Thank you, Dennis, and thank you all for coming today.
How many of you is this your first time to Harbor Branch?
Great.
Well, welcome to Harbor Branch, and welcome back to those that have been here before.
How many of you like to cook?
All right.
Okay.
Well, we're gonna have some fun today.
We're gonna do a little bit of cooking, and we're gonna do a little bit of learning at
the same time.
So, if you have your recipes in front of you - can you hear me okay?
Okay.
I think we should start with the rice, which is on the back page.
Jill, can you turn it up just a little bit?
So, we have – let me just go to the blank slide here.
Okay.
So, I'd also like to introduce you to my helper, Brian Cousin, who is going to be able to film
as we're cooking.
That way you'll be able to see exactly what's going on.
So, we're starting here with this pot of water.
Very exciting.
And we're going to make coconut rice.
And, as somebody pointed out to me, lemon zest – but actually I have lime zest in
the ingredients.
But you could use either.
So that would be fine.
And we're gonna add some coconut milk to it.
So, instead of adding all water, we're actually gonna add some water.
Which was about one and a quarter cups of water.
And then we're gonna add some coconut milk.
Now, if you're in the islands, you would be able to – there we go – you would be able
to use fresh coconut, right out of the shell.
But instead, we are going to use coconut milk.
And you can see that this is actually has a nice creamy, coconut topping on it.
So we're gonna put that in there, and it's gonna melt.
What's that?
It's unsweetened.
Yes.
Unsweetened.
But this is the regular coconut milk, and it is quite rich.
And that's one of the reasons that I suggested maybe to add a little bit of lemon or lime
zest.
And then you can see, at the bottom of that, it's liquid.
Right?
So we're gonna let that melt for a minute.
Now, if you don't want it so rich, you could actually use some light coconut.
See where it says, "light coconut milk"?
And it won't have as much of the creamy topping as the regular one.
Okay.
We'll just turn that up a little bit.
And while that is starting to melt and to boil, what we're gonna do is add the lemon
or the lime zest.
And if you've seen my cooking before, you can know that I love to zest.
And so, I highly recommend that you all learn to love to zest.
And so, it's just a wonderful way to add some flavor to just about any dish that you make.
Especially when it comes to seafood.
So there we go.
We don't go too deep.
Just enough to get the rind, right?
And you can see right in the pot there.
Yep.
Good.
There's the lemon zest.
Now, somebody asked me if that was sweetened coconut, and it wasn't.
But the recipe does call for a little bit of sugar.
So just – and you wouldn't have to add it, but I'm gonna add just a teaspoon of sugar.
And a pinch of salt.
And I like to use sea salt.
I'll just add just a little pinch of salt.
Maybe a couple pinches.
Okay.
So, we'll let that come to a boil.
You can see it's already starting to melt really nicely.
Okay.
We'll just let that come to a boil.
Meanwhile, we'll just go ahead and pour out the rice.
I really like jasmine rice.
It's got a lot of beautiful aromatic flavor, and also smell to it.
So it's a really nice rice to add to it.
But you could use any kind of white rice.
Basmati white rice, regular white rice.
In this case – oh.
There we go.
Then we're gonna end up with a cup and a half.
I always like to wait for the water to boil before I add the rice.
That way it won't be so sticky.
Unless you're trying to make sticky rice.
We'll just wait a few more minutes on that.
And what we're gonna do is, turn our attention now to the salsa.
And you can see that I've done a little bit of preparatory work before you all got here.
And this is a tropical salsa.
So this salsa has – if you look at your ingredients, it's got pineapple in it.
It's got small tomatoes diced up.
It's got scallions.
I'm not a big fan of raw onion, so I chose scallions.
But if you like red onion, you could put that in there.
And I didn't put garlic, because I'm not a fan of raw garlic.
So you're going my style today.
But you could put garlic in there.
I used a red, green, and actually orange pepper.
But you could use yellow.
We're gonna add salt and pepper, lime, and cilantro.
And then I want to add some mango, as well.
Actually, I'll bring it back over here, Brian, for you.
How many of you like to eat mango?
I know one person that really loves mango.
So, how many of you know how to cut mango?
Or you find kind of awkward to cut it?
Yeah.
So, I'm gonna show you a trick, if you haven't seen this already.
You slice down one side of the mango seed.
If you cut too close, it's not gonna work.
So let's try another cut here.
There we go.
Okay.
Beautiful.
So you have this mango like this.
And then you take – okay.
Hold on a minute.
We've gotta put our rice in.
Okay.
That was one cup.
Stir just a bit.
Add the other half a cup.
And then, would somebody be so kind to time 18 minutes.
Who could I ask to time 18 minutes?
Okay.
You're on.
Maybe we should have two people just in case.
Just for backup.
Not that it won't work for you, but you always want backup.
