Carl Galvan of Supreme Lobster, a Chicago distributor of sustainable seafood, with mahi mahi (Jean Lachat/Sun-Times).“Navigating murky waters of sustainable seafood.
Choosing eco-friendly fish a worthy challenge for food lovers.
When chef Paul Fehribach of Big Jones found out farm-raised salmon got its bright orange flesh color from dye in its feed, he knew there was a problem.
For Naha’s Carrie Nahabedian, it was seeing the fish she usually ordered gradually shrink in size that made her think twice about what she was buying
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times).
And for Carl Galvan of purveyor Supreme Lobster, the inspiration to do the extra legwork to guarantee that the fish and seafood he’s supplying to his restaurant clients come from reliable sources was simple: “If we, and future generations, want to have jobs in this industry, we better take steps now to save it.”
While you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doubts the value in eating sustainably raised seafood, doing so can be tricky.
These days you need to not only know where the fish comes from and whether it was farmed or wild, but how it was caught, since some types of harvesting are harder on the environment than others (trawling, which uses a net dragged deep underneath the boat, is the worst).
Even armed with all that information it’s not cut and dry. To wit: Farmed trout and barramundi, for the most part, are good, while farmed salmon and shrimp aren’t. But there are plenty of exceptions in between.
Then, just when you think you have it all figured out, it changes. In fact, it was a sighting of Chilean sea bass on the menu of a new buzzed-about Chicago restaurant that got me thinking about the state of sustainable seafood today.
Turns out that one of the biggest no-nos in the seafood world is now OK to eat. That is, providing you get it from a small fishery in the Antarctic region around the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean.
See, we told you.
Even with the murky waters surrounding it, sustainable seafood has caught on with both chefs and home cooks.
As director of sustainable practices at the Shedd Aquarium, Michelle Jost admits she’s a bit biased when it comes to the topic, but she’s seen big changes.
“Several years ago when we would talk to people in the industry and consumers about sustainable seafood issues, it would be the first time they heard about it,” says Jost. “Now, most consumers are already familiar with the bigger stories. They’re not in Seafood 101 anymore.”
Jost says even more changes are happening at the industry level, where a lot of the conservation work has shifted, citing the recent announcement by Target that they were no longer going to sell farmed salmon.
More promising news came in late March when Trader Joe’s proclaimed that by the end of 2012, it will offer only sustainable seafood in all its stores. And while bluefin tuna recently failed to make the United Nations’ list of protected fish, some restaurants, including SushiSamba, have voluntarily removed it from their menus.
At Supreme Lobster, sustainability is nothing new, but for the city’s big-name chefs Galvan works with, it’s one of the top requirements for the seafood they purchase for their restaurants.
What is new, though, is the way Galvan markets that fish: He posts photos of the day’s catch on his Twitter account, “Chicagofishdude,” where some 1,000 followers — not all chefs, mind you — can see what he’s excited about.
While Galvan handles the independent restaurant end, fellow fishmonger Eden Ellis helps develop sustainable seafood programs for corporate foodservice entities such as Aramark.
“When you get the general public asking questions to the chefs and retailers, that gets them asking us, which makes us do our job better and source things out,” Galvan says.
Recently, after some chefs were “hammering” him about skate, he managed to find a fleet of 25 vessels out of New Jersey that had taken the proper steps with their gear and fishing techniques to be deemed sustainable. Says Galvan, “We are finding little pockets of light through what is basically a gigantic industry.”
For Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass Cafe and Prairie Fire restaurants, serving sustainable seafood has been hot-button topic for some time, even back to her days at the Ritz-Carlton Chicago in the late ’90s, when she helped kick Chilean sea bass permanently off the menu.
Beyond following the lists created by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Shedd, Stegner also features lesser known fish, such as amberjack and banded rudderfish.
“One of the big pushes in sustainable seafood is to take the pressure off the more popular fisheries, like striped bass and halibut,” she says, citing family-owned, New York-based Sea To Table, a worldwide network of sustainable fisheries, as one of her go-to purveyors.
Certification is the next big area that’s being looked at by those in the sustainable seafood movement, says Jost.
“Traceability is a major issue within the seafood world because the fish pass through so many hands, so it’s easy to lose track of where it’s coming from,” she says. “To be able to trace the fish from a certified fishery to the plate is important, to be sure the right fish is being sold.”
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a global third-party certifier, is the most recognized one in the industry.
Another area where a lot of work is being done is in availability, by either building sustainable fisheries or taking existing ones and improving them.
“Consumers can demand sustainable fish, which is important to help motivate companies to take these steps, but if the fish isn’t available, then no one wins,” says Jost.
When it comes to educating customers, that’s relatively easy, says North Pond’s Bruce Sherman: “Make it delicious and then tell the stories.”
That’s something he’s been doing for 11 years at his Lincoln Park restaurant, and he was recognized for doing so by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, who has named him one of its 2010 Seafood Ambassadors.
But education, too, is tricky. “You don’t want to shove it down someone’s throat, like the recovering alcoholic screaming at the occasional wine drinker,” says Nahabedian.
At Big Jones, 5347 N. Clark, Fehribach finds that his customers often initiate the conversation, whether it’s about the Laughing Bird shrimp he uses that comes from a sustainable farm in the Caribbean, or red snapper, a bad option normally (he sources from a progressive fishermen alliance in the Gulf of Mexico).
“When people ask questions, we can give them information to make right choices,” he says. “It’s really an eye-opener for them.”
Organizations such as the Shedd play a big role in keeping the public and culinary industry well-informed, especially with its Rite Bite partners program, which works with restaurants, caterers, retailers, purveyors and culinary schools.
Additionally, some chefs get firsthand information while traveling. Nahabedian fondly recalls a trip she took with Stegner to Alaska, where she was impressed with their conservation efforts; an earlier trip to Thailand, not so much.
It always comes back to asking questions. Galvan knows he’s “a pain in the [neck],” but that doesn’t stop him from hounding his suppliers. Same for Stegner, who admits there are still plenty of gray areas for her, too.
If you find all the available information overwhelming, simplify by only focusing on your favorites, says Jost, so when you’re in the grocery store or a restaurant you can just know the details of those.
And Chilean sea bass lovers, take note: “If that’s your absolute favorite fish in the world, then by all means have it for special occasions,” says Jost. “Just don’t have it every other night.”
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