get donations from the local big box stores, Costco’s, Sam's Clubs, etc. This time it happened to be a gigantic palette of bell peppers.

CK: No animals in the zoo eat them

SM: No elephants interested. The number of animals the zoo who enjoy bell peppers are in the same boat that I am, where we just have way too many bell peppers.

SM: Oh, dear. I had one last suggestion. I thought Chris came up with some good ones, you know so the rest of them, we are both advising that you'd broil or grill and peel and then you got them ready for, like with sausage or just to throw into a pasta. But another thought is you can puree the red pepper and then it becomes a sauce. You can add it to vinaigrette, like I would add sherry vinegar and really nice olive oil and make it into sort of a vinaigrette or a sauce for fish. Or you could toss it with pasta, so turn it into a sauce. Or you could roast them pure them and then freeze them in the pureed state. There you go.

CK: Well, the other possibility is you regift them to somebody else, roasted red peppers in oil. Good to go, yeah, by the way, that's one of my favorite pantry ingredients, roasted red peppers. You know, you throw them your garlic, they're really good. I hope that is modestly helpful.

SM: Yes, Tyler,

Caller: it has been incredibly helpful.

CK: All right, take care

SM: Alright, great. We're rooting for you.

Thank you, guys, very much.

SM: Bye.

CK: This is Milk Street Radio. Sara and I are here to answer your cooking questions. Give us a ring any time our number 855-426-9843 one more time, 855-426-9843, or simply email us at [email protected]. Welcome to Milk Street who's calling?

Caller: This is Judy from Beach Island, South Carolina.

CK: How are you?

Caller: I'm good. How are you?

CK: I'm good. How can we help you?

Caller: I have been trying to recreate my grandmother's recipe for chocolate chess pie, and I found a recipe that isn't quite right, but it's very close, sugar, cocoa, eggs, butter and evaporated milk and a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of vanilla. So very simple, but when I make it every now and then, it separates into two layers. So, I wondered if you could tell me what I'm doing wrong.

CK: Do you always use evaporated milk, or sometimes you switch it out for fresh dairy.

Caller: I have used half and half, and I have not found this separation to occur only with evaporated milk or only with half and half.

CK: Darn

Caller: I was thinking maybe I over beat the eggs or something.

CK: Are you pouring this into an unbaked pie shell and the mixture is cold.

Caller: Yes

CK: Here's one thing that you might try. What I do with any kind of custard pie, and you could call this a custard pie, because it has milk and eggs, is to warm it while stirring on top of the stove and get it up to like a sub simmer. I would prebake my shell for this kind of pie, take it out, let it cool just a little bit, maybe 10 minutes or so, and then pour the warm filling into the warm shell. And that way you're only going to need another 15 or 20 minutes of baking at maybe 325 - 350

Caller: 25 for 45 minutes.

CK: It could be that that long baking time could be a problem. Also, if you over bake with the eggs, it's like any custard pie you are going to see leaking, but you talk about separation. So, what's on the top and what's on the bottom?

Caller: The chocolatey part is on the bottom, and the part underneath is glistening. I mean, it tastes fine, but it looks kind of weird, and it's two very distinct layers. Sounds

CK: Sounds like the chocolate layer has a higher specific density. It's denser and heavier and is falling to the bottom. But I think if you make sure you whisk it really well, put it in a saucepan, heat it to sub, simmer just to starting to bubble around the edges, and put that in a warm pie shell, and get that in the oven. I think it's going to cook quick enough, and also during part of the cooking you're whisking, I think that'll solve the problem. That would be my guess. Sara?

SM: What's bothering me about your suggestion, Chris, although it sort of makes

CK: it came from me, is that the problem?

SM: No, it's that I've never seen, not that I've made a lot of chess pies, but I've never seen a chess pie where you did that doesn't mean that it's not a good idea. When you say it separates into two layers. One of them is sort of greasy.

Caller: Yeah, the bottom is shiny, greasy, and the top is sort of frosty.

SM: It seems like maybe the butter, you know, separated out a bit. Question. So, you said you think you're over beating the eggs. How are you supposed to mix it? What are the instructions?

Caller: It just says combined sugar, cocoa and margarine. Of course, I use real butter, as my grandmother would have, add well beaten egg, evaporated milk, salt and vanilla, pour into unbaked nine-inch pie shell.