Synchronize.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, I'm gonna use flame tamer, just to put it down on really low so it won't stick to
the bottom.
If you're working with gas, it's really nice to have a flame tamer.
If it's electric, then you don't typically need it.
And we'll turn it way down and cover it.
Okay.
Let's get back to our mango.
So, we take a sharp knife, and you don't cut all the way through.
But you just cut enough in that direction like that.
And then you turn it and you go the other direction like this.
And then, this is the fun part.
Look at that.
So, from there – this is a tropical salsa.
You can see it has both pineapple, and it's got mango in here.
So, it's really quite a nice flavor.
Very tropical.
So you can see how easy it is to cut right off the skin.
And then, if you were eating it right off the skin, that's another way.
You could make them bigger chunks, and it would be easy to eat it that way, too.
And then there's no easy way to eat the seed.
You just kind of put it to your mouth and eat it.
Okay.
So there's our mango.
And we'll mix that in there.
And then we need some cilantro.
So, let me have a show of hands.
Who's in the "I like cilantro" group?
All right.
And who's in the "I don't care for cilantro" group?
Oh, not too many.
Can you tell me why you don't like cilantro?
It tastes like soap.
Tastes like soap.
That's what I hear.
But you could use parsley instead.
That would be an alternative to cilantro.
And it can really be chopped.
It doesn't have to be too fine.
You can just see kind of in big pieces here.
I took off the big heavy stems ahead of time.
But some of the stems are fine to have in the salsa.
Okay.
Put that in there.
And stir it all in like this.
Looking pretty good, isn't it?
And we still need to add the juice of a lime.
So we'll use this lime that we zested with.
I have this little juicer here that you can put the lime in, and you just squeeze it like
this.
Oh, this doesn't have very much juice in it, though, does it?
There we go.
A little bit is coming out.
There we go.
Just a little bit.
I think we'll probably wanna put two in, but we'll do that later.
We'll add a little bit of pepper.
You could add – I didn't add any jalapeño, but you could add cayenne to it, or tabasco,
if you like it hot like that.
We'll just add a little bit of pepper there.
Yeah, we'll see how that works.
And a little bit of salt.
And I think our salsa is ready.
So this is gonna be a really nice addition to eating it with the lobster, and eating
it with the rice.
So we'll set it aside for now, and let it sort of marinate for a little bit.
How we doing on the time for the rice?
It's only been five minutes?
Okay.
Okay.
We won't touch it then.
Well, we'll just take a little peak.
Okay.
See, it's just simmering.
That's perfect.
That's exactly – can you see it?
Just kinda like little bubbles.
All right.
So, we're gonna move on now to part of the presentation.
I wanna talk with you about conch and lobsters today.
So we're gonna shift gears away from the cooking area, and go back to the slides.
Good.
Okay.
So, conch and lobsters are one of the most important fishery species in the Caribbean.
And I don't know if you know this coat of arms, but it's from the Turks and Caicos,
where I spent ten years with my husband working on the queen conch.
And so I thought, "How appropriate!" It really tells it all right here.
Does anybody know what this is?
You ever seen this before?
It's a Turks head cactus.
And so, that's how Turks and Caicos got named, after the Turks head cactus.
So, we're gonna start off talking about one of my most favorite animals in the entire
world, and that's the queen conch.
I've been working with the queen conch now for almost 40 years.
And so, I was fortunate to be in the Turks and Caicos developing the commercial techniques
for the queen conch.
And then, throughout my career, I've been able to work on different aspects of the conch.
And so, I wanna tell you about a new project that I was able to start last year.
And it takes place in a beautiful place called Hummingbird Cay.
And when I was looking for Hummingbird Cay on the internet, I found this beautiful photo
and this quote – this Tweet – by Scott Kelly who's been up at the space station.
And he says, "Bahamas.
The strokes of your watercolors are always a refreshing site."
And doesn't it look like a watercolor painting?
It's just so surreal to see the beautiful pristine blues, and the islands.
So, this is a chain of islands that happens to be off of the coast of Great Exuma.
So right here.
And so, there's Florida.
So it's about one hour flight down to Georgetown.
And then you get in a boat, and you go for about a half an hour – seven miles – to
this tiny little archipelago.
And Hummingbird Cay is only 230 acres.
It's a private island.
And it's a very special place.
And this is Van Bernhard, the owner of the island.
And for about three years he would call me up and he'd say, "You know, one day, I want
you to come and grow conch down in the Bahamas."
And I'd say, "Okay.
That sounds good."
And then one day he called me up, and he said, "Today's the day."
I'm like, "Really?
Just like that?"
And he said, "Yes.
Because we now have all of these solar panels that are set up on the island.
And we have enough electricity for you to be able to have your laboratory there."
And so, Van's son-in-law, Harold, is the one that actually put the solar panel together.
So this is the little bungalow where people stay when they come on the island.
