Rays, skates and sea robins: Are they fit for your plate?

MARK SAMPSON

DELMARVANOW CORRESPONDENT

There are a lot of fish in our local waters that for one reason or the other have more than just a few myths, misunderstandings, and misconceptions about their edibility. So this week I thought I’d attempt to dispel a couple of them.

At the top of the list are the stingrays and skates, which would include the roughtail rays, southern stingrays, cownosed rays and clearnosed skates. These are the species most often accidentally caught by anglers in this area.

I know that whenever we have an encounter with one of these critters I can pretty much count on someone aboard saying, “I hear they punch the wings out of those rays with cookie cutters to make scallops!” I’m guessing most of you have heard similar comments as well.

OK folks, let’s get this straight once and for all. Nobody ever has — or ever will — use a cookie cutter to punch a scallop like piece of meat out of the wing of a ray. If you’ve ever cut into a ray to see what the meat is like you’d know that it is way too firm to push a cookie cutter through.

Someone once told me a slight variation of the myth claiming to have heard that “they” sharpen the ends of metal pipes and pound them through the meat to make the scallops.

I could see that process possibly working to produce a plug-like chunk of ray meat, but I’m pretty sure that you’d have to be from some other planet to be fooled into thinking that the end product could be compared to a scallop in anything but shape.

For those who have never seen either: Scallops have a very fine grain that runs vertically through an all white and very tender meat, while the thick grains of ray meat run horizontally and are separated by strands of tough fibrous tissue. The meat of some rays is comprised of alternating streaks of red and white muscle. Ray meat doesn’t look like, chew like, or taste like scallops — period!

I will not dispute that rays can be eaten and I’m sure there are plenty of people who have great recipes for the winged members of the saltwater world.

However, if anyone tries to tell you they they’ve heard that “they” make scallops out of ray wings, please find out who “they” are and forward that information off to me so I can visit them and perhaps learn for myself how to perform such a culinary miracle!

To the extent that rays are not necessarily all they’re cracked up to be, the lowly sea robin is just the opposite.

Sea robins, with their broad winglike pectoral fins and leglike appendages, are certainly odd enough in appearance that it’s understandable why most folks would not look at them as a source of food when they are hanging from a hook that was intended for flounder or sea bass.

Pretty much every bottom fisherman I know rates them in the trash fish category and releases them as fast as they can get their hook out of the big bony head. But as goofy as this sounds I’m willing to say here and now that sea robins are really not bad eating at all.

The first time I ate sea robin it was just an experiment. I remembered how an old-timer used to claim that he would eat them as a kid, so I brought some home for dinner and was pleasantly surprised that they tasted somewhat like croaker.

From then on I’ve never shied away from throwing a sea robin in the cooler if it’s big enough. If anyone is brave enough to take the sea robin challenge be aware that when you pull these fish out of the cooler they will likely be covered with a layer of slime that apparently comes out of their skin when they’ve been chilled.

While this undoubtedly makes them all the less appealing, when they are filleted and skinned, the slime will go away with the rest of the unwanted parts leaving a nice fillet ready for the grill or broiler.

Sea robin sandwiches and skate on a stick, it all sounds like dinner to me.