HE RIPE CHOICE FARM “WISCONSIN FISH BOIL”

Come join us at The Ripe Choice Farm Stay & Catering for a delicious Wisconsin Fish Boil event! Indulge in a traditional feast featuring fresh fish, potatoes, boiled to perfection. Enjoy the warm ambiance of our farm while savoring this iconic Midwestern dish. It’s an experience you won’t want to miss!

It is dusk in Lake County at The Ripe Choice Farm. A gusty wind whips a few leaves about the area. The dinner guests at the The Ripe Choice Farm don’t seem to mind the falling temperatures. They are all outside, standing around a huge pot, filled with boiling water and suspended over a blazing wood fire or clutching mugs of beer and hot cider around one of the firepits keeping warm…or inside the cozy confines of our heated 100-yr old barn.

“What is a Door County fish boil, and why would I want to try one?”

Mark and Tammy Lipps, owners of The Ripe Choice Farm, first enjoyed this iconic experience on the Door County Peninsula in Wisconsin at the White Gull Inn, and want to recreate this unique experience for you. The Door County fish boil is a dining experience only found in Door County, and one that everyone should experience at least once. Most people who have tried one make a fish boil dinner a regular part of each visit to the peninsula.

A traditional Door County fish boil, like the one served at the White Gull Inn, features freshly caught Lake Michigan whitefish caught by local fishermen and cooked outside over an open fire, just as it was one hundred years ago by the Scandinavian settlers of the Peninsula. The fish is cut in chunks and cooked in boiling water with small red potatoes. Salt is the only spice used. Fish oils rise to the surface of the boiling cauldron, and when the fish is perfectly done, the Master Boiler tosses a small amount of kerosene on the flames under the pot.

The great burst of flames causes the boilover, spilling the fish oils over the side of the pot and leaving the fish perfectly done, steaming hot and ready to serve.

The fish and potatoes are served with lemon, melted butter, The White Gull Inn’s tarter sauce recipe and housemade Door County tart cherry pie for dessert. Our local craft beer from Kelseycreek Brewery and Hot Cider will be on tap as part of your dinner. You may bring another beverage, such as your favorite wine, if you prefer over beer, hot cider and non-alcohol offerings. Along with dinner will be our
Ripe Choice Beer Cheese/Cauliflower Soup. When you arrive part of the whole experience is watching the cooking process and mingling with other guests while enjoying nibbles, a beverage and a warm fire.

We hope to make this an annual event at the farm. The White Gull Inn’s fish boil is one of the oldest, started in 1959, and certainly the most famous, having been featured in dozens of newspapers and magazines and on many television stations.

This would be a great wintertime event to entertain out of town visitors and tourists to learn more about Lake County as a year round destination.

Similar story to our local crab feeds. How did the fish boil get started? People have been boiling fish for thousands of years. Maybe the commercial fishermen who had access to lots of fish, and wanted a quick and easy meal. Churches and service clubs picked up the tradition to raise money, and people from all over would come to taste the local fish, potatoes and Door County cherry pie. Eventually the restaurants got into the act.

Now we add the salt, something which never fails to catch the crowd’s attention because of the amount used in the fish boil recipe – one pound for every two gallons of water. The salt does not make the fish and potatoes salty. It raises the specific gravity of the water, and makes everything float. The fish oils that we don’t want to eat foam to the surface. When the fish and potatoes are cooked, we throw on the kerosene.

The kerosene goes on the fire only. The big flareup causes the overboil, when the water in the top half of the pot boils over the edge, taking the oils with it.

A dozen camera flashes go off, as The Ripe Choice staff ease the pole through the nets of fish and potatoes and lift them gently out to take to the kitchen.

“It looks good enough to eat.”