And the building in the background is the kitchen.
There's only, like, five buildings on the island.
And at one point this summer, there was only four of us on the island.
So it's a very quiet, remote place.
So the reason that Van wants to grow conch in the islands is because he wants to work
with the fisherman to do restocking of the conch.
And so, I'm all for that.
And that's been part of the whole goal of why I wanted to grow conch for all these years.
Not only to eat them, but also to do restoration.
So, we had a group of fisherman.
I know they don't look like – you know, I looked at this picture and I thought, "Are
they really interested?"
But they were.
They asked fantastic questions, and they're all fisherman.
And they all are so excited about the project coming on.
And so, we talked about the adult conch.
We brought them some veligers to look at and some eggs.
And I'll show you some more of that.
And so, we just talked about the whole life cycle.
And it takes about three years to grow a conch until it's sexually mature.
And so, this is the laboratory.
So, my husband Gary and I went down there last February – a year ago.
And this place was just like a hole in the wall.
It had no door on it, you could see through the walls.
And I'm like, "Yeah.
Sure.
We can turn this into a lab.
And it's 11 feet by 13 feet.
So it's a tiny place.
And sure enough, it got turned into a great little lab.
So, in the corner over here, they built in some shelves there.
And we could set up our experiments.
And then on the other side of the wall, we had our microscope set up.
So this is where we conducted our studies.
And we would bring in all our water.
This is Sam.
And Sam would help us go out to sea.
We didn't have running sea water, but we could just bring it in in jugs, and be able to use
it in the hatchery.
So, I'm gonna tell you about an experiment that my intern and I – my intern is Laura
Issac, and she was funded by the Link Foundation summer internship.
And so, Laura had never been overseas.
She's from Kentucky.
And she didn't have a passport.
So when I talked to her on the phone, I said, "There's two things you need to be able to
do if you're gonna be my intern this summer.
One, you need a passport.
And two, you have to be able to live remotely for at least two weeks."
And so, that can be somewhat challenging for someone that's only 20.
But she was up for the game of this.
And so, we went ahead and set up this experiment where we were looking at conch veligers.
A veliger is a larvae, once they hatch out.
And you're gonna get to see some of those.
And we wanted to look at the growth rate from five different egg masses.
And Strombus gigas is the scientific name.
How we doing on the rice?
Ten more minutes, or it's been ten minutes?
It's been six minutes?
No.
It's been 11 minutes.
Okay.
Thanks.
Doing good.
Okay.
So, what we did is, we got together with one of the local fisherman here, Jonathon.
And Jonathon knew exactly where to go to find the eggs.
And he took us to a secret place.
He blindfolded us and said, "You can't tell anybody where these conch egg masses are."
And there's Laura up in the – let's see – your left hand.
And that's Tyler, who's Van Bernhard's grandson.
So he was also our helper this summer.
So, Jonathon helped to find some conch egg masses – oh gosh.
It was in about 30, 40 feet of water.
And so, we brought back the eggs.
You can see them here.
The eggs of a conch – have half a million eggs in them.
And if you stretch the strand – which is covered in sand – it would be about a fifth
of a football field.
So they go a really long way.
They only lay eggs in the summertime.
So it has to be anywhere from April through about September.
And then they stop laying for the rest of the season.
So, we didn't take the whole egg mass.
We just took a pinch of the egg mass.
Because we didn't need all 500,000.
But we wanted to see what the variation was between them.
So, we had lots of visitors to our lab, over the course of that two weeks we were there.
And I'm gonna show you what they were looking at under the microscope.
So, this is a sand grain.
Okay?
So, if we go back to this.
See how little the sand grains are?
So, they're very sticky, the eggs.
So that's why they get covered.
It camouflages them.
So there's a tiny sand grain.
So you can see how small the conch are when they first start, right?
And this is after they've just been laid.
So you can hardly – you can differentiate a few cells that are dividing.
And then you can see the egg capsule.
And inside the egg capsule, they're in a coil.
And inside the coil, they're in a strand.
So it's three layers deep to get to the developing embryo.
So I'm gonna show you a little video here.
And watch the eggs, because what you're gonna start to do is, you're gonna start to see
them turning.
You see that one there?
That one there, turning?
Where I have the little – Did you see it?
Who got to see it?
Should I do it again?
Okay.
See that one?
See it turning now?
Everybody get to see that?
Okay.
You're gonna get to see it in a little more developed.
So, after four to six days, these embryos start to really develop a lot.
So you can differentiate exactly what's in there.
So, that's four days later.
So you saw that ball of cells.
And this is – now you can see the shell of the conch.
You can see the velar lobes of the conch.
You can see the foot, which is the foot – the part that we eat.
You can see the eyes developing.
So, let's take a closer look at this, as well.
So, here's a little video.
Look again.
You can see the sand grains here again, and the size of them.
