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Fish can be "delish" for supper. But unless shoppers make careful seafood choices, there might not be enough fish to eat in coming years.
That is the message Baltimore chef John Shields delivered Tuesday night to diners gathered at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
Shields, author of several seafood cookbooks, host of the "Costal Cooking" television series and chef at Gertrude's, showed an audience of 50 how to cook a farm-raised trout dish with Caribbean flavors and told them about the importance of buying seafood harvested in harmony with the environment. The evening was part of Fresh Thoughts, a series of Aquarium dinners featuring local chefs who cook dishes using sustainable seafood.
The wild fisheries of the world are under severe stress from over fishing and pollution, Shields said. One way for consumers to have their fish and to preserve fish stocks is to take the trouble to buy seafood that is abundant, well-managed and harvested in environmentally friendly ways, he said.
Finding such sustainable seafood is easier now that Web sites like the one operated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium have created lists of good and bad shopping choices, said Laura Bankey, manager of conservation for the Baltimore aquarium.
Rainbow trout, raised in a North Carolina fish farm, was the featured fish Tuesday night. Bankey acknowledged that in some instances fish farms have created havoc by polluting waters with waste. However, farm-raised rainbow trout has a clean environmental record, she said, and described it as "one of the greenest" types of fish.
Shields bathed fillets of the trout in lime juice and then cooked them with tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers and orange juice. It is a trout treatment Shields learned from a Haitian woman he met in Florida. A version of the recipe, served with toasted coconut Caribbean rice and plantains, was the evening's entree.
Trout was also the key ingredients in three appetizers, a smoked trout pate, a trout fritter and a barbecued trout slider. Shields, a native of Baltimore and owner of Gertrude's restaurant, mused that the slider sandwich served with apple fennel coleslaw might eventually replace a longtime local favorite, the fried whiting sandwich called lake trout. "Maybe the lake trout sandwich will morph into the trout slider," Shields said. "It is tasty and it is sustainable."
That is the message Baltimore chef John Shields delivered Tuesday night to diners gathered at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
Shields, author of several seafood cookbooks, host of the "Costal Cooking" television series and chef at Gertrude's, showed an audience of 50 how to cook a farm-raised trout dish with Caribbean flavors and told them about the importance of buying seafood harvested in harmony with the environment. The evening was part of Fresh Thoughts, a series of Aquarium dinners featuring local chefs who cook dishes using sustainable seafood.
The wild fisheries of the world are under severe stress from over fishing and pollution, Shields said. One way for consumers to have their fish and to preserve fish stocks is to take the trouble to buy seafood that is abundant, well-managed and harvested in environmentally friendly ways, he said.
Finding such sustainable seafood is easier now that Web sites like the one operated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium have created lists of good and bad shopping choices, said Laura Bankey, manager of conservation for the Baltimore aquarium.
Rainbow trout, raised in a North Carolina fish farm, was the featured fish Tuesday night. Bankey acknowledged that in some instances fish farms have created havoc by polluting waters with waste. However, farm-raised rainbow trout has a clean environmental record, she said, and described it as "one of the greenest" types of fish.
Shields bathed fillets of the trout in lime juice and then cooked them with tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers and orange juice. It is a trout treatment Shields learned from a Haitian woman he met in Florida. A version of the recipe, served with toasted coconut Caribbean rice and plantains, was the evening's entree.
Trout was also the key ingredients in three appetizers, a smoked trout pate, a trout fritter and a barbecued trout slider. Shields, a native of Baltimore and owner of Gertrude's restaurant, mused that the slider sandwich served with apple fennel coleslaw might eventually replace a longtime local favorite, the fried whiting sandwich called lake trout. "Maybe the lake trout sandwich will morph into the trout slider," Shields said. "It is tasty and it is sustainable."
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