Slow Fish goes to college!

by Spencer Montgomery
This is one in a series of stories from some of the people attending Slow Fish 2016.

There's less than a week to go until we're all together in New Orleans for Slow Fish 2016: Gateway to the Americas! I'll be road trippin' it down in a 12-passenger van, with seats still available, in case there are any last-minute takers!

If you can't make it to Slow Fish this year, then please consider making a last-minute donation to our crowd-sourcing campaign to help cover the registration cost of a fisherman to attend.

Slow Fish has become a central theme of my life. So much so that I am now working as a part-time, commercial hand gear fisherman on the F/V Finlander out of Eliot, ME.

For me, it began a couple years ago, when I distributed surveys to 44 members of our local campus Slow Food chapter at the University of New Hampshire. The survey's purpose was to help guide our efforts as a group, since we had grown so quickly. Surprisingly, more than half of the students expressed a strong interest in learning more about 'seafood sustainability'.

I realized that I knew nothing of the subject.

Together with my peers, I began exploring what it meant to be a sustainable eater in the realm of seafood. I reached out to gain perspective from local fishermen, chefs, professors and community organizations. Eventually, I discovered the Slow Fish campaign and was hooked!

Our group decided to host a Slow Fish Workshop and a Seafood Throwdown to begin exploring the seasonality and biodiversity of fish as food. 

Working with local fishermen, we were able to procure seven different species of fish for the workshop. These included beautiful, whole specimens of monkfish, white hake, Acadian redfish, winter flounder, whiting, Atlantic pollock, and dogfish.

Twenty eager students showed up, ready to learn how to fillet and cook with each of the species. We crafted everything from monkfish stew to dogfish ceviche. We even used leftover fish heads and bones to make culinary stocks. Our workshop was even featured on tv! Click here to watch.

Moving Markets

Given its hands on approach, our Slow Fish Workshop served as a gateway for us to learn more about 'sustainable seafood'. We were hungry for more. Within one semester, our Slow Food group collaborated with the University to get more than 2,000 pounds of local seafood into our dining halls! Read about the case study here.

The Slow Fish Workshop was a huge success at UNH and the concept has since spread to four other U.S. States, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and even Vermont! Each workshop's story is wholly unique, given its local watershed and the fishing community it serves to embrace.

So, feast your eyes my friends! Slow Fish is going to college!

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY

Led by Margaret Wittier-Ferguson, students at Northeastern University partnered with a local community supported fishery (CSF), Cape Ann Fresh Catch, to source the freshest Atlantic pollock for their Slow Fish Workshop! Over 15 students had their first experience butchering a whole fish.

Whole fish food culture

Whole animal utilization is a core concept of Slow Fish. As consumers, our ability to accept whole fish can greatly enhance the success of CSFs and other forms of direct marketing. Plus, there's great value in cooking with the whole animal! (i.e. you get fresh fish collars, and leftover fish heads & bones can make delicious fish stocks for risotto, bouillabaisse, ètouffèe, gumbo, grits & more!)

UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

At the University of Rhode Island (URI), student leaders, Kayleigh Hill and Emily Desrochers, hosted a Slow Fish workshop to increase their community's appetite for locally-abundant, underutilized and invasive species of seafood.

Students partnered with Sarah Schumann, a Rhode Island commercial shellfish harvester and president of Eating with the Ecosystem, to source periwinkles (Littorina littorea) and invasive green crabs (Carcinus maenas) for the workshop. Green crabs are quickly destroying native shellfish beds from Cape Ann to Nova Scotia. One green crab can devour 40 small clams and 30 oysters, in a single day! Green crabs are also notorious for mowing down vital eelgrass beds, which provide crucial habitat for species like the Nantucket bay scallop.

The solution? If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em!

Eating with the Ecosystem

Biodiversity is an essential ingredient for eating with the ecosystem, which requires a balanced selection of seafood from all trophic levels.

Silver hake (Merluccius bilinearis) and Atlantic butterfish (Peprilus triacanthus) were among other species at the URI workshop. Students filleted the hake and used it to make ceviche with rhubarb, lemon & pink peppercorn. You can read more here.

"It's my hope that this workshop will spark interest in getting RI-cuaght seafood into our dining halls at URI" says Kayleigh Hill.

