Aquafan
Hi, my name is Michael, and I’m a fish soup fiend.
More broadly, if it comes from river, lake, ocean or sea, and it bathes in bouillon, I’m all over it like slime on a trout. To wit, I once went on a road trip to Boston with my great friend to see a Tom Waits concert, and he is shocked to this day by how much clam chowder I consumed on the way there, while there, and on the way back. Regardless of the venue, whether diner, tavern, truckstop or phone booth, if there was clam chowder to be had, it was mine all mine.
Fish soup in particular, in all of its forms, fires up my heart’s little cockles, and for reasons deeply nostalgic. From my grandmother’s kitchen to the coast of Finland, I have been marked over the course of my life by more than one bowl of note. One place, however, where I didn’t expect to be falling head over heels one steaming spoonful at a time was on a beach in Mexico in my damp swimming trunks. We’ll get to that, but first, a little souped-up prelude.
Soup ‘N Sauce Saga
My grandmother used to make one mean fisksoppa, Swedish for fish soup. That, and one hell of a stiff drink.
The soup was an exquisite and rustic mélange of Atlantic salmon, onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, fresh dill and whole peppercorns. I was always amazed at how sumptuously rich it was, until I one day saw a fistful of butter get slipped into the broth as it roiled and boiled. It’s no secret, my grandmother, Saga, tended to be sneaky with the butter, along with the salt and the gin. She lived to be 91.
While the fisksoppa simmered, the chances were that Nana would be enjoying her signature cocktail, a drink she taught me how to make once she found out I had been to bartending school, not that that helped in any way. It was a troubling libation, blending vague measures of cranberry juice, Molson Ex beer, boxed white wine and Beefeater gin (and/or Finlandia vodka) on ice. Sometimes there was soda. I invariably found myself making it in a glass that was already very much in use, smeared about with butter and lipstick and which, like absolutely everything in or around her fridge, was redolent of dill. This was not negligence on my part, she actually wanted it that way.
For lack of a better name, the Nanatini (or Nanarita, if the sun was out), was the stuff of liquid legend – although admittedly not nearly as marketable as the name suggests – and it was directly to blame for my grandmother lapsing into singing (or rather, yelling) Finnish drinking songs about birch bark shoes on far more than one occasion. I still remember the lyrics, sort of.
Again, serve on ice, in the very filthiest glass you can find. Skål!
Nana’s fisksoppa remains one of my all-time favourite dishes and is one that I have been making for years, with a less alarming amount of butter thrown in, to be fair. It was a soup I had never encountered outside of her and my respective apartments until just a few years ago, when my wife and I found ourselves just minding our business, loafing afloat on a Finnish boat.
(If you’re now thinking of Andy Samberg in his “nautical-themed pashmina afghan”, you are not alone.)
One Hyvää Lunch
The MS J.L. Runeberg is a postcard-pretty, operational steamship built in 1912 that makes regular trips along the southern, archipelago-riddled coast of Finland, between Helsinki and Porvoo. Our family cottage is located just outside of Porvoo, and on our first visit together about a decade ago, Vee and I had decided to make the trip by water and in style; we just weren’t prepared for how much style.
Making our way slowly through the Gulf of Finland’s total charmscape with its tiny islands dotted with tiny cabins on a summer’s afternoon, the very last thing on our mind was soup. That was until we saw someone wobblingly emerge from the lower deck holding a tray on which was a piping hot bowl of something unmistakably special. Instantly animated by a fresh bolt of “what the hell was that?!”, I got up, marched straight downstairs and discovered what may as well have been pirate booty in the hold.
Unbeknownst to us, there was a small galley down there wherein a couple of crew members were hard at work dishing out lunchables for the passengers. The main event? Salmon soup, almost exactly like my grandmother used to make (granted, without the butter grenade).
Back on the deck upstairs, I almost wept between uncanny spoonfuls under the glorious blue of the Nordic sky. Even though Nana had left us over a decade before, I was tempted to go back down below to see if she was somewhere hiding just beyond the stove, instructing the chef between hammered gulps of a cocktail that perhaps should never have been. Then again, without the Nanatini, there’s no way I could have known about those damned birch bark shoes and how “they don’t keep out the water, and they don’t dance”… Or something along those liquored-up lines.
While we’re here, it’s very much worth mentioning that our first stop upon arriving in Porvoo was the totally enchanting river-side bar/café, Porvoon Pahtimo. Their Wi-Fi password at the time: Lohikeitto. Translation: salmon soup.
I can’t tell you how much I love that country.
Talkin’ Tecolote
The soups of time have flowed favourably over the years, and along the way, we have been cuddled and hugged by many a stock, broth, bisque and pottage. Only a select few have seared themselves onto our all-time hit list, and just a few months ago, on a beach outside of La Paz, Mexico, a new addition to the ledger was made.
Speaking of things of the bisquey sort, here in Mazatlán, there are seafood restaurants all over the place that offer a piping hot cup of complimentary fish or shrimp stock before you begin your meal, sometimes as soon as you sit down. Just one of the countless reasons that we’re still here.
End sidebar. Now back to La Paz.
Playa El Tecolote is a beach so spellbindingly beautiful, we clumsily find ourselves referencing things one finds in a convenience store when trying to describe it. With its jujubesque, Gatoraded, Mr. Freeze-blue waters, and its fine sand like pulverized Pringles (ok, too far), Tecolote’s beauty just seems unreal. It’s funny how when we’re struck with how spectacular the natural world is, we have a tendency to talk about the artificial, and rarely is it the other way around. We never hear things like “Wow! This Jolly Rancher looks like Lake Louise!” But we really should.