SM: What I'm thinking is maybe it just really needed to be mixed better, because the butter is separating out.

CK: Have you made this recipe, or someone else's, or your grandmother mother, made this recipe and it worked just fine.

Caller: I have made this recipe in trying to recreate my grandmother's recipe, I have made this recipe 50 times, and I would say eight to 10 times. It has separated.

CK: The only thing I'd say about using half and half is that's going to be much more prone to curdling or separating than evaporated milk. Evaporated milk's much more stable, yeah?

Caller: Well, you gave me some ideas.

CK: Okay, well, now I want chocolate chess pie,

SM: Yeah, really, Judy, and let us know how it goes.

Caller: I will. I'm going to make one, and I'll make sure it's well mixed, and I'll let you know how it turns out,

CK: At least heat it up a little bit before you put in the pie shell.

Caller: Okay, we'll do. Thanks for the tip. Bye, bye.

SM: Bye, bye.

CK: You're listening to Milk Street Radio after the break the wild world of eel fish. Hey this is Christopher Kimball, and I need your help. We're working on our Thanksgiving episode, and this time, we'd love to hear about your weird Thanksgiving traditions. Do you dress your turkey up in a bow tie? Maybe you plan extravagant theme meals every year, or maybe you just play pranks on your guests. Please share with us the unusual things you do on Thanksgiving, your best jokes, your most hilarious antics, your fun and unexpected foods, please leave us a voicemail that number 617-249-3167 617 249-3167, or simply email us at Radio tips at 177Milkstreet com. Please say your name and where you're calling from, and thanks.

This is Milk Street Radio, I’m your host Christopher Kimball. Last year, reporter Otis Gray went on the hunt for a rare delicacy: smoked American eel. He’d heard about a guy named Ray Turner, who runs a smokehouse up in Hancock, New York.

Otis Gray: Do you know anything about Ray Turner?

Jerry: Ray Turner the Eel King?

OG: Ray Turner the eel king yeah

CK: Otis did find Ray. But the bad news was that the Eel King…no longer fishes for eel.

Ray Turner: It got to a point where it wasn’t much fun anymore, you know geezerism is the catalyst

CK: Ray’s smoked eel used to draw visitors from across the world and Otis had just missed out on trying it.

RT: They’re oily, there’s no doubt about it but – I can’t compare them to anything they were just . . . you know, nice thin strips of really tasty fish.

CK: Otis became obsessed with finding someone else who smoked eel. This search led him up to the north coast of Maine, where eel fishing has been making a comeback. But as he found out, this comeback got tangled up with criminal activity. Here’s Otis Gray with that story.

OT: American Eel is pretty hard to come by. Hello! I’m good, how you doing Stan? A lot of people have stopped fishing for American eel for reasons we'll get into later. But – I was lucky enough to find some.

Stan Meader: We have smoked eel here and, these are kind of smoked the same way we used to do it, you know, hundreds of years ago.

OT: I’m with Stan Meader on the edge of the Machias (muh·chai·uhs) River in Northern Maine. Stan is a member of the Passamaquoddy tribe, an indigenous tribe that’s been here for thousands of years. The Passamaquoddy have been eating eel for a long, long time.

SM: Usually the meat is white, but after it’s smoked, you can see a little brownish and auburn.

OT: Dark gold auburn color. Yeah, it’s beautiful. By the time I met Stan, I’d been on a three-month escapade to find some smoked American eel. And Northern Maine is one of the only places you can find it. (Stan: yeah) Eels were very popular in the early American diet. They aren’t so much these days. Stan says it’s mostly because they look like snakes. Which, they do, but –they are delicious. That is rich.

SM: It is. Very much so. Yeah, it’s absolutely delicious. Even people that would never put an eel to their mouth. “Oh, I’ll never eat that– I never taste that–” and then they have it and they’re like “oh my goodness.” And they love it. I haven’t found anyone that doesn’t like it yet.

OT: Eels have baffled people for millennia. No one has seen them reproduce in the wild. Aristotle thought they sprang spontaneously from mud. Pliny thought they multiplied by rubbing themselves against rocks. They are these mythic, serpent-like creatures all around the world. But we do know that American and European eels spawn somewhere in the Sargasso Sea, off the coast of the US in the Atlantic Ocean. They travel thousands of miles up coastal rivers before swimming back to the ocean to spawn and die. They can live up to 20 years, some even recorded to live to 80, and grow up to four feet long. And for thousands of years, they were abundant in these rivers. But over the last century, overfishing and dams built along these rivers have made that journey a lot harder. So, populations dropped and here in Maine – it seemed like eel fishing was becoming a relic of the past. Until the last twenty years – when the eel market . . exploded.