So, here we go.
Look at – see these?
See them turning?
See that one turning?
So, as soon as you start seeing that, you know that they're ready to hatch.
So, there they are.
They're hatching.
They're just little guys.
Swimming around like little helicopters.
So, what we did is, we staged all those five egg masses.
We looked to see when they were just newly hatched, how long it took them to get to the
next day – the next development, stage four.
And then ready to hatch.
And so, we were able to look at every egg mass that we brought in.
And we found out there was variation.
It took anywhere from four days to six days until they were ready to hatch out of the
egg strand.
And so, we also looked to see when they hatch.
Did they hatch on that fourth day?
Let me phrase it different.
When they were ready to hatch, did they all hatch out on the first night?
Or did some of them hatch also on a second night?
So, when you saw them all swimming out of the egg strands, they have a lot of layers
to get through.
And there's an enzyme in there that helps them to escape the eggs strand and get out.
And so, what we found is, that the majority – three of the egg masses that we had – the
majority of them hatched on the first night.
And these two egg masses, it took two days for them to hatch.
What I've found over the years is that they hatch at 9:00 at night.
Nine o'clock at night.
So I said to Laura, "Laura, it's five minutes to 9:00.
Let's go down there and see if they hatch."
And they did.
They hatched at 9:00.
I don't know what it is.
But that's the magic number.
So, here's one of these cute little veligers that hatched.
And you can see the shell.
So, what we did the next morning when we went into the lab, we went in with tiny pipettes,
and we counted one by one.
And we put ten veligers in every single treatment.
What happened?
Oh, the rice.
Thank you.
I'm glad I have you all as helpers.
It's not quite done.
So if somebody could remind me in about three minutes, that would be super.
So, we set up experiments to look at different growth rates between egg masses.
And then we set up experiments to look at different foods that we fed them.
So, let's see what happened.
First of all, got a great little video here for you.
So you can see what they look like when they're swimming around like little helicopters.
You can see their eyes, you can see their foot.
You can see their shell, their little lobes.
You think they're cute?
Who thinks they're cute?
Yeah, they're cute.
So, this is the algae that we grew.
We took some algae with us down to the islands from here at Harbor Branch.
And we grew something called Tahitian Isochrysis.
And we also grew a diatom called Chaetoceros.
And then we also just took some plain, ordinary saltwater out of the ocean where they live,
and we added nutrients to it.
And it bloomed.
Is that my 18-minute reminder?
Okay.
Thanks, David.
So, here's Laura.
She's feeding all the different experiments with the different types of feed.
And so, we watched their growth.
We were only there for about a week to watch their growth.
And so, you already just saw the two lobes.
But by day four, they have the four lobes.
By day four, some of them – if they're really further along – they could start to develop
the six lobes.
Which is as many lobes as they end up with.
And then we would measure their shell length from the beak of the shell to the apex of
the shell.
Their lobe development.
Have they been feeding?
You can see here, they have orange in their guts.
That's their digestive system.
So you can see that they're taking in the phytoplankton.
And then we would watch to see how they move around.
So, this is a four-day old veliger.
And what's so cool here, you see the beating heart?
Right?
And it has two hearts.
It has a heart that's a larval heart, and then it has a heart that is developing for
when it becomes a juvenile and an adult.
Which you can also see here – I'll point it out – you can see the foot developing.
And here's the lobes.
So this veliger is tucked inside its shell, and it's starting to come out to show you
its lobes.
A little bit ahead.
And you can see the cilia.
See all the movement of the cilia?
And that cilia is used not only for movement, but it's also used to collect the phytoplankton
from the ocean.
So, they eat phytoplankton.
They're vegetarians their entire life.
And they eat the phytoplankton.
So, oh, look at this.
You can see their eyes.
See their eyes there?
See?
Right?
There you go.
So, this is the results of the data.
The rice?
Okay.
The rice.
Oh, this is looking pretty good.
Okay.
You won't get to see it until we go back on camera.
But, you know what?
It's not done yet.
So, another few minutes, if you don't mind.
So what we saw here is – this is a shell lip.
Now, these veligers – I forgot to tell you – are the size of the sharp tip of a pin.
I mean, they're really tiny when they hatch out.
Which is about 250-300 microns.
So, over the course of three days, you can see that they grew.
And two of the egg masses grew at a faster rate than the other two.
So we wanted to see the variation, and sure enough there was.
And then we wanted to see, "Well, the one egg mass we chose to do this experiment with.
What if we fed part of the veligers the isochrysis, part of them the diatom, and part of them
the natural foods?"
Because we wanted to see if we could actually just feed them the natural foods that's in
their environment.
So, you can see that the ones that were fed the cultured food grew a little bit faster.
But really the natural food still did pretty good.
So, when we go back and do the experiment again, we'll continue that study all the way
through to metamorphosis.
