Net gains for sustainable seafood - Cover Story

Boat/US Magazine, March, 2004 by Caroline Ajootian

What do such culinary luminaries as Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, Emeril Lagasse, Rick Bayless, Alice Waters, Robert Kinkead and Todd English have in common? Turns out, they and over 90 other top American chefs contributed the 150 finfish and shellfish recipes found in One Fish, Two Fish, Crawfish, Bluefish, only the second cookbook ever published by the Smithsonian Institution.

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One Fish, Two Fish answers the question, "What is an ecologically conscious, seafood-loving cook to do?" with tips about how chefs, recreational anglers and conservationists can make a difference, regardless of whether seafood is gathered in the wild, purchased at the market or ordered at a restaurant. Far from being a somber screed about dying oceans and their threatened inhabitants, the book's emphasis is on using seafood species that are fished or farmed in an ecologically sound manner. The recipes are inspired.

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The book's subtitle, "The Sustainable Seafood Cookbook," reflects the backgrounds and philosophies of its authors, Dr. Carole C. Baldwin, PhD, and Julie H. Mounts, both ichthyologists (scientists who study fish) who work at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

"Creating this book opened our eyes to a whole new world of choices and illuminated our own habits of relying weekly on the same species, mainly imported farmed Atlantic salmon and shrimp," the authors write in the introduction. "Neither is a good choice from an environmental standpoint."

So, if you want to get beyond salmon and shrimp. One Fish, Two Fish is the place to go. Chapter One starts with oysters, mussels and clams and subsequent chapters visit herring and shad, sablefish and butterfish, mahi mahi, halibut and sand dabs. Recipes call for fish that run from commonplace (herring) to exotic (when was the last time your grocery store carried opah?).

Between recipes like Kinkead's "Mussels with Garlic, Mustard, Rosemary and Cream" (a personal favorite), and "Pan-Seared Bluefish with Porcini Mushrooms and Lobster Cream Sauce," a creation of Rob Klink's from the Oceanaire Seafood Room in Washington, DC, are sidebars with information about the seafood species' natural history, commercial importance and conservation status, as well as buying tips and cooking methods.

Between the recipes and sidebars are the beautiful illustrations of British artist Charlotte Knox, famous for her work in other cookbooks.

Many of the recipes use cooking techniques that would be easy to follow even on a boat with limited galley facilities. With just a handful of ingredients, Trout Hemingway (Chef Lucia Watson of Lucia's in Minneapolis) and Grilled Eel with Salsa Verde (Chef Armando Maes of Rose Pistola in San Francisco) are examples of the principle of less is more.

At the other end of the spectrum, there's Emeril Lagasse's "Crawfish Etoufee," "Sea-Scallop Ceviche with Tomatoes and Arugula" from Nora Pouillon (Restaurant Nora, Washington, DC) or "Basquaise-Style Seafood Salad" from Bradford Thompson (Mary Elaine's, Scottsdale, AZ) that combines, among other ingredients, octopus, squid, clams and chorizo.

This is a book that will appeal to both the chef and to the person for whom reading a cookbook is like reading a good novel written by someone who, like most of us, learned to cook in their mother's kitchen.

Having grown up in a South Carolina boating family that's belonged to BoatU.S. for years, Baldwin is an angler herself. "Catching fish yourself is the best way to go." She speaks from experience, having pursued her fishing avocation while earning her doctorate in marine science at the College of William and Mary.

"Recreational fishing is environmentally sound" as long as you catch only what you can use and follow the law. "My dad and most other fishermen I know keep a tape measure on board and the first thing he does is measure each fish as it comes aboard." Likewise, she favors catch-and-release programs because, for the most part, they do minimal damage to the target fish population.

Baldwin would like to see readers of One Fish, Two Fish become seafood consumers, literally and figuratively, not only eating more fish because it's delicious and healthful, but also understanding fisheries and environmental issues and knowing the questions to ask when buying fish.

As a taxonomist who studies and describes coral reef and deep-sea fish, Baldwin doesn't normally focus on conservation. But, during a visit to Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, she said, "I saw firsthand the impact fishing has on the ocean."

Tsukiji is immense, covering acres, and each day about 3,000 tons of seafood--at least 450 different species--is sold. Viewing this piscine cornucopia, Baldwin was struck with the thought, "There's so much here every day. How can there be anything else left?"

"Earth's oceans were once thought to be inexhaustible sources of food," she writes in the introduction to One Fish, Two Fish, "But they cannot sustain the demands humans have placed on them."