News clip: In some parts of Asia, baby eels are called white diamonds. As they become increasingly rare, their prices are soaring.

OT: In Japan, overfishing in the last century and a massive 2011 tsunami wiped out 70% of the Japanese eel population.

News clip: The international Union for Conservation of Nature has classified the Japanese eel as an endangered species.

OT: Eel, or unagi, is a delicacy in many Asian countries, and the global sushi craze has been raging since the 1970s. With more demand for eel, strict regulations were put in place to protect it. So the Japanese market turned to Europe for their eel supply. The price for eel skyrocketed and fishermen couldn’t resist the gold rush - breaking the law to catch more than allowed and giving way to an eel black market that as of 2020, was a multi-billion dollar a year industry.

News clip: Three men facing charges tonight for stealing more than a million dollars worth of – wait for it . . . frozen eels.

OT: What the Japanese market was really interested in was baby eels, also called glass eels, or elvers. Tiny, translucent, little creatures that are raised to full size in fisheries before being sold and eaten. Smugglers began stowing live glass eels in suitcases to get them overseas.

News clip: (ANDREW KERR, CHAIRMAN OF SUSTAINABLE EEL GROUP): You can get up to 100,000 glass eels in one suitcase.

OT: A suitcase full of baby eels could fetch 100 grand.

News clip:(ANDREW KERR, CHAIRMAN OF SUSTAINABLE EEL GROUP): And then a year later, that’s a million. A million euros worth.

OT: A million euros worth full-grown eel. The money was too good. Gangs took part in the eel trade, there were standoffs, robberies. Raids.

News clip:(with SFX of Police Breaking down a door)

OT: The EU cracked down making eel exports illegal. Which is when, in the early 2010s, this multi-billion-dollar industry turned its sights away from Europe, and toward the rural state of Maine, where elver populations were stable. And in less than a year, the idyllic small town rivers of Maine became the center of an international black-market.

Donald Soctomah: This is a traditional tribal drum. It’s a hollowed-out log with moosehide on it.

OT: Before American eels created a global firestorm, they were just part of everyday life for the indigenous tribes of Maine.

DS: My name is Donald Soctomah. I’m the Passamaquoddy Tribal Historic Preservation officer.

OT: I met up with Donald on an overcast day in October. He runs the Passamaquoddy Cultural Heritage Museum, a one-floor roadside office packed to the gills with old Passamaquoddy artifacts. Tools, instruments, weapons.

DS: This one I’m holding in my hand is a stone gouge for making dugout canoes.

OT: And how old is that do you think?

DS: This one’s six thousand years old.

OT: Get out of here. There’s eel stuff too. He has woven eel traps that are at least a hundred years old, that could still be used today. And in the back of the office – there’s a big shelf filled with these birch bark baskets. The bark is etched with images and stories of tribal history.

DS: So, I’ll show you the etching of the . . .

OT: Donald pulls a basket down.

DS: And here we have somebody throwing a spear at the deer.

OT: There are some medicinal plants. A muskrat. Salmon.

DS: And then you see one of the most important food sources. Eels.

OT: And it’s just kind of wrapped around the side of the basket.

DS: Yup. The eels were an important food. It was always a good time when people feasted on eels.

OT: The Passamaquoddy buried eels in the sand with fires built on top of them so you could come back in a few days and dig them up, peel the skin off and feast.

DS: Other times the eel is split into and put on sticks over the fire and smoked. It's sort of like beef jerky in a way. You know it's handy. It won't spoil or anything.

OT: Naturally, they wriggled their way into local legends.

DS: Hunters always were wary of this giant eel sea serpent. The Abudumken.

OT: Protective parents would tell younger kids not to go in the water too much.

DS: Because the Abudumken’s going to get you.

OT: When British settlers landed on the East Coast in the early 1600s, they were famously introduced to corn by the indigenous tribes. But they were also introduced to eel, and it was almost surely served at those first Thanksgiving meals.

DS: Part of our treaty rights always recognized, from the 1600s, places set aside for eel harvesting areas. That’s how important it was.

OT: Donald says those treaties were later broken, and eel fishing was outlawed in the early 1800s.

