I spent most of the day yesterday on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  Not literally.  I was reading Jane Ziegelman’s new book, 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement.  I wanted to know what they ate in the days before Crisco, Cool Whip, corn syrup, and Cocoa Puffs. 

Besides the foods we commonly eat today, New Yorkers in the 1800’s ate buffalo, bear, venison, moose, mutton, otter, swan, grouse, and dozens of other species, both domestic and wild.  Organ meats included sweetbreads, hearts, livers, and kidneys.  Fish dealers offered eel, 15 types of bass, 6 types of flounder, and 17 types of perch.  Produce included purslane (I’m sure there is some growing in your backyard), salsify (a root vegetable), borage, burdock, beach plum, black currants, mulberries, nanny berries, black gumberries, and whortleberries.  Note the extraordinary variety in comparison to today’s offerings.

Breakfast often consisted of mutton chops, fish steaks, and porridge.  Oysters, whether raw or cooked, were abundant and extremely popular at all meals.  Herring was prepared in a myriad of ways, such as with sour cream and mayonnaise, pickled, fried in butter, smoked, rolled, stuffed with pickles, or as “chopped herring” salad.  I know this salad well because I used to help my Grandma Rosie make it. 

Grandma Rosie was born July 31, 1910, the fourth child in her family, and the first to be born in America.  Yesterday would have been her 100^th birthday.  Here’s her recipe:  Soak 12 pickled herrings overnight, drain, remove the skin and bones, and chop fine.  Add 2 cups cooked potatoes, 1 cup apples, and 2 hard-boiled eggs, all chopped.  Mince 2 medium onions, and add to salad.  Add 1 tablespoon each of oil and white vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste.  The book also called for 1 cup of beets and some capers, but I never saw Grandma Rosie put capers or beets in her “chopped herring.” 

Signature dishes on New York’s Lower East Side included hash, soups, and pies.  Pie was so popular that immigrants called Americans “pie-eaters.”  Mince pie, oyster pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, chicken pie, and “sweetbreads in pastry” were among the choices.  Leftover beef, mutton, pork and fish was frequently made into “hash,” and boardinghouse dwellers were called “hash-eaters.”  Soups were made from bones, root vegetables, turnips, potatoes, cabbage, and dried beans.  I learned an old Yiddish proverb:  “Poor people cook with a lot of water.”  In contrast, the American government chose from among pork and beans, beef hash, corned beef with cabbage and potatoes, pot roast, boiled mutton, and mince pie to feed to newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island. 

Smoked salmon is now considered a delicacy, but a century ago it was a food of necessity.  Without refrigeration, food was kept fresh and edible with four agents: heat, smoke, salt and acid.  Meats, fish and fowl were smoked, salted, or pickled.  Fruits and vegetables were pickled, jarred, or dried.  Corned beef, so named because of the large “corns” of salt used in its preparation, also belongs to the large family of preserved meats and fish. 

Here’s a recipe for turning cucumbers into dill pickles.  It’s very similar to the recipe Grandma Rosie gave me.  Pack 30 kirby cucumbers of approximately the same size into 1 large or 2 small jars, alternating the layers of cucumber with layers of dill (20 sprigs total).  Boil ½ cup kosher salt in 2 quarts water, and turn off the heat.  Add 2 tablespoons white vinegar, 4 cloves garlic, 1 dried red pepper, ¼ teaspoon mustard seed, 2 coin-sized slices of fresh horseradish, and 1 teaspoon of mixed pickling spice to the boiled liquid and pour over the cucumbers.  If necessary, add more salt water to completely immerse them.  Cover and keep in a cool place for a week.  If you like the cucumbers green, try one after 5 days. 

