One of the major tourist attractions when one goes to Door County is an authentic traditional fish boil. This is a big event for the restaurants that serve fish boils in Door County as it is almost as theatrical a process one can see when preparing food.
The first and only fish boil I ever witnessed was years ago outside of Omaha, NE. I forget the name of the restaurant, but they used to have fish boils at a place just south and west of Omaha in the summertime. I remember they used to have a number of ads on the radio and one night I thought I'd just go out there and see what it entailed. What I witnessed then and what we saw in Door County were almost identical.
We went to the White Gull Inn, a bed and breakfast/inn/restaurant in Fish Creek (see map). The White Gull Inn has been around since 1896 and they serve traditional fish boils three times a night (5:45, 7:00 and 8:15) on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. People line up for the fish boils and pay something like $18.00 per person (adult) for the food. And the food isn't anything to write home about - it's just fish and potatoes.
It turns out the White Gull Inn was the first of what is now a number of places in Door County that does fish boils. What was once only found at church fundraisers and in the backyards of Door County residents, the White Gull Inn began to do fish boils in the late 50's, exposing legions of tourists to the spectacle of the traditonal Door County fish boil.
Cindy and I got there about 5:15 and we weren't really hungry yet, having a late lunch when we got into Sturgeon Bay. She wanted to see what all the hub-bub was regarding the traditional fish boils. We went around back and there were a couple guys getting the pots ready for the boil. The "Boil Over Crew" from the White Gull Inn were good guys and patiently explained the process over and over to the rapidly growing amount of people who were there to witness the fish boil.
Basically, they started out by firing up a black kettle full of heavily salted water - about one pound of salt for every two gallons of water. The black kettles can stand any where from 50 to 75 boils before they have to be replaced. Onions are then placed in the boiling water and about 10 to 20 minutes later, they add potatoes. They cook the onions and potatoes for another half hour before they bring out the fish.
The fish they use is a variety of white fish caught usually earlier in the day in Lake Michigan. The difference between the fish I had at the fish boil in Omaha versus this one is that the traditional Door County fish boil uses fish that have not been de-boned. The one in Omaha I was at, they used white fish filets. When Cindy found out that she had to de-bone her fish herself, she said, "I don't know if I can do that."
The boil over guy said, "Actually, the wait staff can show you how to do that. It's pretty easy."
Still, Cindy was thinking a nice big juicy steak would be something a little better than a fish boil.
A lot of people holding 5:45 p.m. dinner tickets began to gather around the ringed-off area in anticipation of the big moment when the boil over happens. Before all that, though, the boil over guys take the big basket of fish and they put it in the boiling water for about 10 minutes. They let the fish boil and the oils and fat from the fish come to the top of the water.
Now, here's the big moment - the boil over. What the boil over is intended to do is to hyper-extend the temperature of the water and it boils over the top of the kettle, taking the fish oils with it. In order to do that, the boil over crew has to throw about a half gallon of kerosene onto the fire. The boil over guy stands with the kerosene at his side, making sure that he knows which way the wind is blowing.
Then he walks up and in one motion he throws the kerosene onto the fire. There's this tremendous "whoosh" and intense heat from the fire when the kerosene is thrown on top. Of course, there are "ooo's" and "ahh's" from people, along with screams from terrified old ladies, like the one who grabbed my arm when I was trying to get successive pictures of the fire.
She thought she was grabbing onto her husband, who happened to be taking pictures on her other side. I kind of looked at her, she looked at me and then she looked at her hands clasped tightly around my bicep, and quickly recoiled backwards with a horrified look on her face. She said, "Oh, my gosh! I thought you were my husband and I didn't want you to catch on fire!"
Cindy got a big kick out that. Cindy said, "Hittin' on the old ladies, huh, dear?"
Once the fire began to die down from the boil over, the two boil over guys take a large pipe and put it through the handles of the basket and pull it out of the water. The fish, potatoes and onions are then taken inside for the scheduled feeding. Already, people were lining up to get tickets for the 7 p.m. feed. Cindy said, "You know, the more I get to looking at this, the more I think I need a steak."
So, that's what we did that evening. We passed on a traditional fish boil at the White Gull Inn and went to a steak house instead. But we did go back to the White Gull Inn the next morning for one of their breakfasts. I'll talk about that experience in my next post.
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