DS: That was a food source that was taken away from us.

OT: In the following century, the invention of dams for cotton and lumber and then electricity decimated the eel population. Many Passamaquoddy were driven from the lands where they fished for eel. So, for the tribespeople who survived, their diets drastically changed.

DS: Eel was . . . built into our DNA. You know, our body craved the eel.

OT: By the time Donald was a kid in the 1950s, the traditions around eel fishing were mostly gone. About twenty minutes north of the tribal museum, I met up with Joseph Socobasin. He’s the Vice Chief of the Passamaquoddy. Former cop. Has a permanent smile. We stumbled down some rocks to a bank on the St. Croix River. On the other side was Canada. This is where Joseph fishes for eels.

Joseph Socobasin: It's a beautiful river. And it's a river that our tribe has been coming to for 1000s of years.

OT: Joseph says this is the perfect spot. Where freshwater is flowing into salt water. For a brief window in March, locals flock down to this river to fish for eel. They spread these wide nets in pockets of the river at night and they wait. But not for grown eels like they would’ve centuries ago.

JS: No, this is for the baby glass eels.

OT: This is where you’re fishing for elvers.

JS: Yes. Yes.

News clip: *news stinger sound* For a few short weeks in the spring time, the mad rush is on to harvest glass eels or elvers from local rivers and streams . . .

OT: While the demand for unagi in sushi is global, the Japanese and other Asian markets make up the vast majority of it. After the crash of the Japanese eel fisheries and the outlawing of European elver exports, the market turned to Maine in 2012. But before the rush, the price for elvers was 185 per pound. Two years later, it jumped to 2000.

JS: The price can change from day to day but –

OT: Two thousand dollars a pound?

JS: Yup.

OT: And you can do that in maybe a night?

JS: Oh, you can do much more than that.

OT: Immediately, anyone with a net and a bucket was rushing out to these rivers to catch as much as they could. With that much cash being passed around, fishermen were afraid of getting robbed, things started to get out of hand.

News clip: (Police Officer): Almost everyone was carrying firearms, it was really the wild west.

OT: Elver fishing in the US is only legal in two states — South Carolina and Maine. But Maine has a higher elver population, and is the only state set up to export internationally, thanks to a guy named Bill Sheldon in the 1970s. People from out of state were illegally catching elvers up and down the East Coast, smuggling them onto Maine in duffel bags to sell them.

News clip: Bill Sheldon isn’t just a dealer he’s largely credited for creating Maine’s elver market.

OT: For four decades, Sheldon had a pretty humble reputation. But after the eel boom, he became known as Maine’s “eel kingpin.” And was recognizable for wearing this flashy patchwork fur coat.

News clip: (Bill Sheldon): I’d travel around with three-quarters of a million dollars in my truck, at night . . .

OT: People were catching way more elvers than the state allowed. So the federal government stepped in and set up a sting operation called Broken Glass. Glass eels. Get it? Undercover agents would sell elvers to dealers without permits to see if they’d go for the extra cash. Bill Sheldon, and a few other big dealers, fell for the sting. Sheldon was sentenced to six months in prison in 2018, where he wrote poetry about it.

News clip: (Bill Sheldon): I'm 71 and live my life free from crime. I never did think I'd be doing jail time. Then along came a warden with eels to sell. And tragically into his trap I soon fell.

OT: Since then, strict catch limits were put in place, with a lot of enforcement behind it. Every sale is meticulously documented, and by 2020 the short, lawless eel rush in Maine came to a close.Now the state issues about a 1000 elvers licenses each year. 550 of those belong exclusively to the Passamaquoddy tribe. Even after stricter regulations, elver fishing is still very lucrative.

JS: It’s almost like Christmas morning when you come down to check your net because you just don’t know.

OT: The price still averages about $2000 a pound and you’re allowed to catch five pounds a season, which lasts about a week, meaning you could rake in 10 grand in less than seven days.

JS: We all look forward to it. It really has a positive impact on our community. It brings over a million dollars in less than ten days and you know it’s nice to see people to have a little comfort and not have to worry about money for that time of year anyway.

OT: Eel fishing may not be what it once was in America. But in the aftermath of this elver gold rush, Tribal historian Donald Soctomah says it has rekindled something for the Passamaquoddy.

DS: Our people are back on the water. Our people are gathering, and the eel is there to support our families.