New York was famous for a squishy and gummy white bread called the “New York split loaf.”  In contrast, German immigrants made less expensive whole-grain rye and pumpernickel breads with dense, chewy textures and a sour, mildly nutty flavor.  These latter ones were the breads my family bought to slather with real or vegetarian chopped liver, depending on who was coming to visit.  Here’s Grandma Rosie’s recipe for vegetarian chopped liver:  Saute 3 chopped, medium onions in 3 tablespoons of oil until soft and golden.  Mash the contents of 1 large can of drained sweet peas, and add to the onions.  Add 1 ½ cups chopped walnuts and 2 chopped, hard-boiled eggs.  Chop by hand to desired consistency.  Season with salt and a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper.

As Grandma Rosie said often, “Hearty appetite!”

This entry is cross-posted at http://yourhealthisonyourplate.com .

I am pretty excited this morning, because today’s the day that the grounds manager from a small local college is coming over to spend a few hours helping me salvage a row of overgrown, antique quince bushes and convert a small corner of my yard into an edible garden.  I expect that we’ll be working pretty hard, so before he gets here I need to eat breakfast, and that’s what we’ll be discussing today.

Well then, what’s for breakfast?  In one word?  Protein.  In three words?  Not refined carbohydrate.  For more on why not, read here,  here, and here.    When I stayed in a youth hostel in Cairo, Egypt, many years ago, breakfast consisted of steaming bowls of mashed fava beans.  In Germany the breakfast tables were filled with plates of thinly sliced cheeses and meats.  In Israel, we ate soft cheeses, cucumber and tomato salads, and roasted eggplant.  Where refrigeration is less common, people typically eat the leftovers from dinner when they awaken. 

The six major categories of protein include meats, eggs, fish, beans, nuts and dairy.  Now I’m not saying you have to eat them all.  Just pick what you like from among all these choices.  Want some examples?  OK — here goes.

In the meats department, you could have a leftover hamburger.  Or ribs.  Or heat up some chicken wings from last night.  Yes, for breakfast.  In the Midwest, you know, a typical breakfast 150 years ago might have been a pork chop and a cup of coffee with real cream.  They didn’t have a diabetes epidemic then.  Want something more exotic?  Check your refrigerator.  Chopped liver maybe?  Anything goes, from aspic to venison, or veal, if you prefer. 

Don’t care for meat?  What about fish?  There’s smoked whitefish, catfish, tuna (straight from the can if you’re in a hurry), sardines of course, kippered salmon, leftover trout, cod or shellfish, though I expect the chances are slim that you’d find much leftover lobster.  Still…

Eggs.  My favorite, hands down.  Boiled, fried, scrambled, poached.  You can crack one into a little ramekin containing a spoonful of basil pesto. Put the dish into a water bath (loaf pan with 2 inch water) and stick it in the toaster oven at 350 for 15-20 minutes.  You cannot believe how extraordinary this recipe is until you taste it.

For really busy people, nuts are a mainstay of healthy breakfast eating.  When my children were younger, particularly the one who did not usually appear downstairs until 2 minutes before the bus was scheduled to come, I would run plastic spoons along the surface of the peanut butter and hand them over, calling them “peanut butter lollipops.”  A short time later, on my own way out, I would collect the empty spoons from the mailbox at the top of the driveway.  Peanuts not your thing?  Try almond butter, or cashew butter.  It’s not cheap, but then again you don’t have to eat it every day.  I also keep a jar of peanut butter at the office for the 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. hungries. 

Then there are the nuts themselves.  If you keep a bag of nuts in the car, you can eat a handful or two on the way to work.  This has to be the easiest way to eat breakfast!  If your excuse is that you don’t have time to eat breakfast, this is the way to go!  Don’t care for peanuts?  No problem.  Try almonds, cashews, brazil nuts, pecans, walnuts, pine nuts, hazel nuts…did I miss any?  Buy a different kind each time, or make a trail mix from a few.  The more the merrier.  Don’t buy coated nuts.  Make sure to avoid salted nuts, especially if you have salt-sensitive high blood pressure.  You want to buy pure, unadulterated nuts.  I would also suggest storing large bags in the refrigerator or freezer to protect their fragile oils.  They will keep fresh a lot longer. 

Allergic to nuts?  No problem.  Substitute sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.

