Scallop Season On Nantucket
It’s a special time of year up north when seasons change and warm weather crowds give way to tight knit communities, unique cultural traditions, and cool, crisp evenings. This fall we got a handful of good friends together and ventured 30 miles off Cape Cod to get the scoop on a local crown jewel; Scallop Season On Nantucket.
The trip started like so many for myself, Max Ablicki, Tucker Finerty, and Camden Spear; scrambling out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, desperately gathering everything together to make a hot cup of coffee, and throwing more bags in the trunk than necessary with a “better safe than sorry” attitude knowing that if you miss a traffic window around Boston, you can add an extra hour to the trip, miss your ferry, and start the mad scramble all over again.
After an overnight on island with our friends at The Green Market Farm, we ventured outside early and took in the quiet hours. With winds up and an unfamiliar feeling having never scalloped in local waters before, we were trying to subdue the nerves with unending amounts of coffee and a breathtaking drive out to a remote peninsula where one dirt road lead to another as the journey began to unfold in front of us. We got to our destination of choice and the excitement began to spike as anticipation began pumping through all of the guys and the gear started coming out of the trunk.
Myself and Max took in our surroundings as we put our wetsuits on and began to adjust our masks. We began the walk down to the water’s edge after matching what we could see on our satelite map with what our eyes could see in front of us. We decided to swim out to a mooring about 50 yards from shore and began working the eel grass as soon as we saw it at our feet.
In preparation for the trip, we poured over depth charts, overland maps, and a few playbooks laid out by our friends on island. While most recreational scallopers we spoke with walk the shoreline with rakes, waders, and a float basket, we knew our tides wouldn’t line up perfectly so decided a winter wetsuit paired with a mask/snorkel would be our weapons of choice when it came to finding and harvesting these succulent beauties.
A strange feeling washed over us as we began to enter to water not knowing if we’d find scallops, how many we’d find, if they’d be big enough to harvest, and if the weather/tides would cooperate enough to get something for the big wood fired dinner we planned with friends. And as luck would have it, all of our nerves subsided about 50 feet into the water when we spotted our first scallop and began to settle into our own individual process - spotting, diving, assessing size, harvesting with our hands, and finally bagging each scallop.
We felt like we were on cloud nine, taking in the salt air, fighting sea spray to show some friends on land the bigger ones we found and diving back down for more. After about 45 minutes, we didn’t want to leave, but felt like we had enough for dinner and a few extra scallops to crack open on the beach as a little reward for all our hard work.
Over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, Scallops have become a delicacy across the world regarded as some of the sweetest and most tender of all seafood. None may be more well regarded or hold more meaning to a local community than on Nantucket where the unique geography and shallow waters of Nantucket Harbor feed nutrients into estuaries and sand bars across the island.
Filled with satisfaction and a healthy dose of salt air, we made our way back to The Green Market Farm where we were staying and where we would host our wood fired dinner that afternoon. The Green Market Farm is the workhorse behind a favorite establishment on island, The Green Market Nantucket, where you can shop sustainable and local custom food boards, organic produce, fresh baked goods, grab-and-go meals, fresh cut flowers, or exceptional household gifts and other items. The property features both a main house and guest house designed by Tessa Cressman with custom-made decor and sustainably minded partnerships created with every brand that outfits the property.
After briefly cleaning up, dinner prep began and we divided up who was responsible for which task. More friends showed up over the course of an hour or two as dinner prep mixed with happy hour and an improvised raw bar as the excitement of the entire day began coming full circle.
Max drives the entire dinner prep process as cooking over an open fire all comes down to timing. We begin by gathering everyone around the grill to start the fire as has become a fun tradition with his reinvigoration of cooking food over an open fire; a lost art form harkening back to the days of our earliest human ancestors.
Our friends Emily, Georgie, and Meg came over and dove right in shooting some film and photos to capture the setting, pouring wine, moving coolers or ingredients, setting the table, and helping Max prep the fire as it began to burn hot. An impromptu shucking lesson broke out as we began talking about our epic morning on the water and the raw bar appetizers were very well received.
Next comes the fun part as I begin shucking everything in sight. Starting with what feels like our own buried treasure that we pulled from the sea that morning and following up with our favorite locally grown Grey Lady Oysters. Making sure everyone gets a taste and learns how to shuck either an oyster or a scallop. When it comes to our appetizers and dinner prep, we’re not shy about using the “one for me, one for you” method.
Rounding out the grilled menu, Max brought in some locally caught Swordfish A La Plancha, grilled cabbage, and cooked both our onions and butternut squash in the ashes. We added our seafood course of local Nantucket bay scallops with fennel, oysters with foraged sea rocket, and grilled lemons.
Finally, it came time to sit and share a meal cooked with fresh ingredients harvested by us as a group. Before sitting down, I was encouraged to give a small toast from the heart and I realized that this moment embodied Long Wharf as a brand as well as any moment in our history; a truly authentic adventure set amongst a stunning natural community and landscape and enjoyed by really good people. We hope you get a chance to appreciate something as meaningful as our adventure during Scallop Season On Nantucket. Cheers!
