The Shell Seekers
It might sound like the start of a bad joke, but when a Scotsman, a Dane and a Frenchman meet in the Outer Hebrides in search of king scallops, all three are deadly serious about the task at hand Words: Caroline Deacon Photography: David Gillanders Photography: www.davidgillanders.com PICTURE AN ANCIENT LANDSCAPE , almost completely submerged in a turquoise sea, save for tiny bumps of islands [...]
It might sound like the start of a bad joke, but when a
Scotsman, a Dane and a Frenchman meet in the Outer Hebrides in search
of king scallops, all three are deadly serious about the task at hand
Words: Caroline Deacon Photography: David Gillanders
Photography:
www.davidgillanders.com
alt="Outer Hebrides King Scallop Papillion Restaurant"
class="picright">PICTURE
AN ANCIENT LANDSCAPE
, almost
completely submerged in a turquoise sea, save for
tiny bumps of islands dotted with wild primroses and
wispy grass. Edged by miles of pristine white beaches
pounded clean by Atlantic surf, a land not yet tainted
by the 21st century, inhabited by only a few thousand
people, with no chain stores, coffee shops or wine
bars, yet only 50 miles from mainland Britain. This
is the Outer Hebrides; last stop in the ocean before
America. This place may be home to only a handful
of people, but its waters teem with life: Arctic charr,
sea trout, salmon, lobster, monkfish,
mackerel, to name but a few. Here,
on the last frontier, come three men
(a Scot, a Dane and a Frenchman)
who get together in a boat to revel
in their shared passion: food.
alt="Outer Hebrides King Scallop Papillion Restaurant"
class="picright">Scotsman Niall Leveson Gower has
always lived on the Outer Hebrides
but for Soren Jessen (the Dane) and
Frenchman David Duverger, the owner
and head chef respectively of Papillon
restaurant in London’s Chelsea, this
is their first visit. It is perhaps not the
usual party for a fishing expedition,
but all three are in search of regal bounty pecten
maximus king scallops.
alt="Outer Hebrides King Scallop Papillion Restaurant"
class="picright">Jessen, who worked as a trader in the City
of
London in the 1990s, has long had a visceral passion
for food; he hunts big game and relishes the process
from the kill to the plate. It was during his City career
that he noticed the Square Mile had a dearth of
restaurants, so took the opportunity to open his own,
1 Lombard Street. David Duverger was to the kitchen
born. Cooking is in his genes. He started working as
a chef aged nine in his father’s kitchen in Clermont
Ferrand and left school as soon as possible to train as
a chef. He headed first to the South of France, in love
with the region’s herbs and fish. But with his sights set
on his own kitchen, he came to London en route to
New York, where he met Jessen, and the two discussed
their meeting of minds. Thus Papillon was born with a
focus on sourcing good produce.
In their search for these ingredients namely
scallops Jessen and Duverger have come to the
Outer Hebrides to team up with Leveson Gower, a
commercial diver and the owner of Langass Lodge.
alt="Outer Hebrides King Scallop Papillion Restaurant"
class="picright">Now a luxury hotel, it was originally
built as a sporting lodge for North Uist
estate and the walls are adorned with
stag heads and monster salmon. It
attracts people from all over the world
who come for the fishing, and Leveson
Gower arranges parties in search of
whatever they fancy, cooking the
spoils in the restaurant. The winds and
Atlantic rollers bring surfers and kite
flyers, while others come to bird watch
as the area has everything from Arctic
skua and corncrake to golden eagle.
Otters can be seen frolicking in Langass
Loch, and a pair of sea eagles, reintroduced to Skye
six years ago, have now made the Uists their base.
The fireplace in the Lodge, made entirely of scallop
shells, tells the story of Leveson Gower’s other line
of work: scallop diving for the restaurants of London
with a few put aside for his own kitchen, naturally.
alt="Outer Hebrides King Scallop Papillion Restaurant"
class="picright">If you want the more prosaic details, king
scallops,
also known as Coquille St Jacques, are sedentary
filter-feeding bivalves. Far better though to imagine
their link with Venus, the Roman goddess of love, who
floated ashore on a scallop shell. Like trees, scallops
reveal their age by rings on their shells. In Scotland,
they can live more than 20 years and grow in excess
of 175mm wide, coloured from pale white to deep
red depending on their environment.
