The future of fish

A convergence of schools of thought on fish, and some opportunities to make your views known:

Alexandra Morton is inviting Canadians to take action on proposed federal Pacific aquaculture regulations, which have been offer a 60-day public input period (page 1933 of this hefty document). Now is the time to give some thought to how you want to see Canada's Pacific coast used in future: the deadline is September 12.

Morton's views on fish farms are well known and always make interesting reading; she delivers again in this article which unpicks the politics of Canadian fish farm regulation for The Tyee.

Also chugging through its 60 day public input is this document on Canadian organic aquaculture standards. Deadline for this one is August 30.

Some good background reading on the question of wild vs farmed fish can be found on Barry Eastabrook's excellent Politics of the Plate blog, which features a review of Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, by Paul Greenberg. Discussing the fate of salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna, and offering thoughtful suggestions for going forward with, the book sounds unmissable.

Salmon, meat, sourdough, Lorri at PEP and the Hali garage sale

There's a lot of buzz around the salmon walk (Alexandra Morton's Get Out Migration) which has involved a land-based migration of activists travelling by foot from Sointula, on Malcom Island, down Vancouver Island, raising awareness about the risks to wild fish of ocean-based fish farms (or, as they are described by some, Norwegian feedlots). It commenced on April 21 and is due to end in Victoria on May 9. Here's the itinerary if you want to join in or just see what's happening where.

Some good news around meat inspection regulations in BC; the protests were heard - to some extent - and the regulations have been changed. A little bit. It doesn't solve the problem for a lot of farms, but it's a start. When the regulations were changed initially, many small livestock producers on this island had simply packed in their business when the regulations made it impossible for them to carry on; it will be interesting to see how many are willing to get back into this. Meanwhile, I hear that the reduction in livestock has meant a reduction in the amount of manure available to farms and gardens, which is causing problems for farmers wanting to carry on building their soil without artificial fertilizers. (When oh when will we be able to remember that everything is connected?)

Sourdough seems to be everywhere I turn these days. Here's a great website that explains how to make a reliable starter using wild yeasts (which are present on the grain, not floating in the air as many suppose... which is what Back Home baker Mark Sinclair told us at the sourdough workshop he gave in Victoria). There's a good article about sourdough in the Wall Street Journal, and another in the Atlantic.

Lovely Lorri Neilsen Glenn read at Planet Earth Poetry's season closer on Friday. Before she was allowed to get on stage she had to eat some Cowichan Bay Chicken confit with very local purple sprouting broccoli and organic beets & cumin;



greet the herons in Cuthbert Holmes Park;



and help pack up Rhona's Own Baking for the Haliburton farm stand.



We got to the venue to join a packed house



in time to hear the open mic which included series founder Wendy Morton



and Yvonne Blomer, seeing out her first season as host



and then, and only then, was Lorri allowed to read to us from her superb new collection, The Lost Gospels.



On Saturday she flew the coop, heading east, and I was forced to seek other entertainments, including the Haliburton Farm garage sale



which was meant to raise money for repairs to the farm stand and greenhouse. The day was also the opening of Haliburton's farm gate sales, featuring vegetables, seeds, herbs, seedlings and even a bit of baking.

More fishiness

Fish are ever-topical these days. Last week's BC Supreme Court ruling that froze out new fish farm licenses for another 10 months is a victory for those opposed to the farms on the grounds they are insufficiently regulated to protect the ocean environment, and in particular the wild salmon whose numbers are shockingly low for reasons that many believe are tied to sea lice infestations from the farms. The predictions of possible extinction for pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago are still out there, so the federal government's takeover of fish farm regulation had better make for some swift improvements.

One of last year's Slow Food newsletters included an article about seafood sustainability by Victoria-based fish expert John Volpe, who puts his finger on the problem (or one of them): "Seafood often remains a blind spot in the otherwise educated consumer’s knowledge base."

A few articles to shed a bit more light, including one about trawling; one for chefs, from the Culinary Institute of America; one about oysters; and one from the New York Times (still free for the moment) about balancing health with seafood sustainability.

There is a lot of information out there about climate change's effect on the ocean which is worth knowing about; I predict the dual ills of warming and acidification will soon put those all-you-can-eat seafood buffets of yore into the history books alongside the excesses of Rome.

On a more positive note, thanks to Marci for pointing me towards Todmorden, West Yorkshire, which has a dazzling website showing off the town's efforts towards sustainable food production. One of their projects is aquaponics, which combines food and fish in a truly virtuous circle of water. Check it out:

Smoked salmon 'n spuds

As my mission to clear out the deep freeze continues, I laid my hand upon a lovely package of alder-smoked sockeye salmon; first I made a moderately successful smoked salmon quiche, and then tried a good smoked salmon gratin. Sort of a cross between scalloped potatoes and fish pie and very good with a simple salad or steamed vegetable side dish.

