Saving Seafood

Fish like a girl: This 23-year-old lobsterwoman from Maine is her own boss

September 24, 2015 — Only about four percent of the 5,000 lobster licences granted by the state of Maine are currently owned by women. Of the 205 women who make up that four percent, 73 of them are under the age of 35.

“It’s frustrating, but I don’t care,” Samuels said. “The more I do it, the more people get it. The guys at the harbor are really nice. It’s mostly older men, yacht people and people at the farmer’s market where I sell on Fridays who are surprised that I’m a woman running my own boat.”

Samuels’ father, Matt, has fished out of Rockport for nearly 40 years. Samuels was born at a hospital down the road, and before she ever went home, Matt brought her down to the wharf. By the time she was seven years old, she had her student lobster fishing license. By 13, she’d fished the 200 hours necessary to get her commercial licence. A year later, at 14, she got her first boat.

“I called it the Miss Understood,” she said. “I thought I was really clever.”

Samuels is still living with her father in Searsmont, a town about 17 miles inland from Rockport Harbor, while she saves money to buy land and build her own place.

“I always knew I wanted to fish,” she said. “Though I went through a phase at 15 or 16 where I was like, ‘This is so much work, I don’t understand why I do this.’ It was one of those things where everyone would come back to school after the summer and talk about going to water parks and stuff and I’d be like, ‘I baited bags.’”

Lobstering is hard, physical work, and requires at least two people. The sternman baits the traps and measures the lobsters as the captain drives the boat and pulls up the buoys. Sadie’s sister, Molly, is her sternman—woman, rather—during the summer when she’s not at college.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Seafood Takes Center Stage at the 2015 Working Waterfront Festival: Program Includes Cooking Demonstrations, Book Signings, and a Seafood Throwdown

September 17, 2015 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The following was released by the New Bedford Working Waterfront Festival:

Come hungry to the 2015 Working Waterfront Festival, an educational celebration of the commercial fishing industry. The free event takes place on the working piers of New Bedford’s historic waterfront on September 26 & 27. The Foodways Area features hourly cooking demonstrations followed by tastings.  Visitors are invited to learn the basics of preparing fresh seafood at home as well as ethnic approaches to seafood cooking and galley fare. Some highlights this year include North African Style Monkfish Stew, Bacalhau A Bras, and Begali Fish Chowder. Ann Pieroway, author of Tastes and Tales of Cape Cod and the Islands and A Lobster Tale and Some Tastes Too, will demonstrate her recipe for Haddock Chowder on Saturday at 12:30 followed by a book signing at 1:30. Heather Atwood, author of In Cod We Trust, will demonstrate Nantucket Scallop Pie, also known as “Boyfriend Pie,” on Sunday at 1:00 followed by a book signing at 2:00.  Carlos Rafael, owner of Carlos Seafoods, will demonstrate his expert fish filleting at 4:30 on Saturday.

The Festival culminates on Sunday afternoon with a Seafood Throwdown, in which two chefs compete to create a winning seafood dish using a surprise seafood ingredient which is revealed to them at the event.  Chefs can bring three of their favorite ingredients and, once the secret seafood is revealed, they are given $25 and 15 minutes to shop the Festival Farmers’ Market for their remaining ingredients.  After their shopping spree, they have one hour to cook and plate their entry for the judge’s consideration. This year’s contest will pit Chef Chris Cronin of Padanaram’s Little Moss Restaurant against Rob Pirnie, Executive Chef of Warren, Rhode Island’s Trafford. Judges include food writer Heather Atwood (author of In Cod We Trust), Chef and Culinary Arts Instructor Henry Bousquet, and Margaret Curole Executive Chef for Commercial Fishermen of America. The Seafood Throwdown is a collaboration between the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and the Working Waterfront Festival.

All of this activity is sure to whet the appetite. Festival attendees will be able to enjoy a wide variety of fresh, local seafood. The Seafood Hut will serve a full menu of the finest local seafood including fish and chips, fried scallops, and clam cakes. Newburyport Crab Company will offer crab cakes, lobster quesadillas, salmon tacos, and more.  Littlenecks and oysters on the half shell will be available from R. Shucks Raw Bar and Oxford Creamery’s Ox-Cart will serve up lobster rolls, quahog chowder and more. Looking for fresh ingredients? The festival farmer’s market features produce and specialty items from a number of local farms as well as fresh local seafood provided by Revolution Lobster which will be sold directly off their boat.