It may seem excessive to make the day-long
journey from London to the Outer Hebrides just to
check out some scallops, but for the Papillon duo
the continuing success of the restaurant lies in their
care over ingredients. Hence, for Duverger certain
ingredients must hail from France. While he insists
that foie gras and steak are best across The Channel,
he raves about British lamb and, despite his love
of southern French cooking, he acknowledges that
Scottish seafood is plentiful and incredibly tasty.
Scallops sit on the seabed, and are thus easily
accessible to dredgers, fishing boats towing
huge scoops of chain mesh along the seabed.
Unfortunately scallop dredging is very destructive
to the seabed, and although scallops themselves are
not endangered, the Marine Conservation Society is
concerned about the effects on other sea life from
indiscriminate dredging and recommends consumers
ask for diver-caught scallops. Leveson Gower agrees:
“You know when you dive an area that has been
dredged; it looks like a wasteland.”
alt="Outer Hebrides King Scallop Papillion Restaurant"
class="picright">Dredged scallops are half the price of
those hand
dived, but Duverger dismisses the inferior product
with a Gallic shrug. “The dredger stirs up sand and
sediment, the scallops are tossed around and they
absorb this which makes them gritty. The flesh is then
a different colour and they can taste muddy.” Scallops
delivered by Leveson Gower, however, arrive in London
the day after he has picked them from the seabed.
First stop in today’s search for ingredients: a visit to
the Hebridean smokehouse, a tiny company producing
a high-quality range of smoked salmon, sea trout and
scallop. Locally reared, these are peat smoked and
hand filleted. The end result speaks for itself. Then on
to the harbour, where Leveson Gower introduces the
French chef to the Scottish sea urchin; this pale pink
echinoderm with its soft prickles is a contrast to the
French version with dense black spikes. Unfortunately,
sea urchins don’t travel. “If we could transport these
we could make a fortune as the Japanese love them,”
comments Leveson Gower. In the meantime he picks
these off the pier in passing and eats them sashimi
style, or serves them in his restaurant to the guests
with more adventurous tastes.
alt="Outer Hebrides King Scallop Papillion Restaurant"
class="picright">Now a plunge into the icy waters to search
for
scallops. The Minches, the expanse of water between
the Scottish mainland, Skye and the Outer Hebrides,
are normally turquoise blue, but today are inky black
from preceding Atlantic storms. Jessen and Leveson
Gower kit up in dry suits, and emerge minutes later
with a bagful of enormous scallops, their shells a deep
orangey brown. The scallop-diving expert points out
the rings of growth which suggest these monsters are
at least seven years old. Anything smaller than this he
returns to the sea for another few years growth.
Scallops are generally sold already shucked, that
is, with the nuggets of flesh that we eat already
removed from the shell. These nuggets are the
muscles or “meat”. Sometimes fresh, whole scallops
are also sold with a red crescent-shaped part of the
inside flesh still attached, which is called the “coral”
or “roe”. This can have a slightly bitter taste, which
contrasts with the sweetness of the muscle.
alt="Outer Hebrides King Scallop Papillion Restaurant"
class="picright">Duverger is amazed at the size of the
Hebridean
scallops each weighs well over 50g without the roe. The
biggest he has seen in France are barely 40g.
Meanwhile the local fishermen learn something as
they see the chef carefully shuck the scallop and
keep all the contents. They would chuck into the sea,
the “skirts”, the frill around the centre meat which
contains among other things, the creatures’ eyes. But
Duverger intends to use these to create a roux.
Morsels of raw scallop are passed round, the flesh
sweet and incredibly firm. Later that evening he cooks
the remaining shellfish, its only accompaniment the
skirt in roux now tender as pasta, the roe served as
topping (below). The effect is sweet, meaty with a hint
of warmer seas, while the flesh is robust and speaks
of Atlantic breakers. Flying back the following day, I
distinctly feel that my seat is carrying a heavier load.
And as the plane flies low over the sea, I see that the
waters are now turquoise calm and empty of boats.
Langass Lodge, North Uist
+44 (0)18765 80285; www.langasslodge.co.uk
Hebridean Smoke House,
North Uist
The company is open to
the general public and
also runs a mail-order
service.
+44 (0)1876 580209; www.hebrideansmokehouse.com
Papillon
(pictured)
96 Draycott Avenue, London SW3 3AD
+44 (0)20 7225 2555; www.papillonchelsea.co.uk
