Pass the Salt

‘One fish, two fish’ was the catchy line on an invitation to an event at Café Polo last Sunday. The promise of a fish filleting demonstration, a tapas selection of small plates and  a few words on sustainability had me hooked.

Having recently sworn off tuna thanks to the unremitting pessimism of groups like Greenpeace and Forest & Bird, I was interested to hear how chef David Thurlow and fish supplier Rachel Taulelei would reconcile their own interests with the ethics of eating a dwindling resource.

The speed with which David despatched his three fish and the finesse with which he wielded his filleting knife, spoke of years of practice. I doubt I could replicate his tunnel boning of a trevally, or the delicate removal of four fillets from a flounder, but what really impressed me was the careful way he handled those fish. Very little was left on the frame.  He advocates using all the bits – cheeks, livers and skin. The bones are used for stock, and what remains can be dug into the garden.

In the restaurant he tries to use less plundered species – we ate smoked trevally fish cakes with lime mayonnaise and elegant morsels of tempura flounder – but he admits he’s up against it when he puts lesser known fish on the menu. Anything that’s not hapuku, snapper, tarakihi, cod or john dory is a hard sell.

So hats off to Rachel Taulelei who supplies all of the above plus some interesting extras.  Her enlightened approach to sustainably-caught export quality fish has lifted both the standard and range of seafood in the capital. Her company, Yellow Brick Road, has introduced restaurants to fish like porae, a type of sea bream that’s caught up north and looks like “a snapper with monster lips”; she supplies oysters in the shell and surf clams at her stall in the City Market, she has even convinced fishermen to sell her the sardines they had  been using as bait fish. They thought she was mad, and when she asked them to supply her with monkfish livers “the fishermen in Bluff nearly killed themselves laughing”. She had the last laugh when seafood chef Martin Bosley put them on his menu as foie de mer.

Getting people to eat lesser-known fish is one way of taking the pressure off the rest but she doesn’t believe it’s necessary to boycott species in order to protect them. She says environmental groups take a hardline, but she believes the NZ quota system does a good job of managing the stocks. What we should be more concerned about is the unsustainable way much of our fish is caught.

Deep sea trawlers fish indiscriminately with nets that can be enormous. Imagine the bycatch in a net that spans the equivalent of 14 jumbo jets. Not only that, but fish landed this way will have been crushed and drowned – an end that’s not only cruel but bound to result in a poor product.

Yellow Brick Road buys from inshore fishermen who use hand-baited long lines. One hook, one fish. The bycatch is minimal, there is very little impact on the environment; the fish are handled with care and they’re fresher because they have less distance to travel.

Fish caught this way are naturally more expensive but the good news is people are prepared to pay. From small beginnings in 2006, Rachel now supplies up to 160 restaurants around the country. She also has a loyal following of discerning shoppers who queue at the City Market to buy her weekend selection of bright-eyed fish and skin-on fillets.

Sustainable suppliers, ethically minded chefs, and fishermen who care deserve our support. We need to pay more, eat less, eat better. Or it’s ‘one fish, two fish … three fish, no fish’.