So, speaking of metamorphosis, I wanna show you Hoover.
Hoover, that's his name.
There he comes.
So, this is a metamorphosed conch.
This is three weeks after they hatch, okay?
So, three weeks after they hatch.
We have to see Hoover again, leaping along.
He's lost his lobe.
So now he's eating his algae, and it's just so cool.
You can see all the algae going inside his body.
So, the moral of this experiment and of this story, as we begin to do the restoration of
the queen conch is that you should use lots of different egg masses.
Because you wanna keep that variation.
Just like nature has a lot of variation in it.
You wanna also make sure that you collect five, ten, twenty different egg masses.
And raise veligers and juveniles from a wide range of the egg masses, so that when you
put them out in the wild, that they keep the natural genetic diversity that you would find
in nature.
Okay.
So we're gonna switch gears now to lobster, in just a couple of minutes.
Let's take a peak at the rice.
We'll let that sit for a few more minutes.
Has anybody seen this?
Down in the Keys, the middle Keys, right?
So, the spiny lobster is a very important fishery species in the Caribbean, but also
in Florida.
And actually, Florida is one of the top producers of spiny lobsters from the fisheries.
And so, there's three different kinds of lobsters.
And actually, I have samples of them all here.
So, maybe what we can do, Brian, is – Jill, we're gonna go back to the camera for Brian
to zoom in a little closer on these lobsters.
Oh, that's pretty close, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's good?
So, let's start with this one.
It's obviously the spiny lobster, right?
And they're all legal size.
They have to be three and a half inches in what they call their carapace length.
So that makes them about a year and a half to two years old.
Spiny lobster gets it name for a good reason.
I mean, it's got its sharp protrusions here.
It's got spines all over its antennae.
It's got spines all over its carapace.
What I also wanna show you is that the males are different than the females.
So, here's the male.
The pereiopods here.
And then I wanna show you the difference with the female.
The female has a second set, and that's where she holds her eggs.
So, you can see that there.
You can see the difference, right?
So, there's your male and female.
Here's your Maine lobster, right?
The New England lobster.
So, they have claws instead of the long, spiny antennae.
They live in the northern parts of the States, up in New England and into Canada.
And then we've got one more species here.
This is a slipper lobster.
Anybody see one of these guys before?
They're really unusual looking.
They're also called a shovel nose, because they can kinda get underneath.
So, these are actually edible, too.
There's really not a big trade on them.
And they're beautiful.
Actually, this is a female, also.
She's got a second set.
So, they're also very delicious.
The biggest difference in the spawning of the spiny lobster and the clawed lobster is
that the spiny lobster only holds her eggs for about two or three weeks, and then she
hatches them.
Whereas, the New England lobster actually holds the eggs internally for nine months,
and then externally for nine months.
And then they hatch.
And when they hatch, it only takes about two weeks until they metamorphose.
Whereas, the spiny lobster takes almost a year for the larvae to metamorphose.
So there's a big difference in their lifecycle.
Okay.
So, we'll set those aside a minute.
But while I have you on camera, Brian, why don't we take a look at the rice here?
Let's see what – oh.
This is looking pretty good, actually.
Can you smell it?
It's perfect, if I must say so myself.
Okay.
Turning that off, but we're gonna start this one up.
Okay.
We're gonna go back to the slides.
Okay.
I have a video.
It's a beautiful video of the spiny lobster mating and spawning.
And it was done by a group of Japanese – similar to a National Geographic here.
It's the equivalent in Japan.
And so, a little bit of music to it.
So, this is the courtship going on.
So, the male is depositing the sperm sac with the female.
[Music playing]
Okay, and they go their own separate ways.
So, there you can see the sperm sac that was deposited by the male on the female, and then
she'll use that to fertilize her eggs.
And then, you can see her here, fanning her eggs – or pruning her eggs.
This is a spiny lobster, and she'll do that for about two to three weeks.
She's taking care of them, making sure that they're all – that's what the eggs look
like when they're developing.
A little closer look.
You can see the eyes.
She's fanning them.
Just keeping them really well aerated.
Here she goes.
She's gonna have a big spawn now.
Isn't that amazing?
She's in deep water.
So, she's gone off to the deep water to release her eggs.
[Music playing]
Little lobsters have just hatched out.
What's amazing is, they have 11 molts when they're going through – for these 12 months
that they're floating around in the ocean.
And they look like these glass spiders.
And they continue to molt.
And you can see all their appendages there.
They're so clear, we can barely see them there.
Hard to believe that turns into a little spiny lobster.
[Music playing]
So, they're feeding.
That's the gut in the middle there.
It's feeding.
So you can see the lobster tail of the juvenile right here.
So what's gonna happen?
Watch really carefully, and you'll see it molting.
There it goes.
He's gonna turn now from a larvae into a little juvenile.
