Archive for December 2010
The Sustainable Seafood Quest
I grew up near the Southern Jersey Shore, and spent my high school summers living and working on Long Beach Island. I remember clamming in the bay – we would hang over the side of our rowboat and feel with our toes for clams sticking out of the mud. We would dive down and get them, and sell them for a penny a piece to our neighbors. I could gather a few hundred in the morning, and have pocket money for the day. Today, the bay no longer supports this, because of pollution and lack of oversight. If we would have known about sustainability thirty years ago, I would have had the opportunity to teach my son how we did it “back in the day”. Now I’m burdened with thinking that I was part of the problem.
My friends and I would charter a bluefishing boat and leave at 6:00am to catch the first morning run of snapper blues heading up the beach. You could see them a half mile away, driving the baitfish into the air ahead of them as they tried to escape these voracious predators. (Usually to no avail). We each would catch a hundred pounds or more of fish by noon. We tried to give it away and eat a lot of it, but most of it went as fertilizer in our Jersey Tomato garden. We always had the biggest tomatoes, but we killed a lot of fish just to grow them. We just didn’t think that the vast ocean had limits on what it could continue to give us. Now, there are very few bluefish beach runs – the action is out at the “Canyons”, 15-20 miles offshore. The close-in action is virtually non-existent compared to years ago.
Fast forward thirty five years to today’s problems plaguing our seafood. The Gulf Oil spill will most likely wipe out an entire generation of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna next year that have migrated thru the spill zone, and will return to the spill zone to spawn. It’s unlikely that many will survive. Atlantic Bluefin Tuna are already endangered due to their strong demand from worldwide sushi lovers. Many other fish species are endangered due to overfishing and mismanaged factory fishing fleets. Bottom Dredgers tear up the sea floor in search of clams, scallops and oysters – entire areas are wiped clean of anything alive on the ocean bottom. Longline boats have bait lines that stretch for miles across the ocean. In addition to catching prized pelagic fish like swordfish and tuna, this method kills many other species that take the bait, and are unwanted by the fisherman. Gillnetting is another indiscriminate way of adding tons of unwanted fish to the bycatch total, including sea turtles and dolphins.
Many farmed seafood operations involve raising fish in pens or nets that focus on growing the fish as quickly as possible. Antibiotics are used to keep the fish “healthy” in this environment. It also takes three pounds of fish meal to grow one pound of farmed fish. This puts a strain on the small fish species that are the food source for the farmed fish. Farmed fish contribute a lot of waste in a concentrated area of water, which is usually not treated and can cause havoc with natural coastal environments. (Thousands of acres of mangrove forest have been destroyed by shrimp farmers due to mismanaged shrimp farms). Farmed fish can also escape their pens and breed with the wild species. This can reduce the wild species’ tolerances for disease. Escaped farmed fish also compete for food against wild stock.
So – Does this mean that seafood as we know it will also be a thing of the past in another thirty years? No, absolutely not. There are movements out there that are making a difference in the war, and they are winning some battles. Aquaculture and Recirculating farms are gaining a foothold as sustainable alternatives to harvesting endangered species. I believe that we all must do our part by educating ourselves and our food service operations about sustainability. We must ask questions of our suppliers (and ourselves) about sourcing only sustainable seafood; while from a budget perspective this may be a purchasing decision that must be put off to the future, staying educated about the issue, pricing and availability will enable that future move to serving sustainable seafood. Together, we can make a difference – Let’s save the oceans so our children’s grandchildren can go clamming someday!
Now – for GE (genetically engineered) Salmon – that discussion is for another day……
The Greatest Journey: No Hospitality for the Light of the World
In Mexico they have a wonderful holiday tradition called Posada, which commemorates the journey that Mary and Joseph took to Bethlehem where Jesus was born. Each home in a neighborhood will have a Nativity or manger scene in their house. The local church will choose three homes to represent innkeepers in Bethlehem and four teen-aged children in the parish are given the honor to represent Mary and Joseph. These children will carry small statues of Joseph leading a donkey upon which Mary is riding side-saddle. On the chosen night, usually during novena or nine days before the 24th, a candle-lit procession consisting of adults and children called Peregrinos, lead by a person carrying a small paper lantern called a farlito, will wind through the neighborhood visiting each of the three houses in turn. The teens carrying the statues and the participants in the procession visit each house singing a simple chant each time, but it is only the third house that takes Mary and Joseph in. At this point all of the peregrinos enter the house and kneel before the crèche to pray the Rosary. The Rosary is a traditional Catholic prayer cycle said at important times during the religious year. Traditional Christmas hymns are also sung including in particular, O Holy Night. Once the Rosary is said, and songs sung, it is time for the children amongst the peregrinos to celebrate Jesus’ birth with a joyful party, which includes food, more music and a piñata.
I’ve always loved the story of Joseph and Mary’s great journey and over the years I’ve seen it as a metaphor for many things in my life. When things have been dark I’ve remembered the posada and its example of just how far determination and faith can move a person in this world. It’s certainly gotten me a long way, that’s for sure. And at the risk of spinning a silly, inappropriately parallel comparison, I sometimes see myself as being a tiny bit like that sole innkeeper who gave shelter to a desperate, fearful couple in the middle of the night two thousand years ago. That innkeeper is the hero in the Greatest Hospitality Story Ever Told. If we in this industry knew that person’s name, it would over-shadow every famous name in our business like the moon eclipsing the sun.
