Growing up in Indiana, seafood wasn’t really central to my food experience – that’s more corn and cow country than scallop and halibut territory. It wasn’t until I settled near Boston that I really got acquainted with the sea’s vast array of finned and shelled meats. Thirteen years into my seafood fandom, I’m still encountering dishes that surprise me with the variety of ways seafood can be prepared and paired.
So when food safety and quality assurance company iPura offered passes for Boston-area bloggers to attend the International Boston Seafood Show this week, I made sure I was on that boat when it steamed out of port (yeah, this week it’ll be seafood punnery; apologies in advance). Not only did I want a crack at winning the 1st Annual iPura Tweet & Blogfest at IBSS 2011, but I wanted to know more about the myriad ways seafood can be prepared, the companies bringing the sea to my table, and the organizations helping to promote sustainability to fisheries, buyers and consumers.
I took an upstream journey through the schools of SUVs and taxis to arrive at the Convention Center on Sunday. As a first-timer to IBSS – the largest seafood trade conference in North America – I could have easily gone into activity overload. I decided to hone in on just a couple things that are were of interest: responsible fisheries and tasty seafood. The resulting To-Do Checklist was therefore short (more after the jump):
1. Check out the sustainability/regulation organizations’ booths.
As a consumer, I sometimes feel like I’ll have earned several graduate degrees by the time I’ve fully researched and understood the ecological, health and economic impacts of the seafood on my plate. So I was keen to talk to the experts who could boil it down to more manageable bites. Jason from iPura directed me to what I’ll call Sustainability Corner, where organizations like the NOAA Fisheries Service, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Marine Stewardship Council and others had their booths. These groups are heavily involved in promoting, certifying, and regulating sustainable fishing practices.
Rather than a dissertation, I’ll just note a couple things that I think are valuable for average seafood consumers like me:
- Monterey Bay Aquarium – which makes several consumer guides, including an iPhone app, to help consumers make sustainable seafood choices – has a Super Green List of fish that are in the “sweet spot” of sustainability, nutritional value, and safety (low contaminant levels).
- NOAA has recently relaunched their FishWatch site, where consumers can learn about U.S. seafood, including catch quotas, sustainability status, and nutrition information.
- I think companies specializing in global seafood supply-chain traceability are important to strengthening the links between sustainable fisheries and seafood-eating consumers. I had a great conversation with Kris Meier of Trace Register, whose CEO (her husband) is a former fishermen and whose clients include the Kwik’pak fishery (featured in Four Fish and the only fishery that is a member of the Fair Trade Federation)
Trace Register's system at work (ok, not exactly, but close)
And while I found most sustainability marketese at vendors’ booths looked more like an afterthought than a commitment, Poissonnier Karim Machi at CleanFish made an impression with me. He plied me with tasty samples while simultaneously explaining how his company works with small-scale sustainable fisheries to get their products into the broader market. I couldn’t go, but the dinner they were hosting – where diners would be served seafood dishes that are barcoded and traceable from the plate back to the water – sounded like a great way to inform and engage consumers.
2. Visit my friend Karl
A fun side benefit of this trip was seeing my friend Karl, who was at the booth of his employer, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. It’s been many years since we both were slinging caffeine and muffins at Goodbye Blue Monday, and it was great to catch up with him.
Extra special bonus: Karl reached into The Secret Stash and gave me a copy of ASMI’s Wild Alaska Seafood cookbook, featuring chef recipes from Govind Amstrong, Barton Seaver and Jerry Traunfeld. I can’t wait to try some of these out, like Alaska cod with minted cauliflower couscous and pickled cucumber and radishes.
3. Eat. Eat a lot. Eeeeaaaaat.
I mean, c’mon, rows and rows of seafood vendors sampling their wares are the fish in a barrel (seriously, I need a pun intervention!) for a foodblogger. But this part deserves its own, food-centric post, so I’ll ask you to drop by again Monday for part two: What I Ate.
For the sake of transparency, here’s my disclosure: I received a free pass to the exhibit hall from iPura. I did not receive any other support from the company, nor was I required to mention them in this post to enter their contest.
