Getting Trashed: New England Fisheries Offer Sustainable Seafood

As global ocean warming hits home, marine biologists, local commercial fisherman, seafood lovers and most importantly, the chefs who serve them throughout New England, are adapting to an influx of warmer water seafood species beginning to flourish up north as traditional cold-water fish stocks thin out.

Enter Eating with the EcoSystem, an educational effort to design and promote a place-based approach to sustainable seafood for New England. By combining science, commerce and culinary arts, the project takes a deeper look at understanding and implementing sustainable seafood practices.

Eating with the Ecosystem's traveling dinner series partners with restaurants in Rhode Island and the Boston area to celebrate and steward the region's unique marine ecosystems, one at a time: Southern New England waters, Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine. Participants learn about how the special habitats and food web relationships in these ecosystems conspire to produce the region's seafood, and what must be done to take care of these food-producing ecosystems for the future.

Events throughout Boston and Rhode Island this fall will feature chefs and guest speakers, diving into the issues surrounding the ocean's fragile ecosystem while still providing a delicious a meal in good conscience.

The "trash fish" eating movement, spearheaded by local chefs in conjunction with local fisherman, nonprofits and marine scientists encourages diners to eat abundant species, rather than endangered seafood such as cod. Chefs and fisherman are also seeking to introduce the "whole animal eating concept" (gills to tail?) to reduce waste and make full use of harvested seafood, such as scallop roe and other typically discarded seafood delicacies.

Eating with the EcoSystem was established by Rhode Island commercial fisherwoman Sarah Schumann and kick-started by a generous grant from Audubon's Toyota Together Green program.

Boston Area Dinner Series
September 10
Southern New England waters at Henrietta's Table

October 8
Gulf of Maine waters at Lumiere

November 4
Georges Bank waters at Tremont 647

Click Here for Boston event details.

Rhode Island Dinner Series
October 15
Gulf of Maine at Hourglass Brasserie

November 26
Georges Bank at Tallulah on Thames

Click Here for Rhode Island event details.