OT: The smoked eel I had by the river was made by American Unagi, a company in Maine that buys American elvers and raises them domestically, so they don’t have to be shipped overseas, raised, and shipped back. It is the first of its kind in the US. The company buys directly from the Passamaquoddy and has plans to expand within Maine in hopes of making eel a regional export, just like lobster. When I ask Donald if he feels optimistic about the future of the eel, he goes into a story about an elver he once saw inching its way up a vertical dam.

DS: Inch by inch by inch is going to the top. I said “wow, that’s determination right there.” And that's how we are . . . . We've been surrounded by a non-tribal community for 400 years, but we still speak our language. That's how strong our culture is. . . We’ve been determined to survive and keep our DNA alive in this world. . . . Eels . . . they’re a strong animal. It’s a survivor, just like us.

CK: Special thanks to Otis Gray, who reported this story from Milk Street. Otis is a radio producer from rural Vermont, and also the host of the Sleepy podcast where he reads old books to help people sleep. You're listening to Milk Street radio coming up. Kenji Lopez Alt reveals his trick for perfect scrambled eggs. Hi, I'm Christopher Kimball, and this is Milk Street Radio. I'm joined now by JM Hirsch to talk about this week's recipe, baked kefta with tahini. JM how are you?

J M Hirsch: I'm doing great.

CK: So kefta, Kafta, I guess, you know, Middle Eastern meatballs or meat patties. One of my favorite versions was in Morocco and that big marketplace they have, the big square at night turns into a food court of sorts under tents. And they just grilled the lamp patties, small, maybe few inches long, and served it with a spicy oil. And I guess that's one of the simplest preparations, but you were in Jordan, and you had, I guess, the other end of the other end of the spectrum something a little bit more interesting

JMH: As you say, no matter where we go, whether it's Naples, Mexico City, or, in this case, Amman, we find some variant of a meatball, wildly different, but still recognizable. And in Amman, I was at restaurant Shahrazad, which is kind of an alleyway, really, more than a restaurant where cooking is happening on either side, and they have this baked kefta with tahini that they make. But if you looked at it, you would not think meatball when you see it come out of the kitchen. Basically, they take ground lamb, and they season it with onion, garlic, chilies and Baharat, the local seasoning blend, which uses. Lots of warm spices, like cinnamon and so forth. And they take this meat mixture, and they flatten it into the bottom of a round cake pan going right up the sides, and they throw that into the broiler for a little bit. They take it out, and they top it with, I'm sorry, but French fries and tomato wedges. And then they put it back under the broiler for a few minutes. Take it out again, and this time they add the secret ingredient, which is a sauce that is used widely in Jordan, a blend of tahini and lemon juice and tangy yogurt and that goes on top. Now, when you see them do it, I mean, they really slosh it on. They're not bashful about adding the sauce to their kefta, they put it back under the broiler, under the heat of the broiler, that sauce thickens and reduces and caramelizes, and I’ve got to say, it's almost like a barbecue sauce when it comes out of the oven. It is so rich and so thick, and it glazes the meat in many ways, and it was so delicious and rich and balanced. So problem is that method of cooking didn't translate well to the home cook. So, per usual, I went to a home cook to help us solve this problem, and Tagreed Muhtaseb offered to show us her version of this recipe, which substituted ground beef for the ground lamb, and it substituted potato wedges for the French fries. And she, instead of creating a meat bowl, she actually created meatballs and formed the beef into oblongs, which she arranged in a cake pan with the other ingredients, and, of course, that special sauce, and put it in the oven to bake. And again, took a little bit longer because she wasn't broiling it, but that sauce reduced and caramelized and thickened and again, it had this barbecue sauce like quality to it that was so rich and satisfying, it was really fantastic.

CK: Wait a minute. What about the French fries? Come on, did she put the French fries on it that’s I want to know.

JMH: I mean as happy as I am to eat a good French fry, I’ve got to say I was a little relieved when instead of French fries she went for basic potatoes. I think it added a little something to the dish.

CK: This is as I said, the more complex version simple though as it is, but tahini yogurt, garlic and lemon caramelized in the oven, as you said, a different form of barbecue sauce. So baked kefta with tahini. Essentially, everyone loves a good meatball, but this one is particularly interesting and particularly delicious. Thank you, JM.

