Visiting a small business-tuna processing facility

Atun Euskal - Caribe!
Wow what a spot. A small tuna processing business owned by a Spanish couple RIGHT did I say RIGHT on the beach. Well, you cross the little street from their very clean, neat and efficient tuna processing business to their casa (home) with a veranda right on the beach with hammocks and lounge chairs. We toured Atun Euskal-Caribe with our white hats and masks and learned about how they process the yellow fin tuna, cook it, and bottle it in extra virgin olive oil, canola and vegetable oil and then a third type with red peppers. We saw the ten workers scraping the tuna and then cutting it into pieces for packaging and saw the whole tuna stored in a refrigeration facility and the processing stainless steel drums. Really very neat facility. Of course you have to be comfortable with the aroma of very very strong FISH (pescado) that is for sure.

We had the most incredible spread of atun (tuna). Tuna sandwiches with lettuce and tomato. Yuca bread. Tuna mousse with red peppers. Two types of tuna one in olive oil and one in vegetable oil with onions that you could eat with bread (pan). Croquettes with tuna, cheese, parsley and onion. Tuna EVERYTHING and it was absolutely delicious. Regional cervesa and vino from Caracas.

Here the tuna are caught individually with a line. The owner talked about QUALITY of tuna and...when tuna are caught with a large net they are more stressed out because they are trying to escape as the net closes in on them. They often have a heart attack. When they have a heart attack from stress their blood travels throughout their bodies. The blood changes the taste of the tuna AND is also extra work for the tuna workers to clean all of the blackened blood out of the flesh for packaging. So it is better for the fish to be line caught and killed quickly, better tasting AND economically better if the tuna is line caught. This is a small business that uses local fishermen to catch their fish AND they prefer the oldfashioned way of catch.

Another great group of Rotarians here in Cumana. Tomorrow we will be going to Parque Nacional Machima, islands off the coast of Venezuela and MAYBE just MAYBE I can get uno or 2 dives in manana (tomorrow). We will see!

Our group of five are so open to EVERYTHING it is wonderful. We love to eat, drink, and experience all that the Rotarians offer us. Great great group of people! Last night at the Puerto La Cruz Rotary meeting, I met a woman named Arlene who went to highschool in WATERVILLE, MAINE. Anyway long story she is a Norwegian who married a Venezuelan and has lived here all of her married life. I asked her what we had to experience while we were in Cumana and she said there is a mixture of oysters with vinegar and lemon and other seafood that they call the mattress breaker. You can buy it in a jar OR you can drink a shot of it. So today I asked Fina, a retired english school teacher and a hoot to boot if we could get some. She said NO then..........she said ok........I have never tried it but I will try it with you tomorrow in solidarity. If one of us gets sick we all get sick.

Yay! G