When I was a kid, mullet was everywhere. Roadside stands, neighbors' front yards, church parking lots, even the corner grocery store. Now? Not so much. These days, mullet is little more than a baitfish. Food prep laws make front-yard vending a sketchy endeavor, and few supermarkets and restaurants will trouble themselves with such low-down cracker cuisine.
But mullet does have its diehards, fish traditionalists who still find value in the joy of catching (just before it turns cold, when the fish are nice and fat) and cooking (slow and steady and with lots of liquid refreshment for the chef) an unpopular but undeniably tasty piece of Florida culinary history. And once a year, these mullet fans meet just south of the Sunshine Skyway — as they did last weekend — for the annual Terra Ceia Mullet Smoke-Off.
This is more than just a fish fest; it's a living lesson in Florida's cultural anthropology. To get to the festival site, you have to pass dozens of McMansions squatting in neatly manicured splendor on land that used to be home to the type of cracker that made mullet a staple. The contestants are largely rural boys with homemade smoking rigs and American-made pickups loaded with beer and liquor. Slumming yuppies park their Toyota SUVs right next to Chevy beaters emblazoned with confederate insignia.
Traditionally, contestants get to the site the day before the event, set up and get shitty. When I show up the next morning, the only evidence is F-150 beds loaded with empty beer cans and dry Jack bottles. Well, along with a lot of the hair of the dog being consumed by guys tending their smoke.
Mullet is easy to catch — just throw a net in moderately shallow saltwater — but it's a damn oily fish. That's good if you need calories to sustain you through economic lean times, not so good for tasty eating, which is why a long smoke is the right way to cook it. Less grease that way, and the crepe myrtle or black mangrove smoke cut the fishy taste.
Bill Burger pokes mangrove sticks into the traditional smoking rig, a 50-gallon oil drum stained red with rust. It's a simple system: a little door at the bottom to feed in fuel; another hole to let in a little bit of air, scientifically regulated by a wad of Spanish moss shoved against the opening and a wood plank covering the top, weighted down by a hunk of concrete block, tendrils of fragrant smoke escaping around the edges.
Orlando resident Robert King has a more elaborate contraption arrayed just a dozen feet from the lapping water of Terra Ceia Bay. He's got a pole sunk into the ground near his drum, with a complicated system of rope and pulleys attached to the lid of the smoker. "I'm lazy," King explains, lifting the entire tiered contents of the smoker — four levels loaded with mullet — out of the barrel with a gentle tug on one of the ropes. He doesn't even need to set down his beer.
Just a few steps away, I'm offered a taste of the first fish pulled off partners Kenny Robertson and Beach Clark's smoker. When done right, mullet has a full flavor that is intense with smoke and powerfully rich. This is more than that. Perfectly seasoned and still a little moist, this mullet manages a blast of refreshing tartness that cuts through the heavy texture of the fish. It's damn good, far better than the perfectly tasty stuff the festival is selling at the concession stand.
Away from the main camp is a giant barbecue rig that has to be towed to the site, belonging to last year's winner. Clutching the handmade first-place wooden plaque, Brittany Balcom doesn't fit the mold. First, she's a she, a rarity among the participants. She also blows the age curve — she turned 13 this year. Wonder how long she'll be coming back to smoke fish and camp out with these old crackers?
I ask her grandfather and mullet mentor, Jack Hayes, what her secret is, but he just shakes his head and smiles. He and Brittany both use the same rig, but they season separately. "I have no idea what she puts in there because she won't tell me," he explains while happily rummaging through their van for a photo collage he put together after Brittany's victory last year. According to one judge, there was "not even a maybe-so about it" when she took the title.
Although everyone is friendly and quick to offer a cig or a Bud, seasoning secrets are inviolable. Salt, pepper and sugar are the norm, but after that, anything goes. David Shearer mumbles that he's "been doin' this shit all my life." He won the top award in 2003 and when I press him on his mystery ingredient, he just shakes his head. "I can't tell ya 'cause I don't know." Apparently he buys it off an "old boy" pal and liberally applies it with the simpler seasonings, comfortable in ignorance.
Though the deadline for entries is 12:30, by 12:45 there doesn't seem to be any hurry to track down the mullet, and the four smoke-off judges are relaxing in the shade by a long picnic table.
When I ask chief judge Bob Campbell how he picks the experts — all older white men, all natives — judge Gene Witt (former Manatee County superintendent of schools) jokes that Bob just looks for the "eatinest men around." By the time they finish their job an hour later, the table is littered with mullet skeletons.
There are few elaborate preparations (Campbell describes one covered in salsa fresca as "fancy"), because the contestants and the judges are here for the same thing — traditional Florida mullet. Nothing "fancy," just smoked fish done right, with a little something extra for personality.
Brittany manages to snag third, even though she changed her recipe since last year. I guess I was lucky to get a taste of Clark and Robertson's mullet, because they took top honors for the first time. Two Florida natives, they've been smoking mullet their whole lives, taught by their fathers, using a 20-year-old stand-up smoker built by Robertson's dad out of local wood. It would have been easy to pick them as the front-runners if most of the other 17 entrants didn't have a similar background.
The sad thing is, I'm going to have to wait until next year to taste that smoky, honest and delicious mullet again. Unless … anyone know where I can find an old oil barrel?
Brian Ries is a former restaurant general manager with an advanced diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers. Creative Loafing food critics dine anonymously, and the paper pays for the meals. Restaurants chosen for review are not related to advertising.
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2006.