Last Man Fishing

Students at URI were also joined by J.D. Schuyler, director of the upcoming documentary Last Man Fishing. J.D. and film producer, Kelley Jordan will both be attending Slow Fish in New Orleans. For a glimpse of their work, check out this short video they made about the Slow Fish Workshop at URI.

COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC

Student leader, Marlene Nuart, organized a Slow Fish workshop at the College of the Atlantic.

At the workshop, students heard real-time stories of indigenous food sovereignty struggles from Vera Francis of the Passamaquoddy tribe. Here's an article that highlights the importance of the indigenous oversight of marine resources in Maine.

Students collaborated with Paul Molyneaux, journalist and fisherman, to procure species native to Down East Maine. The menu included fresh, whole smelts and "bloaters". "Bloaters", traditional to the area, refer to whole, cold-smoked alewives. The preparation involves alewives that have been salted and lightly-smoked with the guts still intact to yield a unique, gamey flavor.

Once the meal was composed, everyone gathered around a big dinner table that directly overlooked the Atlantic Ocean.

UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

What does a vibrant seafood culture look like for land-locked territories?

Most recently, the Slow Fish campaign docked at the University of Vermont. At the helm, student leaders, Olivia Percoco and Katharine Nash, sourced invasive marine species while also working to shift the perception & culture around eating fresh-water species from Lake Champlain.

Incredibly, UVM students were able to procure 10 different species from the Gulf of Maine and Lake Champlain!

Local Burlington chef, Doug Paine, has been using his menu to transform the lingering stigma around eating fish from Lake Champlain. For the Slow Fish Workshop, he donated several fresh-water species, including: rock bass, yellow perch, pumpkinseed, and blue gills.

Students also sourced native & invasive crabs from Wells Harbor, Maine, including: Jonah crabs, rock crabs, and invasive European green crabs. The crabs were submerged in boiling water and melded with aromatics to produce a flavorful crab stock - which became a central component of the students' crab risotto.

Offshore offerings included Atlantic pollock and mackerel, which students procured directly from Eliot, Maine fisherman, Tim Rider of the F/V Finlander.

Know Your Fisherman

Nationwide, farmers' markets serve as platforms for local producers. We can go and shake the hand of the person who grew our tomatoes. We can ask a farmer where and how they produced our honey. Farmers have become local celebrities (and for very good reason!)

But, for fishermen, similar infrastructure fails to exist.

The Slow Fish campaign seeks to build a similar culture of support for fishermen. By procuring fish directly from community-based fishermen, we can better discern our role as co-producers of the seafood we eat.

See you in New Orleans!

I am excited to share more Slow Fish stories with you in New Orleans! Watershed storytelling will be a central theme of Slow Fish 2016: Gateway to the Americas, given its potential for galvanizing relationships and honing our narrative. 





JOIN our Facebook Event Page.

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HOST a Fisher-Chef Alliance dinner.

Sparking Change, One Classroom at a Time

By Colles Stowell, founder of One Fish Foundation

This is one in a series of stories from some of the people attending Slow Fish 2016. 

I did my best to look confident as I sat down at the table with a bunch of 9th graders clutching their iPads. Inside, butterflies were doing the tango. What was I doing here?

I’d been asked to serve as an expert, listening to students’ sustainability projects, called expeditions, at the Casco Bay High School in Portland, Maine. My role was to provide feedback on topic choice, resource selection and content. I’d been writing about sustainable seafood for four years, diving into important issues like bycatch, international fisheries management, aquaculture, ecolabeling, etc. But I’d only had a smattering of teaching experience, and I wasn’t really sure if I could help these students.

Then the first student delivered a well thought-out overview of the collapse of the Northern shrimp fishery in Maine. He’d done much of the same research I had, and had come to many of the same conclusions about the potential negative effects of water temperature increases, and decreases in the phytoplankton the shrimp eat.

I was amazed. At that instant, I realized high-school and even middle-school students are at a good age to begin learning about the issues around sustainable seafood. If students can not only engage with the topic, but also care enough to seek solutions, there’s hope for the future of marine ecosystems. Why not bring that message directly into classrooms?

That was two years ago. In the interim, I became involved with movements like Slow Fish because I shared similar views on responsible fisheries. I’ve worked with the team planning Slow Fish 2016 messaging strategies, and look forward to continued collaboration on Slow Fish messages and events.

