There’s two sides to sea lampreys, according to Lars Rudstam, director of the Cornell Biological Field Station in Bridgeport.
On the one hand, they attach themselves using their mouths to the sides or bellies of fish and use their raspy tongues to drill a hole and suck out their host’s bodily fluids. State Department of Environmental Conservation officials noted recently these parasitic, prehistoric-looking aquatic creatures are causing big problems for Cayuga Lake’s trout fishery.
On the other hand, these gruesome-looking creatures are very edible, Rudstam said.
“They have a different taste, like squid. The French eat them with delight. England’s Henry I died while eating a large meal of lampreys,” Rudstam. “And some of the Native American tribes out on the Pacific Coast eat lamprey and are concerned about their decline there.
“They’re not a bad food fish. They hardly have any bones. You cut them into chunks,” he said.
Rudstam, who teaches a course in fishery ecology and conservation at Cornell University, every year brings his students up to the Bridgeport field station for a day to learn research netting techniques on Oneida Lake. This year’s outing is scheduled for next weekend. He said it always ends with a dinner featuring several fish dishes – including “Lamprey Bordelaise,” which Rudstan takes delight in preparing.
“I make this wine sauce and then boil it down,” he said. “I then add the chunks of lamprey and add various spices.
Sea lampreys, which manage to survive in both salt and freshwater, are found throughout the Eastern and Western seaboards. In this state, they are in Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca lakes, the Seneca, Oswego and Oneida rivers, along with Lake Champlain. They're also found in Lake Ontario and all the Great Lakes, as well as the St. Lawrence River.
As larvae and juveniles, the freshwater ones stick to the stream or tributary where they were hatched and burrow in the mud and "filter feeding" off passing organic materials, staying put anywhere from 3 to 4 years. It's only during the last year to 18 months of their lives that they develop their teeth-coated suckers and go out into the larger waters in search of prey.
An adult lamprey, which can measure anywhere from 12 to 20 inches, can kill up to 40 pounds of fish during its lifetime. They don’t always kill the fish, though. A lot of times you see fish with scars on them.
At a recent state of the Eastern Finger Lakes meeting, state Department of Environmental Conservation officials noted the lamprey situation in Cayuga Lake is the worst it’s been in several decades. Some 80 percent of lake trout landed by anglers last summer on the lake either had lamprey attached or show lamprey scars.
Next year, the DEC is planning to treat the Inlet, where most of the lake’s lampreys spawn, with lampricide. In addition, DEC staff each year uses the Cayuga Inlet Fishway, which provides an unpassable barrier in normal water conditions, to trap and remove spawning lampreys. They are then deposited the local landfill.
Rudstam got his lampreys for his upcoming dinner at the DEC-run fishway. They’re currently being kept in his freezer at home.
He said the Great Lakes Fishery Commission kicked around the idea of trying to develop lamprey as a food fish, but dismissed the concept because lampreys are on the top of the food chain in most waterways. They’re most likely full of contaminants, he said.
Marc Gaden, a spokesman for the Fishery Commission, there’s been talk since the 1940s about commercializing and selling lamprey for food, but said that they proved difficult to catch in bulk quantities and difficult to process and transport. They taste best fresh, he said.
In addition, being at the top of the food web, they have a propensity to accumulate mercury in their system.
“The end result is that there’s a lot of other valuable fish in the Great Lakes that we should are working to protect – trout, salmon, walleye and perch,” he said. “Lampreys are an incredibly noxious, destructive pest that that knocked the stuffing out of fish in the Great Lakes. We’re now in the business of minimizing their presence.”
John Gaulke, a fishing guide on Cayuga Lake, backs up Rudstam. Lamprey are extremely edible, he said.
“I never would have done it, but one my clients wanted to keep and eat a lamprey that came up attached to a lake trout,” Gaulke said. “Later, he raved about it, and said he’d eat them by the pound if he could. So I decided to try one.
Gaulke said he beheaded it, gutted it, rinsed it and cut it into pieces. He said he sautéed it in butter with salt and pepper.
“It was very pleasant. Firm, yet not chewy. It reminded me of eating scallops, but sort of with a clam taste," he said. “Once you take off the nasty-looking head, they are much easier to prepare on a mental, psychological level."
The internet is full of lamprey recipes. There’s beer-battered fried lamprey, lampreys simmered in wine sauce, poached lamprey -- even lamprey pie. Rudstam's recipe for "Lamprey Bordaise" follows:
• Bleed the lamprey by hanging it by the head and cutting the tail over and container to collect the blood. When there's no blood dripping anymore, dip the lamprey in boiling water for 1 minute.
• Take it out and peel it. Cut in 4 cm-thick (1,57 inches) slices. Put the slices in the container of blood.
• Cut the white part of the leeks into 7-8 cm-long (2,76-3,15 inches) whistles and them in butter.
• Add the diced ham, the shallots and onions. Sprinkle with flour and .
• with the wine and broth. Add the cloves and bouquet garni. Add pepper, salt a little. Add two crushed garlic cloves. Bring to a boiling point, then cook for 45 minutes over low heat.
• 45 minutes later, add the pieces of lamprey in the sauce, cover and cook again for 45 minutes.
•Remove the slices of fish, and them in another pan or skillet with Armagnac.
•Pour the equivalent of a glass of warm sauce over the blood in order to dilute it, and poor in the skillet. Stir well. Put back the lamprey, season and cook for 10 minutes with the lid on. Beat the sauce with butter.
•Meanwhile, toast the bread and rub it with the remaining garlic.Put the lamprey in a shallow dish, on the slices of bread. Put the leeks all around, with the sauce.
Links to other lamprey recipes: