Culinary trends can be tricky to predict with the recent trend to sample both exotic and local foods—sometimes on the same plate. The roster of locally available foods is well known, and here in Maine one can expect rather hearty fare; potatoes, lobster, apples and kale are among the offerings, but lately there’s been a newcomer by way of Port Clyde Fresh Catch (PCFC). Though once considered the province of the adventurous gastronomic, squid have found a place among the palate of Maine eaters, and PCFC can barely keep up with demand. A midweek visit to their processing facilities found PCFC President Glen Libby in a blur of activities, among them packing up a fresh order for The Slipway, a restaurant in Thomaston. Libby rushes through the tiny halls lined with freezers and fishtubs, packing list in hand. He rattles through a mental checklist out loud, and pauses: “Wow, look at that. Speaking of squid, Slipway just ordered 20 pounds on Monday, and they want another 30 pounds, and here it’s just two days later.”
Libby says, “It’s nice to see this happening. Even as a kid, I remember looking over the side of the docks when we brought in our catch. You could shine a light down there and there would just be thousands of squid, coming up to the light. ‘You could sell those’, I’d think.” But until recently, squid never found a foothold in Maine markets. “A similar thing happened with crab meat. Years ago if you brought a haul of crab down to the Fish Exchange, they’d call you up and tell you to come get it. No one would buy it! Now look out in that room.” Libby points a Sharpie marker down the hall at a processing room, where five people are lined up around a large white table, rapidly picking apart a small mountain of crabs.
For business reasons, PCFC asks that their source for the squid meat remain anonymous, however, “We really want to give hats off to them, because up until this time, we couldn’t find anyone to do this kind of fishing,” says Dick Mcgee, the treasurer and CFO of Port Clyde Fresh Catch. “Now the economy’s got its troubles, but rather than sitting around and complaining about no work, these two are going out and fishing all night.” At 7 a.m., the two arrive at PCFC with the night’s haul, and from the sound of things, it shows a real opportunity for others who are willing to do the work. “That’s what we want. There could be a lot more of these operations. Think of how many people could be working, if we keep it small, keep it unique, keep the price up for the fishermen,” says Mcgee. Libby, back in the shipping room at Fresh Catch, opines on the new market for squid. “We’d like to see an incremental approach to this new resource that has just ‘appeared,’ if you will. Sure, it seems plentiful, and we could go out there and take as many as we can, but we’ve tried the industrial approach. You end up with a whole infrastructure that requires a lot of money to maintain. It’s kind of neat to see someone who doesn’t have two nickels to rub together go out with a hook and line at night and come in in the morning, and make a few bucks. That’s the ultimate entrepreneur, isn’t it?”
Squid stock is managed nationally by The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and managed here in Maine by the Department of Marine Resources (DMR). Diedre Gilbert, the director of marine policy at the DMR, says that, “other than those catching squid for Port Clyde Fresh Catch, I haven’t heard of anyone commercially fishing for the species. Though the licensing is already in place— anyone can fish for squid commercially with the Pelagic and Anadromous License we already have available.” That license is available for $48, with an accompanying $50 surcharge to help defray other research-related costs associated with stock assessment. “But there isn’t really a squid-specific license for individuals who might want to do this, and that $98 can be a big obstacle to some people,” according to Glen Libby. “My next project is going to be to get a hold of Chris Rector (R – Knox County) and see if we can make a less expensive, more specific license happen.”
Shouting over the crashing pots and whirring machinery of his commercial kitchen, Scott Yakovenko mentions the positive results he’s seen in the new additions to his menu at The Slipway. “Most markets you go to will sell you squid from Rhode Island, out of Point Judith. But we’ve been buying this locally caught squid, and because we are able to offer it so fresh, people are just loving it. We use it for appetizers, we use it for seafood pasta, we just made a Portuguese seafood stew with it. We go through about 10 pounds a day. This local catch, it’s top quality.” How did he meet the demand before? He didn’t, simply enough. “Before we could get it here, I just didn’t have fresh squid on the menu!”
The squid fishery remains a small one, even on a national scale. Reported landings for the entire U.S. average about 19,000 metric tons annually. Longfin squid, the type that is being caught locally, isn’t even mentioned among the statistics that the Department of Marine Resources publishes. And though the utilization of any new resource comes with environmental concerns, it seems as though squid present a unique opportunity; this is where Libby’s emphasis on keeping the fishery small and its growth slow might solve more than just economic issues. As it turns out, the old fashioned method of hook and line is better for the environment, as well. Diedre Gilbert says “from the standpoint of common sense, the environmental impact of people fishing in that fashion is as minimal as it gets.” Fishing grounds are left undisturbed, and bycatch is nearly eliminated.
Warming ocean temperatures may be making the longfin squid a new, permanent addition to Maine’s waters. Residents of North Haven have recently reported seeing great numbers of squid swarming around the floodlights that surround the ferry landing, something that “even surprised the old timers”, according to Jamien Shields, a resident from the island. But it is this odd attraction to light that also makes the squid such an ideal catch for a small operation. “After all,” says Glen Libby, “all you really need to get started is a flashlight, a hook, and a line.”