Smoked Salmon & Potato Gratin
2lb/1kg starchy potatoes (e.g. russets, Yukon Gold or King Edward)
8oz/250g smoked salmon, flaked or diced
1 tbsp drained capers
1 cup light cream
1 tbsp cornstarch
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp dijon or wholegrain mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
2 tbsp butter

• Preheat the oven to 350f.
• Peel the potatoes and slice very thinly, dry with a cloth and use one third of them to cover a well buttered baking dish. Season.
• Scatter half the salmon and capers on top. Repeat.
• Cover with the rest of the potatoes and season again.
• Mix the cream with the cornstarch, garlic and mustard and pour over the potatoes.
• Grate nutmeg over the top and dot with butter.
• Cover and bake for 1 hour; then bake uncovered another ½ hour or so, until the potatoes are tender, golden brown and bubbling. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes before serving

Fish, to taste right, must swim 3 times: in water, in butter and in wine.
-- Polish Proverb

One for the birders, and a bit about smoked salmon cheesecake

Neither food nor poetry, at least not poetry yet, and nothing too edible spotted... I have been taking an introductory birding class, and here's what they tell us we saw on our last field trip today, a rainy, cold morning in Beacon Hill Park:

Glaucous-winged Gull
Mallard Duck, male and female
American Wigeon, male
Northwestern Crow
Violet-green Swallow
Barn Swallow
Vaux's Swift
Great Blue Heron
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Rock Pigeon
Common Bushtit
Golden-Crowned Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Eurasian Starling
House Finch
Spotted Towhee
Wilson's Warbler
Townsend's Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Western Tanager
Orange-crowned Warbler (heard)
Downey Woodpecker, male
Spotted Towhee
Winter Wren (heard)

Plus I saw a raven when I got home; I'd seen four of them being chased all the way down the Gorge Waterway by a flock of crows just yesterday. The best part of our field trip was seeing where the heronry was: we spotted about 20 nests in a single tree, several of them with herons in situ. Apparently they counted over 90 nests in that area last year.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd point you to a terrific smoked salmon cheesecake recipe, which I employed to much critical acclaim at the launch. It's not hard to make but important I think that you not overcook it, so I reduced my oven to 300 instead of the 350 the recipe recommends. Also I substituted bottled (roasted+peeled) red peppers for the green peppers called for. Refrigerate it for a couple of hours before serving (one of those wonderful things that you can make the day before) and it will firm up nicely.

What did they mean by that

Just the other rushed afternoon, when I was short of both time and protein for dinner, I consulted the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and ended up making good ol' salmon loaf, which I adulterated with some fresh dill and chopped capers. (It tasted a lot nicer than it looked.) Fannie recommended serving it with mustard sauce, and although I thought I was craving some lovely home-made tartar sauce, this was just as satisfactory, very yum and apparently can be used for a veggie dip as well. I used about a cup of strained yogurt, a tablespoon of Dijon, a teaspoon of prepared mustard, a tablespoon of minced onion, a tablespoon of lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Dinner out of the way, I went back to reading - slowly so it doesn't have to end - Don't Ask Me What I Mean: Poets in their own words, from Picador. It's a collection of the pieces written by the poets whose books have been selected as quarterly choices for the Poetry Book Society, a kind of book of the month club for poets, which has been selecting a best book published in Britain each quarter since the 1950s. Here are a couple of my favourite quotes so far:

"It's embarrassing to discuss your own poems in print. You come across as either an awestruck fan of your own genius or a tedious explainer of jokes." --Michael Donaghy

"What keeps me writing poems - besides the sheer self-entertainment value of playing with language - is the impossible hope that one day I will produce that perfect poem, the one that is balanced precisely on the knife edge between comedy and tragedy, or at least between silliness and sincerity. As it is, every poem I have ever written loses its balance and falls to one side or the other." --Billy Collins

The other morning we saw three harbour seals wending their way toward Portage Inlet, and a lone fisherman on the bridge, which make us suspect that the herring may be running, which means spring is here! Doing his bird dog best, Anton has spent a challenging week here on the Gorge helping local water fowl to find their way back into the water where they belong. Luckily, as demonstrated, he can do this on one foot while holding a yellow rubber bone in his mouth. So talented. I am hoping to have him back, possibly on a dogshare basis, after I return from Austin. Over and out till Texas!

Call of the coulibiac

Cooked my first proper meal since my return last night: salmon coulibiac, which reminded me of my childhood favourite, kedgeree (my mother's super simple version: mix hot cooked rice, chopped hard-boiled eggs, canned or leftover salmon, parsley and a good spoonful of butter). This grown-up puff-pastried incarnation tasted even better - with lemon, dill and mushrooms to zip it up a bit. It was easy to make but it took me a long time, here in the land of a thousand distractions. Apparently the beauty of it is you can make it ahead and then put it in the oven when your guests arrive.

We had it with an aubergine/eggplant pasta casserole I'd hidden in my freezer, and followed with leftover chocolate mousse cake from Thrifty's.

Ok, so it was starch night at the hacienda, but on the other hand it was cold, wet and miserable outside. Starch keeps the rain out, I always think.


Here's what the source of the mystery bark looked like before Tracy turned it into art.