Chefs with Issues: Making Seafood Sustainability Palatable
Posted by Unknown in Fast Food, Fishing, Nutrition, Seafood, Sustainable Agriculture on Friday, 25 January 2013
Chefs
with Issues is a platform for chefs and farmers we love, fired up for
causes about which they're passionate. Chef John Ash serves on the Board
of Advisors of Seafood Watch, an educational initiative for sustainable
seafood by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He recently hosted a panel
discussion about seafood sustainability as a practice. Among the
participants were Chef Bun Lai, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Sustainability
Leader of the Year, and Yousef Ghalaini, executive chef of New York’s
sustainable seafood restaurant Imperial No. Nine.
Recently,
nearly 30 thought leaders in the seafood, restaurant and sustainability
worlds came together to have a conversation about how chefs can embrace
seafood sustainability in a greater, more mainstream way.
“Thought
for Food: A Discussion on Sustainable Seafood” was facilitated by James
Beard award-winning chef and author John Ash, widely respected as a
sustainability pioneer. Participants came from a variety of backgrounds:
chefs, NGO leaders, journalists and other members of the food industry
vanguard.
Each
brought a different perspective to the buzz-worthy subject of
"conscious cuisine," an idea brought to the forefront by New York Times
journalist and author Mark Bittman. In his book, "Food Matters, Guide to
Conscious Eating," he explains conscious cuisine as the idea that one
deliberately chooses deliciously prepared food that is not just good for
you but is also produced with a keen appreciation for the health of and
respect for the planet.
Today,
consumers are more naturally curious about the provenance of their food
and its method of production, and retailers have found a way to make
these types of conversations part of the every day. More and more people
want to know where their tomatoes were grown and who picked them. They
also genuinely care about the quality of life of the cow that yielded
that T-bone. But fewer customers think about the sustainability and
origin of the seafood on the menu, other than perhaps where the fish
were raised.
While
some chefs are leading the charge and embracing sustainability at every
level, others have been slower to come around on the subject.
As
Scott Nichols, PhD of aquaculture innovator, Verlasso, said, “We can’t
keep depleting our oceans. To continue to eat fish, we need to raise
them in an ecologically responsible manner, benefitting both the
consumer and the species - not just capture them. With a current
worldwide population exceeding seven billion people - estimates for 2050
push that number to nine billion - effectively sourcing quality fish
has come to the forefront of the international discussion on
sustainability.”
As
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
reported in 2008, “Fish provided more than 2.9 billion people with at
least 15 percent of their average per capita animal protein intake.”
That is a small percentage of people, consuming a whole lot of fish.
Coupled with the fact that the USDA 2010 Dietary Guidelines recommend
doubling the consumption of seafood from 3.5 ounces to eight ounces per
week, it is easy to conclude that aquaculture will play a key part in
helping to feed a hungry world.
Salmon,
that nutritional powerhouse that consumers go to for brain and heart
health, was the species that opened the discussion on the importance of
sustainable seafood. Until recently, chefs only had two sources of
salmon they could put on their menus: wild-caught and farm-raised.
Salmon,
like tuna, is just one type of large fish that depends on several
levels of the food chain for survival. In essence, each fish needs to
consume many smaller fish to thrive. As Daniel Pauly of the University
of British Columbia states, “A pound of tuna represents roughly a
hundred times the footprint of a pound of sardines.” And given our
growing population, this is just not a reliable method for increased
seafood demand.
Yousef
Ghalaini, executive chef of New York’s Imperial No. Nine adds, “Those
chefs who do opt to put wild salmon on their menus say that it is harder
to prepare - being lower in fat - and some diners find the flavor too
intense.”
Most
farm-raised salmon, on the other hand, is raised in an environment
where every life stage is controlled: quantity of eggs fertilized,
number of fish per pen, diet and harvest.
The detractors to this method, however, are clear: Farm-raised salmon also demand high levels of feeder fish for their diet.
Nichols
notes, “This ratio is termed ‘fish-in, fish-out’ and typically
translates to four pounds of fish needed to produce just one pound of
farm-raised salmon.” Adding to the sustainability conundrum, many of
these feeder fish are considered consumable on their own, as opposed to
being used as feed for salmon.
In
recent years, environmental groups like Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood
Watch and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA)
FishWatch have brought increasing attention to both wild fisheries and
traditional aquaculture, which has led to improvement in the industry.
