Giant Pacific Octopus
Giant Pacific Octopus
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Grey areas. In the discussions of seafood and sustainability, there are lots of ‘em. As a chef who attempts the most sustainable sourcing practices possible, one might think I would be immune to the criticisms leveled by activist groups who fervently defend our beloved sea creatures. Ironically, eschewing the industry norm for buying seafood (hook up with a seafood company, pick up the phone at night and make orders from the warehouse) for a more complex network of fishmongers, shellfish producers and fishermen routinely exposes us to seafood controversy.
Last year, we found out just how fervent people get when discussing Olympic Peninsula steelhead, as demonstrated in the response to Seattle Met’s lovely article about our painstaking sourcing. The takeaway was that, even though our fish were from a hatchery and therefore sustainable to harvest, the wheels that the Native American population use are indiscriminate and logically must also catch native fish, therefore our wild hatchery fish are the fruit of a poisoned tree. Considering the trend toward scarcity in other West Coast steelhead runs, we determined that the Olympic Peninsula is probably the steelhead’s last stand, so we’ll leave them to the catch and release fishermen. I’m not sure how hooking, fighting, handling and photographing a fish is the best way to champion their population, but I’ll leave that up to the anglers. My friend Taichi Kitamura and I spoke at length regarding this, and out of the the transitory theory of respect (mine for him, his for steelhead angling) I can respect the practice.
Now, due in large part the a lovely NYT article about this asshole (bearer of extremely poor judgement) juxtaposed with Matt Dillon’s lovely GPO cookery, the discussion is live and the battlegrounds are taking shape. With the early signs of a movement (angry e-mails, facebook posts) starting to trickle in, I’m choosing to address this before it is a controversy, and continue to lay bare my seafood sourcing practices.
We source all of our fin fish through Preston Onkst, pictured above. A resident of the Olympic Peninsula, Preston buys line-caught wild fish from Neah Bay boats, stores them in large coolers in the back of his van, and drives them to us on Bainbridge Island. Our shellfish is entirely producer-direct, from farmers like G Webb or Joth Davis, or larger outfits like Taylor Shellfish, up and down the Hood Canal.
A few years ago a massive 72# GPO got caught up in a net out at Neah Bay and ended up on the dock. Preston asked if I was interested, and I was; for years I’d been subjected to inferior Philippines octopus, which aren’t sustainably harvested, but that’s another story. After traveling in Spain and South America and experiencing pulpo from different climates/continents, I wondered why the only source commercially available in the northwest was from SE Asia. I received this beautiful monster:
It was a revelation. It changed the way I looked at octopus cookery. I could never order another case of those frozen rubber bands again. Here’s the most important part: it was bycatch. This octopus wasn’t hunted, it just ended up in the net from a less-sustainable fishery (remember, our fish is line-caught). The silver lining: instead of using the magnificent creature for bait, we bring it into our kitchen and make love to it.
Grilled GPO, fermented bok choy, daikon radish seed pods
All of our octopus is now bycatch, typically from the Bering Sea Cod fishery. We would never go out and trap for octopus, nor go diving to hunt them. Maybe one day I’ll be able to experience one like this.
I have a tremendous reverence for all living things, which is why it is so important to me to source carefully. The connection between the life that was taken and the life that is given when eating animals isn’t something that I turn a blind eye to. I challenge all omnivores to participate in a slaughter once in a while; it will hurt your feelings, and leave you with a reverence for the meat it provides. The level of nourishment shifts, from calories to soul. I think that being close to your food in this way will draw criticism (the horror from my vegetarian friend that I would personally choke out a duck), but my eyes are wide open. To my critics, I challenge them to also expand their viewpoint: your frozen Alaskan Cod stick may be the culprit, whereas my grilled tentacle is the silver lining. In the mean time, I’ll see you at the aquarium, with my family, marveling at the resident octopus.