[Music playing]
So there's after metamorphosis.
From being a phyllosoma larvae to now being what they call a puerulus.
That's what's left behind.
That's the molt.
Because that's how lobsters and crustaceans grow, right?
They have to molt.
That's all that's left.
And then the little juveniles settle to the bottom.
Here he is.
He's clear at first, completely clear.
[Music playing]
They hide in the sea grass, and in the algae, those fun areas.
The next molt, they turn colorful like that.
So, there has been a lot of spiny lobster aquaculture around the world, but it is somewhat
difficult because of its very long larval cycle.
And also, some of the nutrition isn't quite understood for the lobsters.
And then, finding the right system to actually grow them in.
And so, what we're gonna do now is, we're gonna finish – we're gonna cook lobster.
Our cute little lobster.
And I'm going to answer questions as we finish cooking.
Because I feel like I'm on Chopped right now, because I only have 15 minutes left.
And so, I'd love to take some questions as we continue to work.
So, we're gonna do two recipes here.
We've already finished the rice and salsa.
So we're gonna go to the front page, and we're gonna cook lobster.
And the way I like to cook lobster is, I like to steam it.
And that way you can really control the cooking of it.
And so, we've got two lobster here.
They actually both happen to be females, right?
So we're gonna go ahead and put them in.
Okay.
And we're gonna keep the water at a fairly steady boil.
And we'll probably get to see them turn slightly pink.
All right.
I need some more timers.
We're gonna do 12 minutes exactly.
No ifs, ands, or buts.
It really has to be 12 minutes.
Because I don't know about you, but overcooked seafood is not so great.
So, really, when they're about this size – this is a small and a medium sized lobster – 12
minutes should be adequate for them to cook.
So, while that's cooking, we're gonna turn our attention now to plantains.
Okay.
Let's see.
So, there's three different – not different plantains, but three different levels of ripeness
for plantains.
So, you can have the green ones, which are very good, but they're very starchy.
More like a potato.
You can have the very ripe ones.
Those are gonna be sweet.
Or if you like them kinda in between, you can do in between.
So, today what we're gonna do is, we're gonna go ahead and cook these two.
So, these ones are a little tough because they're not ripe yet.
So you're gonna have to slice the skin itself and peel them.
There you go.
See?
Just kind of peel them off there.
See how tough they are?
Oh.
There you go.
And then I like to slice them so that they're diagonal, like this.
Right?
They don't take very long to cook.
I like to use safflower oil or sunflower oil, because it's a very high heat oil.
So it's one of the best ones to use.
Let's see if it's ready.
And how are our lobsters doing over here?
Are they starting to turn pink?
Not quite yet.
And then, the ripe ones are a little easier to peel.
I know.
When you look at these in the grocery store, you're like, "Really?"
You don't really wanna eat them.
But really, these ones are quite lovely.
They're beautiful and sweet.
See how easy it peels?
This one peeled right off, right?
Okay.
So, cook a few of those as well.
So, do you have any questions?
Any questions?
Yes, ma'am?
What is the nutritional value of plantains?
Oh, gosh.
The nutritional value of plantains.
I don't have the answer for that.
But I bet they're good for you.
Anybody know?
Yes, sir?
The lobster water, is that salted?
You can salt it, but it's not salted.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It would be fine to salt it.
Not necessary.
Yes, Patty?
Can you use the coconut milk that you get in the supermarket that comes in a container
like regular milk does?
Yes.
You could use coconut milk, like the regular coconut milk.
Yeah.
Any type of coconut milk will work.
Yep.
Any coconut milk will work.
Okay.
So, we've got a little bit of bubbling going on here.
The oil is looking good.
Put these ones over here.
So, you can see that the oil comes up about halfway up the plantain.
You can reuse this oil, too, if you choose to.
And it only takes, gosh, maybe a couple minutes on every side.
If that.
How many of the lobsters survive to adulthood?
Okay.
How many lobsters survive to adulthood?
So, in the wild, typically less than one percent survive.
And most of the – you can imagine, with a year-long larval cycle of a lobster floating
through the ocean like that, that not very many make it to that.
And then once they become juveniles, the survival goes up more and more.
And as they get into adults, they go up as well.
Okay.
So, if we look at our lobsters over here.
See, they turned pink?
How are we doing on time?
Plenty of time.
Okay.
Yes, sir?
I've got a question about conchs.
When the diver went down – the fisherman – to get the eggs, how do you know that
they were all laid at the same time?
Okay.
So, that's a great question.
How do you know that the eggs were all laid at the same time?
Because if you're doing a study where you're looking at development, you wanna make sure
that they're all laid at the same time.
So, we gave very strict directions to the fisherman that said that they had to take
the eggs from underneath the female as she was laying them.
And a female takes about 36 hours to lay an egg.
So we pretty much knew that it was somewhere between.