Now let’s talk about beans.  Maybe there’s some lentil soup in your refrigerator, or a three-bean salad.  If you have refried beans, you could heat them up in the microwave with some cheddar melted on top.  Hummus and tahini are great choices for breakfast.  Scoop them up with slices of cucumber, celery sticks, carrots or even apples. 

What about a burrito?  Is it ok to eat a whole-grain tortilla for breakfast?  Here are your guidelines for eating grain at breakfast time:  If you are 1) diabetic, 2) pre-diabetic (at high risk), or 3) more than 30 lbs. overweight, do not eat grain for breakfast.  Can’t deal with that?  OK, maybe one serving once a week, like at a Sunday brunch, or on another special occasion.  Otherwise, stay away.  It’s making you sick. 

Why?  Because grain requires a ton of insulin to metabolize.  Even whole grain.  Worse, stripped grain requires even more insulin.  Stripped (refined) grain requires an absurdly enormous load of insulin to digest and metabolize.  Remember that insulin works less efficiently in the morning, and that learning to eat smart is all about learning to conserve your insulin.  So if you eat refined carbohydrate at breakfast time, not only are you wasting your body’s insulin, but you are wasting it at the exact time of day when it works worst.  That’s like hitting a man when he’s already down.  Don’t do it.  Eat plenty of fresh produce with your high-protein breakfast instead.  Especially vegetables.

Now, as long as you do not fit into one of the above 3 categories, you should feel free to incorporate some grain into your breakfasts — BUT it must be a whole-grain product. 

Lastly, let’s discuss dairy.  Last week’s post about yogurt works.  So does cheese, and milk.  Less well known, but just as good, are kefir, clabber, and so on.  Goat milk works, just like all the other mammals whose milk is consumed by humans, although not commonly in America.  What kind of cheese?  You name it, as long as it doesn’t contain the words “processed” or “food.”  If someone has to tell you it’s food, it probably isn’t. 

So what did I choose for breakfast?  Leftover guacamole, tomatoes, and 3 generous slices of jarlsberg (a type of swiss) cheese.  A cup of tea with real cream.  And 1 banana for good measure.  Now watch me garden! 

Right now, the dill is taking over my herb garden in its lovely, flavorful and feathery bloom. My attempts to use it don’t usually make a dent in the amount growing, even as I leave plenty to seed next year’s crop, or to share with the next interested gardener. Mostly, I have been cutting it into salads. I could also add it to butter, or make pickles, or hang some upside down to dry. The dill is everywhere, self seeding from beautiful, zebra-colored seeds given to me a few years ago by a patient who also grows startlingly lovely lavender roses.

The other day I was listening to the radio and heard someone say “dill pesto”. I perked up and quickly jotted down the ingredients: dill, cheddar cheese, scallions and walnuts. “Wow. Now we’re talking!” Pesto is one of those things that I formerly associated only with basil, which I adore in the most celebratory sense of the word. But my horizons were about to be widened. I checked out “dill pesto” on line, and found a recipe that included parmigiana, pine nuts, and garlic, in other words, dill-substituted basil pesto. That was not what I wanted. If I were to make that recipe, I would forever compare it with the basil version. The idea of a completely different set of ingredients appealed more.

I pulled out the mini-food processor (an attachment to the immersion blender, thank you, Mom and Dad) and collected my ingredients. I packed in cup dill, chunks of a piece of soft (room temperature) cheddar about 1 x 2 x 3 inches, cup pumpkin seeds (nut-free house), and 2 very small onions (1-inch diameter) that came from East Side Veggies, my local CSA.� The result looked nice, but a bit dry, so I added 1 tablespoon of olive oil and set the processor awhirl again.� Then I scooped the pesto into a little dish, added a small spoon, and let it sit for a while to allow the flavors to blend.� An hour later, the contrast between the warm pink salmon and the kelly green pesto became a feast for our eyes, and the gentle, insistent flavor of the pesto turned our beautiful salmon, baked under a heaping pile of sliced raw onions, into a very special celebration.� The leftover pesto awaits scrambled eggs this morning.� Gotta go.