JMH: Thank you. You can get the recipe for baked kefta with [email protected]

CK: I’m Christopher Kimball, and you're listening to Milk Street Radio right now. My co-host Sara Moulton and I will be answering a few more of your cooking questions.

SM: Welcome to Milk Street who's calling?

Caller: My name is Leanne, and I live in northwestern Ohio, near a small town called Napoleon.

SM: How can we help you?

Caller: Well, it has to do with cooking in a slow cooker, as opposed to my oven. We have a favorite Belgian recipe called beef carbonade, and I prepare it with venison, since my husband is a hunter, (ooh) so I brown the pieces of venison and I add my husband's brown ale along with other layered ingredients. But my question pertains to simmering in my favorite covered roaster in an oven as opposed to a slow cooker. Is there any end result in cooking in a slow cooker as compared to an oven.

SM: The thing about a slow cooker is they vary in terms of how they function. I mean, the heat source is at the bottom, and the liquid goes absolutely nowhere in a slow cooker, (okay) but if you are going to use a slow cooker, don't use a lot of liquid, because the liquid never reduces, (of course). Yeah, so that is really one of the problems. When you cook in the oven, there's heat all around the top, the bottom, the sides, I think it cooks more evenly. I think you can control it much more easily. You know, just pull that out, take a peek. You know, when you put it in the slow cooker and you just set it forever and you don't know if it's come up to temperature the way you wanted it to, or if it's boiling too hard. I'm just not a fan. How does your stew come out?

Caller: The venison turns out very, very tender. But as you pointed out, there is still a lot of liquid in it

SM: In the slow cooker or in the oven?

Caller: In the slow cooker, oh, so I create a roux, and I use that, and it makes a really nice, savory, thick gravy. After it has cooked for a while, I had the roux, but it turns out very tender, very. Moist. It's just a family favorite.

SM: Okay, I was waiting for a but. It sounds like you've had great success with the slow cooker. Just one thing about what you did when you thickened it, you might get an even more flavorful sauce by removing the venison briefly, throwing it into a pot on top of the stove and reducing it. Because what happened is, when you cook it in the oven. It some of that liquid does reduce, and none of it reduces in a slow cooker, so it's not that strong in flavor. That's what I would do. But anyway, I know Chris has a few

CK: A few thoughts. I agree about the liquid problem, and if I I do use a slow cooker, because, for example, during hunting season, deer season, you know, I'll leave at 5:36 in the morning, and I'll just set the slow cooker up. And so, when I get back, you know, it's very practical. If you do it in the oven, I would do it at 325 for two hours with a top on. I take the top off and cook it another hour to hour and a half, and that way, you're going to get browning of the meat that's above the liquid, and you're going to get a reduction of that liquid. I'm always looking for the simplest solution, so that if you're around the house and you can do it that way, that's fine. If it's in a slow cooker, I would add either no additional liquid or almost no additional, but you can cook a stew in a Dutch oven and add no liquid, and by the time it's cooked, there will be liquid at the bottom of the pot from the onions, from the meat, etc. But you want to eliminate the browning of the meat ahead of ahead of time, which you don't have to do in the oven if you cook it with the top off in the last hour. And just keep the amount of liquid down. The slow cooker is okay, the oven's better, but just get rid of that liquid and don't use much of it.

Caller: Well, you have answered my question. I will use my oven more often that was my question, and you have supplied the answer very ably. Thank you so much.

SM: Okay, thank you Leanne

CK: Thank you very much. This is Milk Street Radio. If you're stuck in a culinary rut, Sara and I are here to give you a hand. Call us at 855-426-9843. 855-426-9843, or email us at questions [email protected]. Welcome to Milk Street who's calling?

Caller: my name is Rich. I live in New Hampshire.

CK: How can we help you?

Caller: Well, I like to bake my own bread, and I sort of like a very heavy bread by lifting it. You know, if it's heavy, then I know like it the bread I've been making lately, I love the consistency. It's got all kinds of seeds and stuff in it. I usually use spelt instead of wheat. It doesn't work well for sandwiches and the like it breaks apart. I'm thinking it needs more gluten to hold it together more

CK: Let's talk about your recipe. So, are you using any white bread flour, or it's all whole grain spelt?

Caller: See, I like a lot of stuff in my bread so usually, I do like five cups of whole grains and another two cups of various grains, you know, quinoa and seeds, sunflower.