The Working Waterfront Festival is a project of the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern MA, a non-profit organization. The FREE festival, a family friendly, educational celebration of New England’s commercial fishing industry, features live maritime and ethnic music, fishermen’s contests, fresh seafood, vessel tours, author readings, cooking demonstrations, kid’s activities and more.  It all takes place on working piers and waterfront parks in New Bedford, MA, America’s #1 fishing port, on the last full weekend in September.  Navigate to us at www.workingwaterfrontfestival.org.

 

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The Aging Oyster And Clam Hatchery That’s Behind A Multimillion-Dollar Industry

September 7, 2015 — As traditional fish stocks in New England continue to decline and the industry endures greater restrictions, fishermen have been creating a new line of work: They are becoming farmers — shellfish farmers.

The cultivation of oysters and clams has become big business in Massachusetts, especially on Cape Cod, but the one source for the state’s $25 million aquaculture industry almost shut its doors.

From Oyster Seeds The Size Of ‘Pepper,’ A Family Business Grew

Myron Taylor is out on Wellfleet Harbor. He’s 74 and has been been raising clams and oysters here since he was a kid.

“And back in the old time when we had to pick up all the oysters seeds on the beach, in order to get them to grow, and it took about four years to get an oyster to grow,” he says.

Those wild oyster seeds Taylor picked up off the beach years ago were juvenile oysters and clams that he would plant in nearby waters. But that traditional method for growing shellfish was very slow and often did not yield much product. So like most fishermen on the Cape, Taylor caught cod, flounder and other groundfish to earn a living.

In the late 1980s, when those stocks became scarce, Taylor turned to lobstering. It was around that time he heard about some scientists in Dennis who were harvesting tiny clam seeds and selling them to fishermen to grow.

Read the full story and listen to the audio at WBUR

World Seafood Congress Kicks Off in Grimsby

September 9, 2015 — The following was released by the World Seafood Congress:

The congress, held at the Grimsby Institute, was opened by Timothy Hansen, president of IAFI and Dr Paul Williams, chief executive of Seafish, the industry authority hosting this year’s event. The morning session saw a selection of talks centred on the topics of sustainability, trade and skills chaired by key industry figures including Brian Young, chief executive at the British Frozen Food Federation, Ivan Jaines-White, Grimsby Seafood Village and George Krawiec from Seafood Grimsby and Humber.

As part of these sessions, special attention was given to the UK’s continued success in training the next generation of fish friers. Richard Wardell, training and accreditation manager at the National Federation of Fish Friers spoke to delegates about the development opportunities available to UK fish and chip shops, explaining how investment in training can help improve sales for many establishments. Following this, Rachel Tweedale, winner of 2014 Drywhite Young Fish Frier of the Year Award, explained how the competition helps aspiring young people develop key industry skills and knowledge.

In the afternoon, delegates were treated to a range of speeches from an international perspective including a special session on the view from emerging seafood markets from Dr Sevin Kose at the Karadeniz Technical University, who examined seafood trade in the Turkish Black Sea region, while Sujeew Ariyawansa at the UNUFTP discussed the microbiological quality of exported seafood in Sri Lanka.

Read the full release from the World Seafood Congress

 

Can Boston’s Cult-Favorite Sushi Bar Cut It in New York?

August 25, 2015 — You know from that first bite of nigiri, a ripple of Japanese amberjack under pureed banana pepper, that you’ve arrived at the beginning of something good. The fish has been torched at the counter, and it’s glossy with melted butter. The rice is this close to falling apart in your fingers. It’s simply composed, but every element—fish, pepper, rice—is on the same level, warm and mellow and soft around the edges, like three friends who’ve been smoking from the same pipe all afternoon.

Boston-based restaurateurs Tim and Nancy Cushman opened their sushi bar O Ya in South Boston back in 2007. A year later, then-New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni declared it one of the best new restaurants in the country. Some dishes the Cushmans served back then have made it over to their new location, which opened a couple of months ago in Manhattan’s Curry Hill; the bare, sliced chanterelles and shiitake mushrooms under a sesame-flavored froth, for example, are still slick with a beloved rosemary-garlic oil.

Read the full story at Bloomberg Business

 

 

Thomas Glynn: Boston’s future depends on a thriving seafood industry

August 25, 2015 — THERE IS A REASON a cod hangs in the State House as our official emblem. For almost as long as there has been a port in Boston, seafood has been a part of it. Seafood is linked to our regional identity, it is embedded in New England’s food system, and it needs to be — and can be — part of our economic future. But it should not be taken for granted.

