A raw paleo week in the Florida Keys

[sabertooth]

I recently went down to the keys and spent a week camping out on a yacht in the middle of the ocean....It was about the best Raw Paleo friendly vacation Ive ever had.

I brought with me some jojoba beef suet, ground meat, and liver; to supplement the plethora of fresh seafood. I found a restaurant in Key Largo that served Caribbean Wahoo Ceviche seasoned with their own herbs. Wahoo is a damn good fish! They also severed oysters which were also good...The "moscow  oysters which were topped with caviar and a dash of horse radish, were out of this world rawlicious. The local yellow tail, and Raw Conch were also good. If I had more time and money I could of easily spent a month down there basking in the sun and feasting of fresh sea food.

The boat had great fishing, I used a beef liver vain as bate and caught a Mutton fish within seconds of my first cast, and chopped its head off and ate it while it was still moving.

After returning back to the homeland I kind of miss having access to quality seafood, and have been seeking out a good source.....I was wondering if anyone knew of an online source which would ship high quality fish direct?

[ys]

Here in Midwest all seafood comes frozen.
I regularly buy Norwegian mackerel at Asian market and wild salmon at Trader Joes.  We pickle them lightly for about a day.  Occasionally I buy tuna stake at TJ and eat it raw.  Mackerel is cheap.  Salmon and tuna cost several times more per lb.

[TylerDurden]

YS, I am curious. How much more expensive would you say raw seafood is in the centre of the US compared to the coast?

[eveheart]

I was wondering if anyone knew of an online source which would ship high quality fish direct?

Catalina Offshore Seafood http://store.catalinaop.com/

[FRANCIS HOWARD BOND]

Quote: The boat had great fishing, I used a beef liver vain as bate and caught a Mutton fish within seconds of my first cast, and chopped its head off and ate it while it was still moving.

After returning back to the homeland I kind of miss having access to quality seafood, and have been seeking out a good source.....I was wondering if anyone knew of an online source which would ship high quality fish direct?

Reply: So pleased you were able to sample fresh Raw Fish at last.   I hope you find a source closer to home, and start enjoying it regularly.   Do not be put off if it is not fresh, as stale or even really, wholly, rotten fish tastes very cheesy and strong.   It is very easy to get used to Raw Fish and hard to do without it, so good luck with your searches.

[ys]

Mackerel whole is $2/lb, sometimes it is on sale at $1.19/lb, wild salmon filet $8/lb, tuna steak $9/lb, conch from belize $16/lb.
Farmed fish is much cheaper.

There is lots of other shellfish at the asian store but hard to say where all of it came from so I stay away from it.  I know for sure mackerel, salmon, and tuna are all wild so that's what I buy.  I stay away from cod as I've seen it has small round worms, they say it is common.  There are also other wild ocean fish on the counter thawed out.  I avoid it because I have no idea how long it has been sitting there.

I have no idea how much it is at the coast.

[ys]

Catalina Offshore Seafood http://store.catalinaop.com/

This is not serious.  Looks like this is specifically tailored for sushi business with its ridiculous prices and farmed salmon.

[RogueFarmer]

I was there a little over a year ago it was wonderful. If you get to go fishing off of a reef Strawberry Bass really taste like strawberries or the power of suggestion is extremely strong.
I ventured half a mile off shore to a small island off of Bahia Honda Park. The fields of blue and purple gorgonians were sublime. A lot of nice parot fish out there too, would be good for their reef for some paleo spear hunters to help keep their numbers in check.

My mother owns a small 2 house villa 3 hour drive to Key Largo. It has an acre and is along a creek that runs to the ocean 2 miles away. It looks like the friggin jungle book there are roots hanging out of branches 30 feet up in the air down into the water and giant strangler figs and mangoes bigger than most oaks all over the neighborhood.

I planted a bunch of fruit trees, there was already a 40 foot coconut palm and several wild mangoes, I planted bananas, papaya, passion fruit, 3 kinds of sapote, I think there are 5 jack fruit trees going down there. She just sent me a photo of the yellow passion fruit as big as grape fruit...

I really want to get back down there to plant Mamey Sapote, Ice Cream Bean, Canastile and of course more Avacados and Coconuts.

Actually I hadn't thought of it but I was wondering if anyone can send me seeds as I much prefer to plant trees from seed than to buy trees in pots.

I find places next to rocks as these are generally somewhat impervious to lawnmowers and the rock actually provides more protection and even irrigation to the sapling. A seedling with a healthy root will quickly surpass a rootbound sapling in a pot.

[sabertooth]

Here in Midwest all seafood comes frozen.
I regularly buy Norwegian mackerel at Asian market and wild salmon at Trader Joes.  We pickle them lightly for about a day.  Occasionally I buy tuna stake at TJ and eat it raw.  Mackerel is cheap.  Salmon and tuna cost several times more per lb.

Typically mackerel was my go to sea food in the past because its fairly cheap, widely available.

Now that I have a taste for the best fresh seafood would like to broaden my sea food experience with more variety. I recently tried sea urchin for the first time and it was very good.

Placed an order today for 4 pounds of Wahoo, and a Hamachi loin from
 http://andersonseafoods.com/
It seems like a legitimate source of premium seafood, though it is expensive.  It should arrive tomorrow, and I will let everyone know how it goes

If the world was your oyster and the sky was the limit what else does anyone recommend for me to try,
for I would like to taste it all before I die?

[TylerDurden]

I was kind of hoping that since the US had large economies of scale that it would still be reasonably cheap in the centre of the Continent. Obviously not. Austria has a river-system directly linked to the Black Sea and the North Sea, respectively, so should have cheap seafood, but mostly does not. Only the discount supermarkets are very cheap, if somewhat lacking in variety. Ah well, obviously, as a RVAFer, the ideal is to live in a small farm/market-garden within 5km of a coastline next to an ocean, in a country that allows selective hunting of a few wild game species, and where the gun-licences are dirt-cheap and the laws liberal enough to allow most people to hunt with guns(or bows and arrows, for that matter).

[sabertooth]

Im still looking for that ideal place myself, every year I take a vacation, its helps to have a girlfriend with an independent income who spent 20 years as a travel agent next year we plan on going out to New Zealand...hopefully as time goes by experience will lead me closer to the promise land, or at least teach me how to best set up a better backyard homestead.... maybe when the kids are grown I will go on a true pilgrimage, to seek out paleo Eden so I can spend my retirement years living it up in paradise.

Until then I have to eek it out within the rat race, working for enough money to pay for an expensive yet rewarding lifestyle.

[TylerDurden]

Having great holidays on a budget can be far more rewarding than any luxury holiday. I used to meet people on the ski-slopes who I knew were millionaires but were having the same sort of holiday I was. OK, granted, they had constant access to jacuzzis, massage-therapists and so on, but these were just mere  "baubles".

[RogueFarmer]

What if America is the promised land but has been lain to wasteland? What if we are not waiting for the apocalypse but rather the apocalypse is upon us?

Some mild climates are ideal grazing regions because they have long growing seasons and plenty of water, however these climates to not boast the mineral density of strong grass from low rainfall areas. They also do not boast severe winters and rarely snow melt irrigated spring pastures. What if the promised land is not in one particular place but in the splendor of a vast continent of migration? Why not follow the spring with a vast herd and a pack of dogs to defend it? The Canadian outback awaits!

http://www.great-pyrenees-club-of-southern-ontario.com/livestock-guardian-dogs.html