And a quick reminder.� Remember to jot down a few words and send in a comment for the TEN-THOUSAND HITS contest!� �The deadline is this Wednesday, June 16th.� If you would prefer to stay anonymous, just say so.� You can still win, and the prize of 2 �gourmet� soaps from www.sarvasoap.com is a very special.� Check out their beautiful selection of spa, gallery, premium, holiday, rustic,�and men�s soaps to see for yourself.

For those of us who base our total or partial vegetarianism on the ethical principle of not inflicting suffering on animals who are capable of suffering, one question deserves to be asked but is frequently relegated to the realm of “ignorance is bliss”: Do fish feel pain?

In April, Oxford University Press published Do Fish Feel Pain? by animal welfare scientist Victoria Braithwaite. Many people think the answer to that question is obvious, but depending on whom you ask, that “obvious” answer varies considerably. For once, we have a credible book that attempts to answer that question with science.

Braithwaite explains why it’s only been in the last decade that scientists have made headway in answering the fish pain question. She distinguishes between nociception, which is the unconscious detection of adverse stimuli by the body, and pain, which is processed by the brain and felt as suffering at an emotional level. Braithwaite discusses fish consciousness, sentience, and brain anatomy, and while she is hesitant to declare a definitive answer, she concludes, “I believe the weight of evidence now shows fish do feel pain.”

Braithwaite invites bioethicists to have this revelation inform their discussions, but she does not go so far as to call for an end to fish consumption, angling, or other uses of fish. Quite logically, though, she does put the matter into perspective:

The issues and the evidence are not always black and white, which makes pain in animals a difficult topic with tricky ethical and philosophical implications. However, if we already accept that mammals and birds are sentient creatures that have the capacity to experience positive and negative emotions–pleasure or suffering, we should conclude that there is now sufficient evidence to put fish alongside birds and mammals. Given all of this, I see no logical reason why we should not extend to fish the same welfare considerations that we currently extend to birds and mammals.

One of the highlights of the book is the compelling descriptions Braithwaite offers with regard to commercial fishing. In general I’ve found it hard to feel sympathy for fish, since they appear to be so different than other vertebrate animals. But if you truly accept the notion that fish are sentient creatures who feel pain, then it’s hard not to be appalled by some commercial fishing practices that Braithwaite describes:

• “Long-lining fishing catches species such as tuna, swordfish, and mahi mahi. Long-lining crews set up several hundred lengths of line that can be tens of metres long. The lines, rigged with floats and hundreds of baited hooks, are left for several hours at a specific depth in the water to attract hungry fish species. Once hooked, depending on the number of lines set, the fish may have up to 10 hours to wait before they are collected in. Many fish are exhausted from trying to escape, but they are still alive as they are hauled onto the deck of the fishing vessel and then left to suffocate in the air.”
• “As the trawl net [a massive net that captures all target fish and other marine animals in its path] moves up through the water column the rapid changes in pressure cause problems for the fish. … Without time to adjust to the decreasing pressure [of being dragged toward the surface while stuck in the trawl net], the gas-filled swim bladder typically becomes overinflated, causing huge distention inside the fish. Sometimes the pressure is so great their stomach and intestines are pushed out of their mouth and anus. Eyes can also become distorted and bulge out.”

Frankly, that kind of suffering seems worse than just about any other in industrialized animal agriculture. If people eat fish and otherwise follow a vegetarian diet for ethical reasons, they might wish to consider the evidence in Do Fish Feel Pain? and take their admirable ethical position to its logical conclusion. If people eat “wild-caught” fish and think that they’re sparing fish and the environment from any perils, they might want to take a closer look at the situation. I concede that my decision not to eat fish has at times been based more on routine, consistency, and idealism than on certainty in my convictions, but now it’s hard to imagine ever eating fish again.

