June 20, 2013 — Sure, Georges Bank has what regulators believe is a recovered, healthy stock of haddock, but isn't it time we considered less favored, but happily often cheaper, fish? There's a delicious opportunity this summer to give more plentiful local varieties a chance through the annual "Out of the Blue" campaign the Gulf of Maine Research Institute runs in partnership with area fine-dining establishments.
Tourists and regulars demand familiar haddock in the fried fish sandwiches they gobble down in their cars clogging Brunswick's Fat Boy Drive-In. And haddock — frozen-at-sea from Norway — was the most prominent fish recently advertised at my local Hannaford's seafood counter. Ever since cod collapsed, its whitefish cousin has starred in chowders and on fish-and-chip platters at New England seafood shacks and in home kitchens. (Scrod, too — baby haddock or cod.) But now Gulf of Maine haddock is in trouble, too. Catch limits on haddock here were cut 73 percent this year — another blow to the Northeast coast, which the US Department of Commerce recently declared a "commercial fisheries disaster." Sure, Georges Bank has what regulators believe is a recovered, healthy stock of haddock, but isn't it time we considered less favored, but happily often cheaper, fish?
There's a delicious opportunity this summer to give more plentiful local varieties a chance through the annual "Out of the Blue" campaign the Gulf of Maine Research Institute runs in partnership with area fine-dining establishments. This week's promotion focuses on Atlantic mackerel, nearly twice as high as salmon in omega-3 fatty acids but one of the least used from Maine waters. Europeans and the Japanese love it. Trattoria Athena in Brunswick features an Italian dish of mackerel with golden raisins, pine nuts, and toasted bread crumbs over linguine. The restaurant's excellent new Maine Street wine bar, Enoteca Anthena, has yopsari, a crostini spread of smoked mackerel, green garlic, and Greek yogurt chef Tim O'Brien recently debuted at the Kennebunkport Festival. Several Portland restaurants are among the 19 participating — including big names such as Five Fifty-Five, Fore Street, Local 188, and Eve's at the Garden.
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