So, it could be _____ a day?
There can.
But we – and you're absolutely right on that.
And so, we took a pinch from every one.
But we could tell, looking under the microscope, how old it was.
Whether or not it had just been laid, which is just like one cell.
Or if it was multiple cells, and then we knew it was a day older.
So, we noted that on our data.
But thanks.
You wanna come do some field work with me?
You're very observant.
Sure.
I'll take a free trip down to the Bahamas.
All right.
So, we're gonna flip these.
They could even get a little browner than this.
But actually, you'll see that the sweet ones brown up a little bit more.
I'll leave that one for a minute.
You mentioned that the conch was – took about two years to become sexually mature.
Three years for a conch.
How long does it take to reach harvest size?
So, the conch that develop a lip like this, they're three to four years old.
So, they're sexually mature.
They're ready to harvest.
As long as they have the lip.
They're both ready to harvest, and also mature.
Okay.
Here we go.
Here's the nutritional value of plantains.
Excuse me?
The nutritional value of plantains.
The nutritional value of the?
Plantain.
Plantain.
Oh, okay.
Vitamin C, vitamin A, and B6.
And it's considered a vegetable.
Oh, there you go.
Okay.
So, I think our plantains are almost done here.
I'm just gonna lay them out on a paper towel.
Are you okay with this?
Yeah.
I should let this go a little longer.
I'm going to switch utensils here.
Now, sometimes, in the islands, I'll take these plantains that are already cooked and
I'll smash them.
They'll take something like a bottle or something – something that they can smash – and
then they will refry them again, and make them really crispy.
How are we doing on the lobsters?
Still plenty of time?
Or are we getting close?
Almost three minutes.
Three minutes left?
Yes, sir?
Say you had a conch in your hand, and it scared you – you dropped it or something – will
it harm it?
Oh.
If you come across a conch, and you picked it up and drop it?
No.
They're pretty hardy animals.
So, you can't hurt a conch, really.
Unless you take it outta the shell and eat it.
Okay.
Is it true that the conch is an aphrodisiac?
That's what I hear.
Anybody experience that?
[Laughter]
So, we're gonna get a little prepared here for – let's see – our lobster salad.
Any more questions?
A couple more questions?
Yes, Debbie?
What are lobes on the development of a conch?
Okay.
So, the lobes that I talked about is what the conch use to swim in the ocean with.
So, they have the shell, and then the soft body tissue comes out.
And the lobes with the little cilia on them.
And those are the ones that start with two lobes, go to four lobes, and then go to six
lobes.
And then, at metamorphosis, they shed them.
Isn't it a certain part of the conch that's supposed to be the aphrodisiac?
That –
Yes.
It's the style.
And so, how many people have cleaned conch before?
Okay.
So, a few of you have.
When you clean a conch, there's something that almost looks like a clear spaghetti.
Has anybody seen that?
And it's actually what's used to – it's actually a mortar and pestle, if you think
of it like that.
Because they eat a lot of algae.
And so, they actually spin this against the plate inside there.
So, sometimes when you pull it out – when you've been cleaning it – actually people
eat that, and they say that's the aphrodisiac.
Okay.
So, we're getting our plate together here.
Waiting for the lobster.
You sure it hasn't been 12 minutes?
Two more minutes.
Two more minutes?
Okay.
So, I'm just fluffing the rice a little bit.
So, we're just starting to partially get the plate ready.
With the plantains, you can put a little sprinkle of salt on it.
Okay.
How we doing on the lobster?
Time.
Time?
Yeah.
Okay. Time.
Look at that, would you?
Okay.
So we're gonna cool it down and take it right out.
If I was at home, I'd put it in the freezer, because I wanna stop them from cooking right
away.
So we're gonna let that sit there for just a few minutes while we get the rest of the
ingredients together.
So, this lobster salad that we're going to make was inspired by my husband, Gary.
He's here.
And he used to charter sail a lot in the Bahamas.
And unfortunately, they had to eat a lot of lobster.
Aw.
Right?
But they got tired of the lobster, because it was rich.
So they decided, "Well, how can we change it up a little bit?"
And so they thought one morning for breakfast that they'd add some red grapefruit to it.
And so, this recipe was inspired by Gary then and their sailing days.
So, let's see.
So we're gonna make the lobster salad in this bowl here.
And so, we're gonna get a few things ready for when the lobster cools down.
So, I cut some celery already.
So there's the celery.
You know how celery can be kinda stringy?
Right?
When you cut it?
So, what I did is I just took a peeler, and I just peeled off the string.
And so it works really well.
It works really well for that.
Okay.
So, we've got our celery.
And oh.
This is a really nice recipe, actually.
Because it's got basil in it.
Right?
So, basil.
Where's Julie?
Julie, where are you?
Julie, I remember the day you brought me a bag of basil.