In this week’s parasha, Beha’alotcha, Bnei Yisrael continue their journey from Egypt to the promised land. They are provisioned during their desert wanderings by manna, a mysterious food which appears on the ground with the nightly dew, and, according to midrashim,[1] exhibited a variety of tastes. It is against this background that we read the Israelites’ astounding complaint:

�If only we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for free, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic.� [2]

The Israelites had only just been redeemed from tortuous oppression, so it is most perplexing that they would now long for the ‘free’ foods of slavery. Commentators have offered a number of explanations, claiming that perhaps the fish were so cheap or easy to catch such as to be considered free.[3] The Sifrei, however, provides a more profound interpretation. �What does chinam (free) mean? Free from the commandments.�[4] The Israelites did not miss Egyptian cuisine, rather the lack of moral autonomy and responsibility that slavery entailed.

It seems shocking that a nation would choose bondage over freedom, all for the sake of avoiding its incumbent moral and spiritual tumult. A people who spurn independence and responsibility are poor candidates for the creative enterprise of building a nation, much less a holy nation. Thus we find that the so-called dor hamidbar, the generation of the desert, is forced to wander and die off before the Jewish people are allowed to enter their homeland.

Maimonides, in his Mishne Torah, expounds upon the importance of responsibility by drawing upon a seemingly unrelated verse in our parasha. In the chapter preceding that of the �free fish,� we find that Moses is told to construct two silver trumpets which will serve a variety of purposes, including gathering the congregation, moving the camp, as well as wartime and celebratory uses. Maimonides , commenting on the verse �you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets�[5] asserts that �there is a positive Torah commandment to cry out and to blow trumpet blasts regarding every calamity that befalls the community.�[6] The trumpets and crying out are intended to awaken the realization that these troubles are a result of our actions and we must seek to change our ways. If however, Maimonides warns, �you will say ‘this thing is the ways of the world… it is happenstance,’ — this is derech achzariut (the way of cruelty).�[7]

Maimonides here offers a sharp critique of our understanding of our relationship to the world around us. We look around and see an unredeemed world and distress within our own nation and community. One natural response might be, ‘it is not my doing, it is simply the way of the world.’ Another response might be, ‘it is not my responsibility to fix it, nor is it within my power to do so.’ As someone who does not shy from calling opposing positions the ‘ways of ignoramuses’ and the ‘ways of fools,’ Maimonides does not say that these approaches are wrongheaded. Rather, he employs the language of cruelty. It is not just intellectually, and for Maimonides, theologically false to imagine that we can disconnect and isolate our actions from the world around us, it is primarily cruel.

The Israelites who complained about the manna provide a stark picture of the desire to flee from moral responsibility. The burden of freedom is such that they would rather return to a system of institutional disempowerment, a decision that seems unimaginable to us.� Maimonides, in contrast, writes of a far more subtle and seductive flight from power and responsibility � an imagined isolation and powerlessness.

We may like to think that our prosperity, opportunity, and freedom were created and exist in a vacuum disconnected from the poverty, oppression and disenfranchisement of other individuals, communities and nations around the globe. We live, however, in a world of incredible interconnectedness. Much of what we rely upon for our day to day lives � our food, clothing and household goods � was produced by someone else, often in some far off land. Unfortunately, many of the people involved in the production process may not have worked under ethical conditions or did not receive a fair price for their goods or labor. Those of us who are lucky enough to enjoy freedom and prosperity face a choice. Do we continue to purchase goods at their �free market� price, a discounted price because it does not factor in a decent wage for workers, safe working conditions or fair prices for commodities? Or, alternatively, do we choose to purchase products that are fair trade certified and support businesses that pay a living wage? True, no single act of conscious consumption will reverse an unbalanced system. It may soothe our restless soul to imagine then that we are powerless to tackle the great disparities of power that govern global trade, that they are simply ‘the way of the world’.� Our tradition, however, warns otherwise � that irresponsibility and inaction are not holy, or even neutral, but ways of cruelty. Furthermore, we should not imagine that our action is merely spiritual or reflexive. For although the marketplace is a seemingly uncontrollable torrent, it is naught but the aggregation of billions of individual drops. We can choose to divert ours to a stream which promotes a more just society.