CK: You're making a vegetable. The problem you hit the nail on the head, it's you don't have enough gluten. So, you have two options. First option is mix a ratio of whole wheat spelt to bread flour, white bread flour. And yep, you know, maybe use 30 to 40% whole wheat spelt to 60 or 70% bread flour. You're going to sacrifice some of the flavor, but you're going to get a loaf that has enough gluten to hold together. The other thing you can do is add vital wheat gluten, which is essentially, you know, a massive concentration of gluten that's made from wheat. Add a couple tablespoons of that to your recipe to see if that helps. My simple solution would be to take three of the five cups and use bread flour and then use two cups of whole wheat gluten. That's the quickest way to solve the problem. Sara?

SM: Yeah, I would absolutely agree. But let's say, even if you were using more bread flour and you added quinoa and all those nuts and seeds to it, it's still going to be crumbly when you slice it. Have you ever worked with the vital wheat gluten before?

Caller: No, I have not

SM: it's a great ingredient. As Chris said, it's like a bomb of gluten, and you only need about one tablespoon per two cups of flour. If you want to keep it pure, you could do that or what Chris suggested,

Caller: Okay, I think I'll try the vital wheat gluten first, because that's sort of what I was looking for, a little glue to dump in to make things stick better, and I'll see how that goes first. You know, I don't I it's different every time I make it, because I just sort of start dumping stuff together.

CK: All right, thanks for calling.

Caller: Yeah. Thanks very much. Be Well friends.

SM: Yes you too Rich. Thank you.

Caller: Bye, bye.

CK: Welcome to Milk Street, who's calling?

Caller: This is Freda.

CK: How can we help you?

Caller: I bought a peach tree a couple years ago, and this year had a bumper crop (really), and I had a really hard time processing, you know, keeping up with all the peaches, and I was trying to get the skins off using the blanching method that everyone tells you to do, and they just wouldn't come off no matter how long I boiled them. I didn't want to boil them to mush, so I was curious to see if you had suggestions on what I'm doing wrong in terms of blanching peaches.

CK: Tell me how you blanch them, how long?

Caller: Well, I know, put a little X in the skin at the bottom. Put them in boiling water. I kept them in for increasingly longer amounts of time because the skins weren't coming off.

CK: How much time? Like, 30 seconds or

Caller: No, no, no, like five minutes.

CK: Boiled peaches. Okay,

Caller: Yeah, exactly.

CK: Did you have an ice bath too?

Caller: Yes, I did.

CK: Well, one thing you shouldn't need more than about 30 seconds, but the ice bath, you got to have a big bowl with ton of ice and water, because it's the shocking right from being hot to being cold, that'll help release the skin. So, it's like doing hard boiled eggs. You need a really big ice bath. I used to grow peaches too, and sometimes that doesn't work, and so I simply took a really sharp peeler and just peeled the skin off. But you shouldn't need five minutes. More than 30 45 seconds is probably plenty.

SM: Well, also, I was going to say peelers go dull, so you really do need to replace them pretty often. So, I agree with Chris, if the other methods not working. And I also agree with 30 to 45 seconds. But there's also something that's made it's a serrated peeler. That might be what you want to look for.

CK: That's an excellent point.

SM: Yeah, get a new one. So, it's good and sharp.

Caller: That's a really good suggestion. Can I take in one extra question about the peaches? (sure) One of the things that I had tried to make with. It was a pate de sweet, and I could not get it to gel. I used as much pectin as the recipe said, and it almost set, but didn't. And so, I kept adding more and more.

CK: There are two kinds of pectin. One's a low sugar pectin, and one comes in a pink box, and one comes in the other color, whatever that is. I don't know how much sugar is in this but if it's a low sugar recipe, you need a low sugar pectin, so you might check that, because it's in all supermarkets you can get the other one.

Caller: Is there a difference between liquid and non-liquid?

CK: As far as I know, not, but I think there is a low sugar pectin, and you might need that for this recipe.

Caller: Okay, thank you so much.

CK: Thank you

SM: Alright Greta

CK: Take care.

Caller: Okay, take care. Goodbye.

CK: This is Milk Street Radio. Now let's hear about Kenji Lopez Alt’s latest kitchen experiment. Kenji, how are you?

Kenji Lopez Alt: I'm doing good. How are you?

CK: I'm good. I'm curious to see what you've been doing in your kitchen in the last couple of weeks.