But, much remains to be done to make aquaculture healthy and
sustainable. These are facts that every "Thought for Food" participant
could agree upon, which led to the discussion of the third solution:
harmoniously raised salmon, a new category that has emerged just this
past year.
Verlasso,
located in the cold waters of Patagonia, is the only company producing
harmoniously raised salmon. With standards guided by the World Wildlife
Fund’s sustainability goals, the company aims to change the way the
world gets their salmon. Situated away from the threat of pollutants,
industrial waste or other contaminants, Verlasso raises its salmon with a
very low pen density of four fish per ton of water. This environment
allows each fish to be identified and monitored carefully to ensure a
healthy life.
The
harmoniously raised salmon also have a unique diet that reduces the
fish-in fish-out ratio by 75 percent. This innovative process replaces
fish oil with yeast, rich in Omega-3s, making Verlasso salmon markedly
more sustainable. The pens are also allowed to rest for months between
production cycles, a process akin to farmers letting fields go fallow
and ameliorate themselves from the rigors of production. The results
have been significant.
“The
quality is exceptional,” notes Chef Ghalaini, who recently started
serving harmoniously raised fish. “This salmon is like nothing I’ve ever
had access to before. The scales are tight, the gills are beautiful,
the eyes are glassy – all indicators of a fish that has led a great
life.”
At
Imperial No. Nine, he serves Verlasso salmon two ways: raw, in a salmon
and tuna tartare with Sriracha and Hawaiian-style poi, garnished with
chives. Chef Ghalaini makes this from the belly of the salmon, which has
both a flavor and texture that “really pops with a clean bite.” The
salmon he serves hot is seared with a horseradish crust, plated on a bed
of celery root purée and Brussels sprouts. “The bite of the horseradish
is totally balanced by the unique sweetness of the salmon.”
The
"Thought for Food" participants discussed another important point: it
is one thing for the chef to advocate sustainability, but how do we
convey this message to our customers?
As
Chef Ash remarks, “That’s the $64,000 question. You have to do it so
carefully and thoughtfully. Diners are really coming to restaurants to
enjoy themselves. They do not want to be preached at...because you can
turn people off. Chefs need to set the stage for it, but the waitstaff
are the real touch point to the diners.”
Chef
Ghalaini concurs, “We take the time to educate our servers about this
fish. They have tasted it raw, and they have tasted it cooked. They have
seen for themselves how different it is. And it is my responsibility,
as a chef, to make sure that happens so they can tell the customers.”
Chef
Bun Lai of Miya’s Sushi in New Haven, Connecticut, was another "Thought
for Food" participant. The recipient of the 2011 Seafood Ambassador
Award from Monterey Bay Aquarium for his leadership in the Sustainable
Seafood movement, his restaurant has been named one the country’s ten
most sustainable restaurants.
Chef
Lai echoes Chef Ghalaini’s sentiment that the entire restaurant team
must be on board with the tenets of sustainability if that is an issue
the chef cares about and strives to uphold.
He
adds, “The food we chefs choose to use ultimately affects the health
and happiness of not only our dining guests, but that of the producer,
everyone involved in getting that product to us, the environment and the
planet as a whole. As a food artist, that is how I base every decision
in my restaurant. I only hire staff who are ideological and
philosophical in what they do. They must realize that everything we do
is connected in a larger way.”
With
such a commitment to sustainability, Chef Lai is continuously looking
for producers, partners and models to further the ideal all the way down
to the customer. Among the several perspectives discussed, Chef Lai
says, “I came out of the 'Thought for Food' discussion reconsidering
farmed salmon. I have admired Chef Ash for a really long time, not just
for the food he prepares, but for his philosophy and his principles.
...There is great progress happening in the world of sustainability so I
think it’s important to keep one’s mind open to improvements in science
and technology.”
As
a chef who teaches at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone
and serves on the board of the Chefs Collaborative, Chef Ash has
sustainability advice for those chefs just coming up through the ranks:
“It’s the old saw about getting to know your purveyors. Get to know your
farmer. As the great Kentucky poet and farmer Wendell Berry once said,
'You gotta know where your food comes from and know the person behind
where your food comes from.'”
Chef
Lai takes it one step further and encourages those same chefs to
embrace sustainability because he has seen how it makes him a better
chef: “In ‘confining’ myself to the tenets of sustainability – in
everything I do – I find I am more creative. I like how this passion
inspires me to be better.”
