A bouillabaisse recipe that’ll make you a minor celebrity in your kitchen.

“This recipe is our version of Frogmore Stew, which is a traditional shrimp boil indigenous to John’s Island, South Carolina, just south of Charleston. Traditionally, shrimp, smoked sausage, potatoes, and corn are boiled with bay leaves in water and served family style. For Mama’s Boy, we jazzed it up a bit by adding  additional locally caught shellfish and fish,  fresh herbs, and steaming in an aromatic stock made from the shells of the shrimp.”  —Greer Fredericks

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 pound uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined, shells reserved

Shrimp Stock:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, coarsely chopped
1 small carrot, coarsely chopped
1 celery rib, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon sweet smoked paprika
1/2 cup white wine
5 cups water

Bouillabaisse:

1 pound red-skinned potatoes, quartered and roasted
3 tablespoons olive oil, or as needed, divided
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 ears fresh corn
1 pound littleneck clams, scrubbed
1 pound mussels, scrubbed and debearded
1/2 pound lean, white-fleshed fish fillets, such as red snapper or cod, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 pound smoked sausage, such as Andouille, cut into 1/4-inch rounds
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
6 slices crusty bread, toasted

Directions

1. To make the shrimp stock: Heat the oil in a 14-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, and celery and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is soft and translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the reserved shrimp shells and cook, stirring often, until the shells turn opaque, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the fennel seeds, red pepper flakes, and paprika and stir until well combined. Add the wine and bring to a gentle boil over medium-high heat until the liquid is reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Add the water, bring to a simmer, and cook for 30 minutes. Strain the stock into a saucepan, discarding any solids, and reserve.
2. To make the roasted potatoes: Preheat the oven to 400°F. Place the potatoes in a small bowl with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and toss until the potatoes are well coated. Transfer the potatoes to a sheet pan in one layer. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Roast, stirring occasionally, until fork-tender, about 45 minutes. Set aside for the bouillabaisse.
3. Cook the corn in the microwave on high for 2 minutes. When cool enough to handle, cut into 1-inch rounds. Set aside.
4. Reheat the reserved stock in saucepan until hot. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a medium-size stockpot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the clams, cover, and cook, shaking the pot occasionally, for 3 minutes. Add the mussels, cover, and cook, shaking the pot occasionally, for 3 minutes. Season the fish with salt and pepper. Add the hot stock, fish, shrimp, sausage, roasted potatoes, and butter and bring to a simmer. Add the corn and parsley, cover, and steam over medium-high heat until the shellfish open and the shrimp are opaque throughout, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Discard any shells that do not open.
5. Divide the fish mixture evenly among six large bowls, ladle over the broth, and serve with crusty bread.

Reprinted with permission from “The Connecticut Farm Table Cookbook“, by Christy Colasurdo and Tracey Medeiros, The Countryman Press 2015

Photo by Oliver Parini, reprinted with permission from The Connecticut Farm Table Cookbook, The Countryman Press 2015

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Bad news for scampi lovers: meeting the world’s demand for shrimp is doing some serious damage to the ocean (and our health). Here are five little-known reasons to take shrimp recipes out of the dinner rotation.

In his new book, “The Perfect Protein”, Andy Sharpless makes some very compelling arguments for why we should all rethink our favorite shrimp recipes. Sharpless is CEO of Oceana, the world’s largest ocean conservation group, so he knows a thing or two about what our insatiable appetite for seafood is doing to the planet.

Americans eat more shrimp than any other type of seafood by weight. According to Sharpless, being very careful about how we source shrimp can go a long way toward protecting the oceans. The sad reality is neither fishing nor farming is a truly sustainable way to produce shrimp. Read on for some more compelling reasons to wean yourself off shrimp.

5 Reasons To Kick Your Shrimp Recipes To The Curb

1. Most shrimp consumed in the United States comes from farms in Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Thailand. These operations grow shrimp in shallow pools that form the perfect haven for bacteria and viruses. Even scarier? Only two percent of all imported seafood is tested by the Food and Drug Administration.

2. To combat the pathogens that see shrimp pools as breeding grounds, shrimp farmers often dump high levels of antibiotics and pesticides into the water–some of which are banned for use in the U.S. and other countries. You demand organic produce, but how often do you search for organic seafood? Kind of defeats the purpose, right?

3. In order to make room for shrimp operations, farmers often rip out mangrove forests, which is terrible for the environment. “Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have found that mangrove forests absorb and trap more climate-changing carbon dioxide than any other ecosystem on the planet, including rainforests. Mangroves also serve as nursery areas for other ocean creatures, and they help keep coasts secure by reducing flooding during storms,” reports Prevention.com.

4. Tearing up precious mangrove forests is bad enough, but that’s not the worst part: When shrimp farming pools become too old or contaminated for use, farmers just move on to a new area and repeat the process. The former mangrove forest is now a polluted wasteland, leaching dangerous chemicals into the water supply.

5. I know what you’re thinking. “I only every buy wild-caught seafood, so my shrimp recipes are safe.” Think again. Wild shrimp are caught with fine-meshed trawl nets pulled through the water behind a boat. The only problem is that they nets catch a lot of other stuff besides shrimp. “Most fish are damaged from being in the net, and many are discarded—dead or dying—overboard,” Sharpless points out. “Nets routinely pull up 9,000 endangered or threatened sea turtles annually, in addition to sharks, red snappers, and other animals.”

