By CINDA CHAVICH

(VANCOUVER, B.C.) - If ever there was a food that deserved a pilgrimage, it’s the B.C. spot prawn.

Our own very unique coastal crustacean, the spot prawn is only fished in May and June, and chefs rise to the seasonal occasion with special menus and festivals that make eating your fill of this sweet, pink wonder a local sport. Seared, steamed, grilled and gravlaaxed, spot prawns are on all of the best west coast menus, whether they’re served in the city, up the Sunshine coast or next to a wild beach in Tofino.

VANCOUVER’S PREMIUM PRAWN

A real delicacy – with a premium price tag – the wild spot prawn is a unique species, found only in west coast waters. It’s a rare carnivore among the mainly vegetarian prawn population, ergo, it can be trapped, like a lobster or a crab, in a baited trap, and isn’t dragged from the ocean floor or farmed under questionable conditions like so many of the other shrimp we eat.

That makes a spot prawn a truly sustainable seafood option, which feels good, even when you’re peeling a pot full and sucking out their tasty little heads.

Delicate and sweet on the plate, spot prawns are equally fragile once fished, so they’re delivered alive and kicking to west coast chefs just hours after they’re caught. Chefs in top restaurants across the country serve spot prawns, too – whether you’re dining at Rouge in Calgary or Canoe in Toronto – but away from west coast waters, most chefs must use frozen prawns.

So to really taste this perishable prawn fresh, as they do for just two months every spring in Vancouver, you must come to the source.

FISHING FOR SPOT PRAWNS

Ground zero is down on the docks at False Creek’s Fisherman’s Wharf, just opposite the Granville Island Market, where Steve Johansen and crew arrive every afternoon with their fresh catch of wriggling red specimens. When you get to Go Fish – the popular fish and chips stand – hang a right down the gangplank to Johansen’s big aluminum boat.

Johansen’s Organic Ocean is seafood supplier to the local (culinary) stars and during the short, eight-week spot prawn season, he’s out on the water at 6 a.m. every day, hauling up and emptying his 300 traps, resetting them in the deep waters of the Georgia Strait, and arriving at the public dock by early afternoon, with a pile of live, snappy spot prawns to sell to a hungry public and deliver to awaiting restaurants.

That’s how they get into the kitchen every day at Vancouver’s busy Coast restaurant, and at places like Yew in the Four Seasons Hotel, one of the many places in Vancouver and other west coast communities that offer special spot prawn menus during the season.

“We’re getting them in fresh every day at 4 p.m.,” says server David Lew, delivering a refreshing bowl of spicy gazpacho topped with grilled spot prawns and a perfect pairing of pink Laughing Stock Rosé, sold exclusively in the hotel. “They’re still jumping – it startled the cook when one jumped right out of the container!”

Yew chef Kevin Erving has a special spot prawn menu featuring dishes like grilled spot prawns with lemon, asparagus and spicy aioli, spot prawn and Meyer lemon ceviche with strawberries, and fresh seared halibut with local morel mushrooms and tender spot prawns on the side.

“They’re only available for a short time, like truffles or asparagus or any other seasonal food,” says Erving. “We only have spot prawns now, but I prefer this prawn to any others.”

Coast sous chef Alfred Contiga agrees.

“They’re just so naturally sweet and buttery,” says Contiga proffering a spot prawn salad with black sesame dressing, and a pot of steamy spot prawns in a spicy coconut broth from his special spot prawn menu. “This is the best thing about Vancouver and just like our motto – we catch it, we cook it, fresh every day.”

It was the Chefs’ Table Society of B.C. that first championed the spot prawn with a festival in Vancouver five years ago, and now events are being planned across the country, the first in the Okanagan in June.

“The first year there were 400 people down here on the dock and this year there were thousands,” says Johansen, dumping a “bucket” of deep red prawns into a wire basket and hosing them down with sea water until they’re gleaming. With candy-cane tentacles and distinctive white spots, these prawns are pristine, unlike the ubiquitous tiger prawns Johansen says are farmed in fetid “sewage lagoons” with chemicals and antibiotics throughout Thailand, China and India.

It’s the kind of prawn you want if you’re having it raw in the Ama ebi sashimi at famed Tojo’s, or at any of the other A-list restaurants celebrating the unique local specialty over the coming weeks. And it’s the kind that gets the green light from the Vancouver Aquarium’s Sea Choice and Ocean Wise sustainable seafood programs.

It’s also the most amazing shrimp you’ll every taste, a clean, fresh and sweet spring treat – so there’s no time like the present for a prawn pilgrimage to the wonderful west coast.

MORE SPOT PRAWN PILGRIMAGES:

SPOT PRAWN FESTIVALS

The B.C. Chefs’ Table Society takes its popular B.C. Spot Prawn Festival on the road this year with spot prawn festivals in Kelowna June 4 from 1-4 p.m. at The Manteo Resort, and Oysoyoos June 5 from 1-4 p.m. at the Watermark Beach Resort. Local chefs will be cooking samples of creative spot prawn dishes and wild spot prawns will be available for sale at Codfather’s in Kelowna. Talk to the people from Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise program to learn more about why this local prawn fishery is considered one of the most sustainable on the planet. Look for spot prawn festivals in Calgary and Toronto in 2012.

FEAST!

In Tofino and neighboring Ucluelet, the first annual Feast! Seafood festival continues until June 5, celebrating sustainable local seafood, from salmon and oysters to halibut, Dungeness crab and spot prawns. Chefs will be cooking unique spot prawn dishes to sample for free, this weekend at the Tofino Dock and the Ucluelet Dock as part of Spot Prawn Festival Week. Look for spot prawns on the menu at the Wickaninnish Inn, Shelter, The Schooner, Norwood’s and Wildside Grill throughout the spring season, and see which chef takes the title of in Battle Spot Prawn this weekend at Black Rock Resort in Ucluelet. www.feast.bc.com

SPOT PRAWNS ON THE MENU

Look for spot prawns on Ocean Wise menus in restaurants across the country during the spring harvest season, but especially in Vancouver, on Vancouver Island and along the Sunshine Coast. www.oceanwise.ca/find-seafood

©Cinda Chavich 2011

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