The trip to Tecolote, located about half an hour’s drive to the north of La Paz, is almost as stunning as the destination itself (like something out of a movie!) It’s a glorious ride through an otherworldly coastal hillscape where joyous cacti lovingly flip you the prickly bird as you roll on by. There are several stunning beaches to choose from along the way, but once we discovered El Tecolote, there was just nowhere else. If you’re up for a hypnotic, chi-smoothing little taste of this place and the ride to get there, please check out our video at the end of this post. Your pineal gland will definitely thank you. Filmed and directed by Vee.
Tecolote – the name is so much fun to say, we try to say it once a day for health reasons – lies on the Sea of Cortez, just opposite the sprawling island nature reserve that is Isla Espíritu Santo, party central for sea lions and friends from all around. The waters here are limpid and calm and the backdrop of cactus-stubbled, rocky hills provides a contrast that never ceases to impress. Despite how breathtaking the location is, development is thankfully minimal, with no hotels or stores, just a handful of humble restaurants and bars, as well as a coconut stand or two. In terms of public transportation, there’s a beach bus that makes multiple trips a day from the city centre and that – pleasant warning – can get most rapturous on the ride back to town after everyone’s been kicked in the head by a day’s-worth of vitamin D and generous pours.
Maravilloso Mario
In the centre of it all is Club de Playa El Tecolote, the largest establishment on the beach by far. Housed in a palm-thatched pagoda of a building, this place not only specializes in fresh seafood sorcery worth writing home about, but they offer “water safari” tours of the local wonders as well as equipment rental if you’re looking to hit the waves with some umpf. On our first visit to Tecolote, we took a seat right on the beach at their smaller satellite restaurant next door, and let’s just say that it’s impressive we ever got back up.
We went to Tecolote several times over our two months in La Paz, and we ended up at that exact spot on almost every visit. One of the cardinal reasons for this was a young gentleman by the name of Mario. Vee and I know a thing or two about serving tables, and this is the kind of guy you want as a colleague, as much for the team as for the clients. Warm, professional, friendly, chivalrous, Mario is simply the man. He even offered us a lift back home one evening and gave us an impromptu tour of the city outskirts on the way (did you know John Steinbeck lived in La Paz?) Seriously, an un-Marioed day at Tecolote just wasn’t the same.
¡Muchas gracias por todo, amigo, y esperamos verte de nuevo muy pronto!
New Bowl On The Block
With all those liquid Skittles lapping the shore a few feet away, seafood is the main thing going on here, as it should be. From whole fresh fish – either finger-lickinly fried or wood-burningly grilled – to “crushing-it” coconut shrimp, to clams so fresh they look like they’re getting out of bed when squirted with lime (see video below), everything we had here kicked us straight in the fins. This, of course, brings us to the soup.
Fresher Than Fresh © The Hungry Herald. All rights reserved.
At sundown every day at Playa El Tecolote, squadrons of pelicans flock to the beach to kamikaze-knife-dive themselves at the schools of deliciousness swimming beneath the surface in a deft dining riot that is spectacular to behold. This is very much the spirit in which I tackled the insane bowl of fish soup that Mario brought to the table one day, although my deftness was nowhere near pelican-level. It was my very first bowl of soup on a beach, and I now plan to eat soup on a beach for as long as I can eat soup on a beach.
Far from the Nana/Runeberg style but equally as sumptuous, it was the kind of dish that gets me dreaming of being a fisherman, a missed calling that apparently ran in my family way back, unconfirmed legend has it. Big chunks of crazy-fresh red snapper and mixed vegetables in a tomato-tinged herby sea broth with bewitching little hits of coriander seed… I was spinning like my name was DJ Bouillabaisse. This thing managed to have me temporarily block out virtually everything around us, from the CGI beach, to the clarion calls of the roaming banda groups, to the screaming families occasionally zipping by on banana boats only to get collectively dumped into the water like so much bycatch.
As long as those spoonfuls were happening, none of that mattered, for the universe had collapsed and condensed itself into a singular bowl of lunch. Put simply, there was no Zuul, there was only soup.
That, and my wife, of course.
A new bowl now burned in the heavens and the conceptual boundaries of beach food had been pushed and redrawn. As I swooned, spooned and harpooned my way by the Slush Puppie-azure waters of Playa El Tecolote, I looked up at the cotton candy clouds and decided there and then that Jimmy Buffett can keep his cheeseburger. That’s right. There was something fresh to sing about under the palm-tickled sun now, and the song would simply never be the same.
“Worth every damn bit of sacrifice
To get a fish soup in paradise
To be a fish soup in paradise
I’m just a fish soup in paradise.”
Thank you so much for reading, and if you’re ever in La Paz, hit that delightful road as soon as you can and Tecolote yourself until you can’t handle it anymore, which never happens. A big shout out to the place for existing and to the good people steering the ship at the Club de Playa. Again, if you go, ask for Mario, he’s the guy somehow making things even better. ¡Salud!
2 Comments
DJ Bouillabaisse, you’ve outdone yourself once again! Vee’ll done ✅! So Soup’erb! 😋
Hahaha!! Kiitos rakas serkku!! 💜