Eco-Friendly Alternatives To Shrimp

Giving up shrimp won’t be easy, but there are some more responsible seafood choices that can help. According to Sharpless, sardines and anchovies, mussels, Alaskan salmon, domestic clams, and farmed oysters are more sustainable selections that are also safer for your health.

Related on Ecosalon:

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Image: wwarby

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We need to save our oceans, and quickly. The most recent and widely cited report on fisheries predicts a complete global fisheries collapse by 2048 and asserts that ninety percent of large fish such as tuna and swordfish are already gone.

Other than the people using seafood wallet cards and reading eco-blogs, does anyone care?

In a 2008 report on the US Marketplace by Seafood Choices Alliance, chain restaurant operators report that only 22% of their customers are concerned about the environmental condition of the oceans. According to retailers, 25% of their customers are concerned. They better start caring because all-you-can-eat shrimp platters might not be the only casualty of the coming catastrophe. All life on earth depends on the health of the oceans. Even ours.

Not surprisingly, if consumers don’t care, few retailers and restaurants will take action because, after all, their job is to give consumers what they want or to go out of business. If retailers and restaurants won’t take action, neither will the wholesalers. Only 37% of retailers decided not to sell a certain seafood because of environmental considerations, according to a 2007 survey.

The terribly sad thing about this nearly imminent collapse is that it’s preventable. Though pollution, ocean acidification, and global warming all play a part, overfishing is by far the largest problem. And the most fixable. According to the book Bottomfeeder, we are vacuuming the bottom of our oceans clean.

We need a multi-pronged plan:

1. Consumers (and that means everyone) need to step up and push retailers and wholesalers to do the right thing. The power of the purse truly is a force to be reckoned with, but it has to be collective to work.

2. Governments need to cooperate on regulations and enforce fishery quotas.

3. New policies need to be put in place to protect fisheries.

Point 1: How do we get consumers to care? I truly believe that people would care if they only knew how bad it was. It’s not in the seafood seller’s business plan to let their customers know. That’s why I believe in-your-face tactics like some of Greenpeace’s recent campaigns can be really effective. Their ability to raise consumer awareness can push retailers to do the right thing.

Greenpeace’s recent brilliant attack on Trader Joe’s is a case in point. They used the attack, Twitter and humans dressed as giant orange roughy outside the stores to protest Trader Joe’s sales of endangered fish. The campaign was barely out of the gate before Trader Joe’s announced it would follow Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch recommendations for purchasing seafood.

Then there was the protest against the high-end Manhattan Restaurant, Nobu. It got a lot of attention, including in the New York Times.

Lamely, Nobu chose to leave the fish on the menu but to tell customers that it’s endangered and they should choose something else.

Less well-publicized, Greenpeace also puts out a seafood scorecard that allows consumers to assess how well their favorite supermarkets do in terms of sourcing sustainable seafood.

Another novel idea is that of consumer supported fisheries. Or Seafood CSAs: These seem promising from the point of view of supporting the smaller scale fisherfolk and keeping them in business. Such schemes, though great, are likely to be adopted by so few people that they won’t make a huge difference in the future of our oceans on their own.

In addition to consumer-focused efforts and campaigns, other ideas are being floated to help save our oceans. In order to do away with what is called the tragedy of the commons, some fisheries experts and governments (including ours) are proposing a privatization plan that provides individual transferable quotas that fisherfolk bid for. The logic is that everyone will have a vested interest in conservation. The plan does seem to have worked in some places. But I suspect, as usual, the devil is in the details. Critics say that such a plan will force smaller fisherfolk out of the game in favor of the large fleets that cause most of the destruction in the first place.

Up until now, governments have been lousy at cooperating to save our fisheries and oceans. The problem with global trade is that everyone has to commit to supporting bans on certain types of equipment or fishing moratoriums on certain species. That is slowly changing. The Pew Environmental Group recently formed a coalition dedicated to reforming the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy.

And even more recently, France’s President Sarkosy announced his support for a ban on the sale of bluefin tuna. The British fisheries minister joined the ban, and more are likely to follow.

It’s clear from all of this, that everyone needs to do his or her part. How can you do yours? Here are six easy recommendations:

1. Educate yourself about what is sustainable and what isn’t. Try reading a book on the subject. The wallet cards such as Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch cards are great, but a subject as complex as this deserves further study.

2. Know the big three. The three most popular types of seafood in America are also the most environmentally problematic – salmon, shrimp and tuna. Stay away from farmed salmon and eat wild salmon as a special occasion food. Find out where your shrimp was farmed or caught. If it’s really cheap, you probably shouldn’t eat it. Most species of tuna are endangered and high in mercury, too. Enjoy the small species (such as skipjack) if they are hook and line (not long line) caught, and only once in a while.

3. Give that supermarket sushi a pass. It’s full of cheap tuna, salmon, and shrimp. See above.

4. Develop a love for sardines, both canned and fresh. They are great for you (full of Omega-3s), are low on the food chain and are abundant.

5. This is the hardest one. You have to spread the word. Remember, people don’t know this information, so you have to tell them. It’s hard to talk to people about their food choices without being seen as an annoying, judgmental killjoy, but find a nice way to tell your friends and family members that they might want to lay off the canned albacore or treat it as a special occasion food.

6. Be Hopeful.

Further Learning:

End of the Line
Bottomfeeder
A Good Catch
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
Fish Forever
Seafood Lovers Almanac

Image: Jonathan Assink

The post It’s Time to Get Serious about Overfishing appeared first on EcoSalon.