The mission of the Jewish people is radical and extensive. Deliverance from Egyptian slavery was not an end in and of itself. It was the first step towards building a nation striving to embody a prophetic vision of justice, a venture which demands great commitment and responsibility. Those who spurned that responsibility, who could not bear the yoke of freedom, never got to see the promised land. Will we too seek respite from that burden, preferring �free� food and goods and refusing the challenge, expense and complexity of ethical consumption? May we be strong enough to achieve a more complete liberation.

Many Jews would consider a bagel naked without the lox

Disclaimer: I am neither Orthodox nor do I keep kosher. And when I read things like this week’s Jewish Week article, I realize just another reason why.

Granted this is in the haredi community, which continues to move further and further toward a parody of itself. A group of rabbis has determined that Shabbat elevators, which are in use throughout Israel and New York, are no longer kosher. And now lox may be suspect.

As someone who cares deeply about where my meat comes from, how it was treated when it was alive, as well as how it was killed, I am continally struck by how except for a handful of exceptions (run by people we all know) kosher meat does not fit into this at all. People who care about both have so few options available.

And now, the same thing could happen to salmon. At question is a parasite that is commonly found in wild salmon and whether said parasite makes the fish unkosher. One rabbi said that a major kosher processor had a simple solution: use farmed salmon. If only it were that simple.

Farmed salmon is loaded with antibiotics and despite some farms that call themselves “eco-friendly,” is devastating to the environment. If wild salmon is eventually deemed unkosher, kosher consumers will once again be faced with two choices: the environmentally sound one, or the highly-processed, unhealthy one.

This week The Jewish Star reported that some haredi rabbis in Israel (as well as some of their American counterparts) have deemed various types of fish treif because they possess a parasitic worm called anisakis. The article quoted a bulletin from “Chevra Mehadrun, the Kashrus Advocacy of Rockland,” as advising that “wild salmon, hake, flounder, sol[e], halibut, sea bass, red perch, scrod, pollock, cod and butter fish are no longer considered kosher.” It must be noted that many mainstream Orthodox authorities, including the Orthodox Union, do not take this position.

Although this new classification does not yet have a huge following, one must imagine that lox and various other common foods would cease to be staples in kosher cuisine. If a large number of kosher consumers adhered to the new standard, fish consumption among kosher-keeping Jews would likely decrease substantially. At this time, there is no reason to suspect that this will be the case. Considering that fish feel pain and suffer in much the same way that other vertebrate animals do, though, one can still hope that more and more people see that fish are friends, not food!

Frum Satire noted that seemingly outlandish rabbinical bans are not out of the ordinary. The blog offered some hilarious quips to explain the ban, including that fish “is untznius,” that this is “[j]ust another way” for rabbis “to control their subjects,” and that one of the rabbis mentioned in The Jewish Star‘s article “doesn’t like his wife’s gefilte fish and this is the only way he can get out of it without embarrassing her.”

What is Jewish food? Avoiding shellfish and pork and never eating meat with dairy? Hummus? Kreplach? Whatever your Bubbe used to make?

What makes a cuisine Jewish?  Other East Asian cultures have vegetarian diets, which by default wouldn’t be mixing meat with dairy.  Hummus is wildly popular throughout the Middle East. And are kreplach so very different than Italian tortellini?

So what is Jewish food?  It’s like what is asking what your comfort food is.  Probably whatever your family makes.  If you have an Eastern European background, brisket, matzoh ball soup and knishes may be the norm.  A Sephardic background may involve more Mediterranean dishes.

But can this identification with food change?  When I was in college, my comfort food was Macaroni and Cheese out of a box.  As an adult, my go-to comfort dish is sautéed mushrooms and kale.  So yes, I’m a believer that people can change.  So can what we think of as Jewish cuisine change?