The metropolitan area’s neighborhoods are, in many ways, known by their industries. Longwood equals medicine. Kendall Square is high tech. South Boston’s waterfront has become an innovation center. But few know it’s also home to innovative ways to process seafood. Long before the biotech firms, cool restaurants, and law firms made a home there, seafood companies were doing business in that part of town. It is important that there be room for the industry going forward.

Massachusetts ranks second to Alaska in the value of seafood caught nationally. Several of the state’s ports — especially New Bedford and Gloucester — bring in bigger catches than Boston. But Boston has the rare ingredients that position it as an epicenter of the state’s seafood processing industry. In close proximity, it has dockside access to fishing boats and seafood processors, an international airport, the interstate highway system, and a global shipping container facility.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

 

A New York City Legacy: Louis Rozzo and a Century’s Worth of Fish Dealing

August 21, 2015 — On a gleaming summer morning, Louis Rozzo steps out the door of a four-story stuccoed building on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea. The neighborhood has since transformed from its mid–19th-century beginnings as the epicenter of the city’s meat, produce and dairy industries, and today the street, lined with apartment buildings, coffee shops and restaurants, seems an unlikely location for a wholesale seafood operation. But this exact spot has been the headquarters of F. Rozzo and Sons  since Rozzo’s great-grandfather Felix moved his eponymous business here in 1924.

On the sidewalk just outside, Rozzo greets neighbors by name as they pass by on their way to work, and when two elderly women wander onto the wet cement floor in the front workroom, curious about buying some fish, he urges them inside.

A few guys, wearing yellow floor-length plastic aprons and waterproof boots, are still at work cleaning, scaling and portioning salmon into heavy-duty brown cardboard boxes. It’s close to 10 a.m. but Rozzo and his crew are nearing the tail end of a full day’s work, one that started in the wee hours of the morning. “I love what I do,” Rozzo tells the Voice, “but the hardest part of my job is getting out of bed.”

Read the full story at the Village Voice

 

Sport fishermen win greater share of red snapper catch

August 15, 2015 — NEW ORLEANS — Recreational fishermen get a greater share of the red snapper catch in the Gulf of Mexico under a rule approved by a governing body.

On Thursday, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council increased the share of the catch going to recreational fishermen — made up of charter boats and non-commercial anglers. The council met in New Orleans.

The change gives recreational fishermen 51.5 percent of the total catch and commercial fishermen 48.5 percent. Currently the catch is split 50-50. The change needs the approval of the U.S. Commerce Department.

The increase came about after scientists re-examined catch data and discovered they’d underestimated what non-commercial fishermen caught.

Red snapper is a highly prized fish and highly managed. Commercial and recreational fishermen must abide by catch limits and other rules.

Roy Crabtree, regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said management of red snapper has helped the stock recover and rebuild.

For instance, red snapper had disappeared off the coast of Florida near St. Petersburg 15 years ago, he said. “They’re back all the way down to the (Florida) Keys now,” he added. “We’ve made huge progress.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press here

 

The O’Hara Fishing Dynasty: Their Secret? Knowing When to Fish or Cut Bait

August 13, 2015 –ALASKA — On July 31, O’Hara Corporation launched the first American fishing vessel that will be able to chase fish through polar ice off the coast of Alaska.

Now in its fifth generation, the O’Hara family business has shown the ability to adapt as fishing technology, two world wars, and changes in international fisheries laws  upended the industry.

“Every generation had its bad thing to deal with,” said Frank O’Hara Jr. from the O’Hara Corporation headquarters on Tillson Avenue in Rockland. Born in 1960, he is actually the fourth Francis J. O’Hara and is the company vice president. One of his three sons is the fifth-generation Frank. His father, who was Frank Jr. and is now Frank Sr., 84, is the company president.

All of the fifth generation is in the family business and working in management.

Frank Jr.’s great-grandfather started the fishing family dynasty in 1904 when he launched a Gloucester sailing vessel, the Francis J. O’Hara, Jr., which fished for cod, haddock, and halibut off of Georges Bank until it was sunk by a German U-boat in 1918.

The vessel’s namesake got a $5,000 family loan to start his own business: the Atlantic and Pacific Seafood Company in Boston.

Read the full story at The Free Press