KA: Well, I thought today we could talk about something we've never ever talked about before, which is

eggs.

CK: Oh, lord, you and I been talking about eggs for 10 years. I feel like every other conversation is about eggs. So, what kind of eggs are we talking about here?

JKA: Scrambled eggs, and particularly when you should be adding salt to your scrambled eggs. (Okay) I don't know if you've seen this video, but there is a very popular video in which Gordon Ramsay is showing you how to make these sort of French style really, really creamy scrambled eggs. It's a very, very popular video, Like millions and millions of views on the Internet. In that video, he says not to add salt to the eggs until the very end, because he claims it'll make the eggs watery, or it'll make them gray. And yeah, and to me, I was like, you know, I've never really noticed my eggs turning watery or gray when I salt them. So, I started doing some research on them. I found, you know, other people, including Marco Pierre White, say, don't salt your eggs until they're done. MFK Fisher says, don't season your eggs until they're almost done. But on the other hand, people like Julia Child, Jacque Pepin, they both tell you to salt your eggs before you start cooking them. So, for my most recent New York Times ask Kenji column, I did a bunch of testing on this. So, I took eggs, and I salted them at intervals ranging from zero minutes before cooking, all the way up to three days before cooking.

CK: you being Kenji.

JKA: And the way I normalized it is I used an induction burner that could keep a precise temperature out of pan, and so I used the same pan set at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, used the same amount of oil. I used oil instead of butter, just because butter is a more complex ingredient than oil, and I cooked them all for the exact same amount of time, and then I tasted them all side by side. The other thing I did was I drained them in a fine mesh strainer. And what I did was I set that fine mesh strainer over a bowl to see how much sort of free liquid there was, so basically to be able to sort of measure, or give a visual representation of how watery the eggs taste. And what I found was that, in fact, salting your eggs in advance helps them retain more moisture, so they end up more tender and less watery when you salt them in advance.

CK: Can I just ask, though, but are we talking, I mean, how much extra liquid was there? a tablespoon, a teaspoon

JKA: So that is a good question. You know, as always, it's like, is it worth doing? Like, do I need to solve my scrambled eggs three days in advance? Well, no, you shouldn't salt your scrambled eggs three days in advance. It really maxes out at about 15 minutes. And even at 15 minutes versus zero minutes, as long as you don't overcook your eggs, you're not going to think. You're not going to notice. It's a very small but noticeable difference when it's side by side, when you're not eating them side by side, you know, whatever. So my general advice would be, you know, what I do is, if I'm going to make scrambled eggs, I'll come down to the kitchen, I'll put my eggs in a bowl, I'll beat them with a pinch of salt, and then I'll do everything else I need to do, you know, turn on the coffee maker, wake up my kids, get the toast in the toaster, whatever it is.

CK: Wait, wait, hold on a second. What's that you wake your kids? You should have breakfast and have a cup of coffee and then wake your kids. Come on.

JKA: Sorry. Okay, I have a cup of coffee. I get my bow tie on.

CK: Cup of coffee. It's the cup of coffee. So, at the end of the day, salt your eggs ahead of time,

JKA: If you can. If not, they're going to be just fine. You know, the key to good scrambled eggs is don't overcook them.

CK: Kenji, thank you very much. You resolved another shocking issue in the world of the culinary arts, salting eggs. Thank you.

JKA: Thanks for having me.

CK: That was Kenji Lopez Alt. He's a food columnist for the New York Times, also author of The Wok Recipes and Techniques. He also co-hosts the podcast The Recipe with Kenji and Deb. That's it for today. You can find all of our [email protected] or wherever you get your podcasts. Can learn more about us at 177 milkstreet.com there, you can become a member, get access to all of our recipes and also our livestream cooking classes, plus free standard shipping for the Milk Street store and lots more. Can also find us on Facebook at Christopher Kimball's Milk Street, on Instagram at 177 Milk Street, we'll be back next week with more food stories and kitchen questions and thanks, as always, for listening.

Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Radio is produced by Milk Street in association with GBH co-founder Melissa Baldino, executive producer Annie Sinsabaugh, senior editor Melissa Allison, producer Sarah Clapp, Assistant Producer Caroline Davis with production help from Debby Paddock. Additional editing by Sydney Lewis, audio mixing by Jay Allison at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole Massachusetts. Theme music by Toubab Krewe, additional music by George Brandl Egloff, Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio is distributed by PRX.