The story of Jesus’ birth resonates for all people around the globe, and I have always particularly liked the innkeeper part, because in my small way, I have at times been in that guy’s position. And I like to think that like him, I have made the right decisions and helped make someone’s life a little easier, a little brighter and maybe even, memorable. Of course – in that old innkeeper’s case – he done good. Really, really good. However, the one thing I’ve never liked about the story of the innkeeper is how the Bible says he took pity upon Mary and Joseph. Now I’m no theologian and I hesitate to contradict biblical teaching, but I know a thing or two about hospitality management and I prefer to think that that innkeeper of Bethlehem wasn’t giving them shelter out of pity, but out of a hospitality veteran’s deep sense of duty to help customers in need. Call me crazy, call me a heretic, call me just plain dumb, but I feel I can spot a finesse move by a hospitality professional a mile away and that innkeeper made a move that shrinks all the moves Michael Jordan ever made to a point smaller than the period at the end of this ridiculously, over-blown literary allusion.
Something else I’ve always wondered about the night Jesus was born was if Mary or Joseph had anything to eat or drink while awaiting their Son’s birth. Surely, the innkeeper would have offered them something, however meager it may have been. I like to imagine, since they were in the Middle East, that they might have kept the food light with some nice pita with baba ganoush. And I imagine a little more and in keeping with traditional fare served during the time of Posada in Mexico, maybe Joseph and Mary wolfed down a tamale. Then again, probably not. Sometimes I imagine too far and Mary was after all, in labor and not into eating anything. And as all fathers know, a woman in labor is a force of nature not to be trifled with, so it’s very likely that Joseph didn’t eat either. Anyway, regardless of my over heated imaginings, in celebration of the season, here are two recipes I’ve picked up along the way traveling through life on my own personal posada, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas….
Baba Ganoush
Baba Ganoush
2 medium eggplants, about 1-1/2 pounds total
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup tahini
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 olives for garnish
Warmed chunks of pita bread for serving
Preheat oven to 450° F. Prick eggplants with a fork. Arrange on non-stick cooking sheet and bake until tender and collapsed, 30 to 40 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Cut each eggplant in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh. Place flesh in a food processor with a metal blade and process until smooth. If you prefer to mash by hand, use a fork or potato masher. Add lemon juice, tahini, garlic and salt and pepper to taste and process (or mash) until well blended. Slowly add 3 tablespoons olive oil until mixture is creamy. Chill for at least two hours. Serve in a shallow bowl. Drizzle olive oil over top, sprinkle with parsley and garnish with olives.
Tamale
Jesus’ (really) 60 Minute Chicken Tamales
Ingredients
6 cups Maseca Corn Masa mix for tamales
6 cups Chicken broth
1 cup corn or other vegetable oil (corn will enhance the flavor)
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 large rotisserie chicken
2 1/2 12 oz jars green tomatillo sauce
1 bag corn husks
Instructions
Soak the corn husks in warm water until soft.
Using an electric mixer, blend the masa flour (Maseca for Tamales), corn oil, salt, baking powder and the chicken broth to obtain a consistent mixture.
Shred the chicken and marinate in the green salsa or tomatillo sauce.
Spread masa evenly over corn husks, and spread a spoonful of marinated chicken on top of the masa.
Fold the sides of the corn husk to center over the masa so that they overlap to make along package.Fold the empty part of the husk under so that it rest against the side of the tamale with a seam.
Place the tamales in a steamer and cook tamales for 35-40 minutes. Check every 20 minutes.The tamale is cooked when it separates easily from the corn husk
Creative Dining Employee Pays it Forward
Brenda Turner-Gonzales has been a Creative Dining employee at Hope College in the Kletz café for 21 years. While not a Creative Dining employee, her husband, Louie Gonzales, works at Hope also, in the custodial department in Phelps Hall, where the main dining hall is located. This year three of their grandchildren have been diagnosed with an eye disorder called Stargardt’s Disease. The disease is a form of macular degeneration and will result in the legal blindness of all three children. Brenda and Louie’s daughter, Beatrice, is a divorced, single mother of four. Obviously, there are numerous challenges just dealing with the overwhelming diagnosis, not to mention financial challenges; Beatrice is working but has had to cut down her hours to care for the children, who are all younger than 13.
A local news station, Fox 17, in partnership with Pizza Hut, recently offered a chance for 12 people to Pay-it-Forward. Sandy Collins, another Creative Dining employee at the Kletz and at Hope Concessions, was chosen to participate in the program. She won her entry into the contest by stating she would like to help Beatrice and her family. Sandy received $200 and a flip camera to tape what she did with the money.
An activity the children miss is bicycling. Sandy’s plan was to use the money towards two tandem bikes. Even though Cross Country Cycle in Holland agreed to sell the bikes at cost to Sandy, needless to say, the cost of the bikes was much greater than $200. Once word got out of Sandy’s mission to Pay-It-Forward, the Hope College community got involved. Students began leaving change at the Kletz Snack bar; faculty and staff, as well as other Creative Dining Employees, began to bring in donations. Soon, enough money was raised to purchase two tandem bikes and a tag along, so that the entire family can bike ride together. Extra funds left over are going to help pay the costs to transport the children to Ann Arbor for their doctor appointments. Below is the initial news story:
Last night Fox 17 announced the winners of the Pay-It-Forward challenge, and we are pleased to let you know that Sandy Collins came in second place! She is donating her winnings of $3,000.00 to Lakeshore Habitat for Humanity, in the hopes that Beatrice and her children will one day be able to have a home of their own.