As the generations pass our diets change.  As technology improves, as do our diets -with the invention of preservations methods we were able to enjoy food differently.  So why not our ethnic cuisines change with the modern sensibilities and technologies?  Vegetable oils were not readily available in Eastern Europe so many of the Ashkanzi dishes involve using rendered animal fat (schmaltz).  Yet today vegetable oils are plentiful and can be used in kosher meat dishes.

Now, for full disclosure changing what we think of as Jewish cuisine was not entirely my idea.   Last year I was fortunate enough to have a lovely dinner with Rabbi Ponet at the Yale Hillel.  He had set up a meal at Miya’s Sushi in New Haven (more on that in a minute) and challenged the table to talk about what made cuisine Jewish.  At Chanukah, he pointed out, we talk a lot about the miracle of the oil then deep fry potatoes in oil.  But if Chanukah is a festival of lights, why couldn’t we make the foods we eat about light?  Flambé anyone?

And as many of us become far more aware about how our eating practices have an environmental impact, could we also evolve our traditional cuisines into environmental sustainable ones?  This is where I get back to Miya’s Sushi.  My boyfriend and I were passing through Connecticut on New Year’s day and we decided to go back for their creative (and sustainable) sushi rolls and firecracker sake.  But what really caught my eye was the chef, Bun Lai’s new conceptual menu.

Photo by Jim Oca, reprinted with permission

The concept is pretty simple.  Due to globalization we have introduced invasive species of plants and seafood into areas that can’t sustain the interlopers – often choking the natives species.  So if there is an abundance of plants and seafood that are bad for the local environment, can you put these invaders to use in some other way?  That is what Bun is proposing – eat these abundant, and otherwise unwanted plants and seafood.  Although these dishes are not yet available on the menu, I can’t wait to try them when they are.  Using what is available, and make the environment healthier by doing it.

Now I’m not proposing that shellfish is going to be okay to eat for all Jews, but kashrut aside the idea of using invasive species as part of our ethic cuisine is an interesting concept.  It’s eating sustainably to a whole new level.  And something I think is very Jewish.

Photo by Jim Oca, reprinted with permission

Straight out of the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in 1988, I went to work for Jasper White, the Boston chef who would become my mentor. I still remember how he told me that Atlantic salmon were commercially extinct. We were beginning to use a new salmon raised in a Canadian aquaculture operation that was a cross-breed of farmed Norwegian salmon, and wild Atlantic salmon. “Better half wild than not wild at all,” he quipped.

Since that time, the New England rivers that provided genetic stock for that ‘80s hybrid have suffered the excesses of the salmon farming industry, and the American public has been exposed to the pollution, pesticides, artificial colorants, and epidemics that salmon aquaculture has brought to our shores. We’ve lamented the megaton hauls of wild “feeder” fish dumped into the insatiable maw of the big salmon business, which built salmon into the most consumed fish in America.

While most consumers seem content to keep on buying factory-farmed salmon because it’s cheap, reliably fresh, and inoffensively mild in taste, some eco-savvy Americans who are concerned about the decline of ocean fish, river biodiversity, and humane treatment of animals rail against fish farming as an environmental disaster. Mention farmed fish to them, and they’ll say that wild is the only choice for fish-eaters with a conscience. Fish farming, after all, has done such damage. But there’s a problem with their argument too.

At current rates of consumption, wild stocks could not meet demand. And demand is growing. Sure, Alaskan fisheries that provide most of our wild salmon are among the best-managed in the world. And yes, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has closed salmon fisheries on the Sacramento, Klamath and Copper Rivers to protect stocks from overexploitation. But those fisheries are either tightly managed or closed to prevent their subspecies from annihilation, not to keep them productive enough to meet all US (let alone worldwide) demand. For fish to have a future, consumers must do two things: Consume fish less frequently, and choose the most ecologically sound farmed and wild varieties at market:

Tilapia: A mostly herbivorous species, tilapia from Nile waters have adapted phenomenally well to pond aquaculture. While it takes about three pounds of fish meal to add one pound to the weight of a farmed salmon and for cod the feed-to-flesh ratio is five to one, tilapia, at below 2:1, have the best feed-to-flesh ratio of any animal species. They naturally school tightly together, alleviating the problem of confinement, and their waste can be used as natural agricultural fertilizer. Tilapia fish is an excellent culinary choice, with resilient white fillets, and an ability to retain juiciness under most cooking methods. It is delicious and mild whether fried, roasted, baked, sautéed, or broiled.