Reviewing harvest method basics with 6th graders in South Portland, Maine.

I also launched a non-profit specifically aimed at discussing with middle- and high-school students some of the most important issues about how seafood gets from boat or farm to plate. One Fish Foundation teaches students to think about seafood not just as frozen fish sticks, but as a precious resource delivered via an often complex system. In one or two classroom visits, we talk about the delicate ecological and environmental balance between healthy fish populations, harvest, anthropogenic impacts, changing ecosystems and local economies.

I’ve worked with students aged four through 15. I brought a lobster trap and a turtle excluder device into my daughter’s pre-kindergarten class, and managed to hold their attention for half an hour. We talked about how we catch lobsters and some fish, and what we’re doing to protect the species. I’ve discussed in broad strokes some of the complexity of international fisheries management with 9th graders, and brought a dead fish into a 6th grade science class to discuss invasive species.

In every class, there’s been a moment when I see comprehension set in as students’ eyes light up and they raise their hands to ask a question or make a comment. They begin to see where the natural balance is or should be, and how we can tip that balance for the worse or the better.

Here are a few of the observations I’ve made in the past several months:

1. Age is irrelevant. One Fish Foundation lesson plans are customized to meet students where they are in their classroom curricula. So I was able to get a bunch of pre-schoolers to understand that we don’t kill every lobster or fish we haul out of the ocean, and why that’s important. Starting the conversation early gets students to think about that balance. The older the student, the more they start to think in terms of solutions.
2. Students are better served by having enough information to make their own decisions when at a restaurant or seafood store. There are plenty enough static buying guides available. I’ve found students more receptive to understanding why some fisheries are more sustainable than others. My 6th graders now ask specific questions about when, where and how fish or shellfish was caught or grown.
3. Visual and hands-on props are crucial. Despite the fact the dead black sea bass was rather pungent, 6th graders crowded around the desk and begged to touch the pharyngeal plates (crushing plates in the throat). My daughter used a stuffed turtle as a prop to show how a turtle can escape certain nets.
4. Coastal communities where seafood is abundant are great launching points for these kinds of discussions with students. Portland, Maine area students in general love seafood, and are receptive to talking about where it comes from.
5. Enthusiasm for the topic is contagious. This is a standard teaching tenet, but made more relevant by the fact that we’re talking about food. Ten- and eleven-year olds in particular seem to be at the beginning threshold where they start to care about how food gets on their plates. Slow Fish 2016 will bring enthusiasm to community discussions about seafood issues, including the importance of youth involvement.

Tools of the trade: turtle excluder device, trawl net, lobster trap, and gill net.

Perhaps the most important take-away for me has been that given the information and the right impetus, some of these students may be future catalysts of change. When an 11-year-old says she told her mom not to buy shrimp at a restaurant because the waiter said it was from Thailand, I feel I’ve succeeded.

I’ve had conversations with 9th graders about the importance of community supported fisheries (CSF) in ensuring fresh, locally caught seafood while supporting local fishermen. Similar to buying shares with a CSA (community support agriculture), people buy shares of future fresh caught fish. Some CSFs, like Cape Ann Fresh Catch, focus on underutilized (read: abundant) species. Those students talked about ways to start a new CSF in their expedition projects.

When I tell people I’m bringing these messages into classrooms, they invariably tell me it’s a good idea and ask where I’m teaching next. That kind of validation underscores a critical point. Perhaps teaching students at all ages about where their food comes from -- in creative, dynamic interactions -- empowers them to make smarter decisions about what they eat. Moreover, that understanding may set the stage for them to get involved, and maybe find solutions to future sustainable seafood challenges.
 
Slow Fish celebrates the relationship between communities and their local seafood. But involving the community’s youth in these types of discussions is essential for ensuring seafood sustainability. Spencer Montgomery will take this notion a step further in next week’s blog, highlighting a growing movement to get college students to not only think about seafood systems, but to advocate for schools to source and serve locally available, sustainable seafood.



REGISTER for Slow Fish 2016.
JOIN our Facebook Event Page.
SUPPORT our Indiegogo fundraising campaign.
HOST a Fisher-Chef Alliance dinner.