Are you still growing basil in your garden?
Yes?
Okay.
Any time.
She grows good basil.
So, this basil can actually be cut fairly coarse as well.
Oh, it smells so good.
And just put in there like that.
And then we are going to use some lemon zest again.
Right?
There we go.
Jumping around a little bit here.
My favorite olive oil is Lucini's, if you want a really good quality olive oil.
It's from a wonderful farm in Italy.
It's not blended.
It's from that one particular farm.
This is a no-mayonnaise, which I kind of like as well.
So you get to really taste the flavors of the lobster.
Okay.
So, that was olive oil.
We need some lemon juice.
Put some lemon in there.
We've got the basil in there, the zest in there.
Okay.
Just waiting for the lobsters, right?
Okay.
Lemon, a little bit of pepper.
But this time I'm gonna go a little easy, now that I know it comes out so quickly.
There we go.
And a little bit of salt.
And actually, we're gonna add a little bit of scallions to it.
Did I have that on the list?
Oh.
I would add it.
Scallions are nice.
They're definitely good to add.
So, what else?
Oh.
The grapefruit.
So what I did is bought the red grapefruit already in the can and just drained it.
Or you can section off – living in Florida we can use fresh grapefruit as well.
But this is a lot easier, obviously.
Okay.
And then I'm just gonna cut it up a little bit like this.
There you go.
Put that in there, too.
All right.
Let's go back to our lobster, now that we've got the dressing made for it.
Okay. Here we go.
So, ideally, we want it a little cooler.
But it's starting to cool down.
I can feel it.
At least I can touch it now with my hands.
Now, this is the tricky part, is getting the shell open.
Once you get a hole in it – good sound effects, right?
There we go.
And then we wanna take out the digestive gland, right?
So that's fairly easy.
Just pull it out like that.
This lobster will come right outta the shell.
It's actually just beautifully cooked.
So that 12-minute rule for this size lobster is really, really the right number.
You can see that it's still nice and moist inside.
You see that there?
Okay.
Do one more.
Gary, you did a good job sharpening my knife this morning.
Okay.
Once again, take out the digestive gland, right?
Okay.
This one comes right out of the shell as well.
Okay.
So, for the salad, what we wanna do is, is make chunks of the lobster.
Because see, it's really easy to handle.
It's cooked just perfect.
It's not too tough.
Otherwise, it would be hard to cut.
So that 12-minute rule is really a good one.
Just cut it a little bit this way.
I'll try to cut it in – what?
About 150 of you here?
Two hundred?
You can all have a little nibble.
So, if you go to your seafood guide while I'm finishing cutting.
The seafood guide that we passed out to you.
Will you look on the seafood guide and see where lobster falls?
So, where does lobster fall on your seafood guide?
Does it fall in two places?
Lobster.
So, it falls in the "good alternative".
That's for lobster that's collected in the Bahamas and the United States.
But if you also look over to "avoid" lobsters that are from Belize, Brazil, Honduras, and
Nicaragua are actually on the "avoid" list.
The reason for that is, it's the practice of fisheries.
There's a lot of hookah diving that's done.
Fishing practices are part of how this seafood guide comes to be.
And so, the practices that are done in the Bahamas and the US are – our fishing practices
are a lot more sustainable, and a lot more kind to the – really to the fishermen, as
well.
And so, if you also look at this, you'll see that conch is on the "avoid" list.
That's because it is commercially threatened.
You can still eat conch that comes from Turks and Caicos, Belize, Honduras, the Mushwa bank
from Jamaica.
So there's still a few places that you can find conch.
But it is commercially threatened.
That's one of the reasons I didn't cook with conch today.
Because it is a species that's getting more and more over-fished.
And so, this is a great, handy seafood guide.
It's put out by Monterey Bay Aquarium.
So if you wanna find out more information about why a particular species is on these
different lists – and I also wanna bring to your attention that down at the bottom
of one of the pages on the back, you'll see the specialty license plate.
The aquaculture specialty license plate that's granted through our Harbor Branch Oceanographic
Institute Foundation.
And actually, Katha Kissman's here from the foundation.
And Cindy Permenter is also here from the Foundation.
And so, if you are thinking about getting a plate, the aquaculture one supports all
of the aquaculture work that we do here at Harbor Branch.
And so, I just wanted to bring that to your attention as well.
Okay.
So, here we go with the lobster.
It looks good, doesn't it?
Okay.
Let's stir this up.
There we go.
So, I am gonna go ahead and plate this plate here.
Here we go.
And get a little bit of our salsa on here as well.
Okay.
So, here we go.
Here's our meal.
[Audience clapping]
So, I know I'm a little over on time.
So I'm happy to answer questions if you wanna come up here and look around and ask me some
questions.
I'm happy to do that as well.
But thank you so much for coming today.
It's been really great being with you.
[Audience clapping]
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