Striped Bass: When I was cooking in Boston in the 1980s, my chef conscientiously boycotted wild striped bass, which was at the brink of extinction due to overfishing. In the ensuing years, several states banned the harvest of this toothsome fish, and elsewhere, aquaculture operations sprung up to farm-raise it. Both efforts, I’m happy to say, were successful. The farm-raised fish are a hybrid of wild striped bass and white bass which, while lacking the deep fish essence of the wild, offer the delicate flesh and pleasing savory flavor characteristic of “stripers.” Thousands of ponds and tanks cultivate these delicious food fish throughout the United States, making them not only an excellent culinary choice, but a sustainable domestic industry for small-scale and large scale growers alike. Thanks to responsible fishery management, wild striped bass has rebounded from its 1980s lows, and is now permitted as a limited catch. It’s excellent grilled, baked in a salt crust, and steamed whole.

Catfish: Once derided as poor man’s food, catfish native to the American south were fished from streams and channels in and around the Mississippi Delta and other bayous. That type of “channel cat” is still found in the region, but the catfish most Americans see in their markets was farm-raised in ponds, either in the southern states, or overseas, particularly in Southeast Asia. Farmed catfish is vastly superior in flavor and texture to wild. And domestic producers employ far higher environmental standards in producing this clean-tasting, firm-fleshed fish than do most fish farmers in Asia. American catfish is an exceptional fillet that takes well to marinades and rubs, and retains a buttery juiciness when blackened, fried, stir-fried, or stewed.

Arctic Char: Like salmon, there are both fresh water and sea running subspecies of char, both of which share salmon’s variably pink flesh and profound fish flavor. Canada has led the way in cultivating char in land-based re-circulating fish “raceways,” which enable the fish to maintain their naturally fast-swimming behavior, while protecting waterways from pollution and escapes of non-native fish. The raceways also protect the fish from disease transfer and allow markets to buy fish that have been pulled from the water literally the same day as they are to be served. This higher degree of freshness is one of the advantages of aquaculture, as opposed to wild-caught fishing that often delivers fish to market days after they were caught.

Barramundi: American fish farmers now cultivate this fast growing Australian native in closed, land-based systems that protect natural ecosystems. It’s raised in Massachusetts, where its wastes are donated to local farms for use as fertilizer. High in omega-3 fatty acids, barramundi is an especially healthy fish choice, and chefs love it for its delicate, buttery white flesh and its edible skin, which crisps exquisitely in both the sauté pan and on the grill. Domestic barramundi is rated as a top choice by all the major ocean stewardship organizations because of its eco-friendly cultivation methods and its high feed to flesh ratio. Its diet is largely vegetarian, making it a sustainable, delicious fish option.

Wild Winners: The striped bass fisheries on the US east coast have rebounded, so they are a good wild catch. Smaller fish like mackerels, sardines, herrings and smelts are low on the food chain, so they are both populous and fast-reproducing. It’s much better for us to catch them for fresh fish on our own tables than to grind them up for livestock feed, wasting up to four pounds of them to yield one pound of some other fish. Wild arctic char is also plentiful and faster-reproducing than its cousin, salmon. Black cod from Pacific waters has the same pleasing richness as the overharvested Chilean sea bass but is not under as much pressure from fishing fleets. And Atlantic mahi-mahi is caught by pole, rather than long-lines, resulting in lower bycatch.

The best eco choices remain mollusks like clams, oysters and mussels, whose cultivation not only thrives without negative impacts on wild populations, but actually helps keep coastal waters free of oxygen-depleting algae blooms. With a balance between responsibly raised aquaculture fish and select varieties from the sea, we can continue to go half wild.