SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD CHAMPION
Ned Bell inspires cooks to ‘dive deeper’ with creative recipes. Laura Brehaut explains.
From dulse, dark chocolate cookies to geoduck nachos, chef Ned Bell is on a quest to entice Canadians to eat more sustainable seafood.
The time to push our palates past the “big four” — cod, salmon, shrimp and tuna — is overdue, he says.
The health of the world’s oceans is suffering due to overfishing and climate change. “My mission is to champion the small-scale fisheries that dot North America,” the Chefs for Oceans founder says. “And get people to dive deeper into the conversation of what does a healthy ocean look like?”
Making seafood choices that support sustainable fisheries and aquaculture isn’t about restrictions, Bell emphasizes. But it does require opening your mind to species further down the food chain from apex predators such as the bluefin tuna. “Bluefin tuna (has been depleted) to three per cent (of historic levels). And we’re still celebrating it. It’s just beyond me how a chef could actually celebrate it proudly,” Bell says.
In his debut cookbook, Lure: Sustainable Seafood Recipes from the West Coast with Valerie Howes, the Ocean Wise executive chef inspires home cooks to choose more ocean-friendly species.
A good place to start, he writes, is to explore shellfish, seaweed, sea greens and sustainable species of wild Pacific salmon (chum, coho, pink, sockeye and spring). Consider buying smaller species like mackerel and sardines, and substituting “challenged big red tunas” for Pacific albacore tuna.
As species sustainability is changeable, Bell recommends staying up to date by using an app from one of “the ocean guardians” — Seafood Watch, SeaChoice, Ocean Wise or Marine Stewardship Council. Recipes excerpted from Lure: Sustainable Seafood Recipes from the West Coast by Ned Bell with Valerie Howes (Figure 1 Publishing).