Who better to put together a project promoting Great Lakes whitefish than contributors from the Upper Peninsula, where the tasty fish are caught right off its shores?
That was the reasoning behind a Michigan Sea Grant to
Northern Michigan University culinary professors Chris Kibit and Deborah Pearce, who have been educating local, regional and national chefs on the use and flavor of whitefish in presentations and conferences over the last few years.
As the grant wraps up, Kibit and Pearce decided a good way to cap it off would be to publish a lasting resource for chefs and home cooks using whitefish, by publishing a comprehensive whitefish cookbook with the help of Michigan Sea Grant.
"As the grant was coming to an end, I thought a cookbook would be an awesome culminating activity," Pearce says. "The fun part for me was contacting chefs and others I hadn't seen in a while through Facebook to solicit recipes that we could screen for the book. I also enjoyed going to Grand Rapids to work with a food stylist. I had to make up recipes and they took photographs in a studio. Some are featured at the beginning of each chapter."
Wild Caught and Close to Home: Selecting and Preparing Great Lakes Whitefish is the title of the book, which includes about 60 recipes from Great Lakes chefs, culinary educators, and fishermen. The U.P.'s contributors include Kibit, Pearce, chef Nathan Mileski of NMU Dining Services, and Ted Thill, owner of Thill's Fish House in Marquette.
It's organized by cooking method, gathering recipes for frying, sautéing, stir-frying, steaming, poaching, soup-making, broiling, grilling, roasting and baking, along with the more rustic methods of campfire cooking, smoking and pickling. The cookbook will be available at the NMU bookstore, but also can be purchased
online for $16.95.
Writer: Sam EgglestonSource: Deborah Pearce, Northern Michigan University
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