Sustainable Seafood Recipes from Around the Web

Food bloggers tend to get pretty excited about salmon, and rightly so. It's delicious, readily available, and distinctive tasting while remaining easy to work with. It's a great fish really.

When it comes to sustainability, salmon sits in an area of some controversy. Wild salmon (of which there are many varieties) are amazing to cook with and many of them come from sustainable supplies. That being said, the fisheries are variable and have to constantly adjust catch numbers in order to remain sustainable, and it's unlikely that wild salmon alone can meet the market demand. Farmed salmon offers to help fill that void, but it's a real hot-button topic. Open-pen farmed salmon have attracted an enormous amount of controversy for a variety of reasons related to the environment, and most sustainability organizations land pretty firmly against them at the moment. That being said, there is a great deal of nuance to the issue. Individual open-pen Atlantic Salmon farms from Norway are being operated in a highly sustainable fashion while most others receive a failing grade from agencies like OceanWise and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council. Recently, closed-pen inland salmon farms have begun to make waves (pun intended), and many of these are being praised by sustainability and environmental watchdogs. Basically, when it comes to salmon, it pays to know the fish and to know the source.

With no further ado, here are some amazing recipes to get the wheels turning.

Tuna is amazing, and much loved the world over. But the name tuna applies to many different fish, and they are not all harvested equally. If you're looking to eat delicious and sustainable fish, tuna is a great place to start... if you're willing to do your homework.

Commercially important tuna species include (but aren't limited to) Skipjack, Yellowfin (Ahi), Bluefin, Bigeye, and Albacore. Each species faces different commercial and environmental pressures, and it's tough to make generalizations even within a single group. For example, Yellowfin tuna from Hawaii caught with deep-set longlines is considered sustainable, while the same fish caught in the Pacific using pelagic longlines is considered unsustainable. It's really best to know the species you're buying and the fishery it comes from. Resources like Oceanwise and MSC are indispensible in situations like this, as is a good, ecologically-minded and well-educated fish monger. If the people selling you fish can't tell you anything about it, you should probably look elsewhere. There are a growing number of eco-conscious and sustainable canneries in operation nowadays too (often with specific certification from a regulatory body), which makes high quality canned tuna a distinct possibility.

While I try to avoid making overly broad generalizations about entire fisheries, I will make an exception here. Bluefin tuna is widely considered one of the tastiest tuna varieties out there, and is highly valued raw. Sadly, this has led to bluefin tuna (a name that encompasses a few related species) being fished to the point that stocks are nearing collapse in many parts of the world. In fact, Southern Bluefin Tuna is at risk of extinction. Until better recovery efforts are put in place, I personally recommend avoiding bluefin altogether in favour of other, more sustainable options.

Alright now, doom and gloom aside (and seriously, don't be put off - there are wonderful resources to help you navigate this), let's move on to some amazing recipes that tantalize with tasty tuna.

Cod and halibut aren't related at all, but I've lumped them together here because they tend to get used as 'all-purpose' firm white fish. They taste lovely on their own, but they're mild and firm enough to stand up to all kinds of treatments and ingredients. They're also among the easiest fish to love, so they're a great place to start for those who are somewhat more seafood-averse.

Cod is perhaps the most famous example of a fishery collapse in the world. Once unbelievable prolific, Atlantic cod was harvested in the Northwestern Atlantic in such gigantic quantities that the entire population (and fishery) suffered a gigantic crash. That particular fishery has yet to recover, and may not ever recover entirely. However, there are actually quite a few highly sustainable cod fisheries. Some of the Atlantic cod industries are well managed and recommended, as are many of the Pacific cod fisheries (Pacific cod is a different species). There are also some sustainable Atlantic cod farms utilizing recirculating closed-pen methods.

Halibut, like cod, is actually a name applied to two different species, one in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific. With the exception of bottom-trawled Atlantic halibut, most commercial halibut fisheries are considered to be sustainable. I happen to think that halibut is one of the most delicious and easy-to-love fish varieties out there. It's also tough to get wrong, so that's a real plus.

As with most of the fish featured here, it's best to consult with a good fishmonger and/or an educational/regulatory body like OceanWise or MSC when deciding what to buy.

Hoo boy. When it comes to sustainability and headache-inducing confusion, shrimp is a bit of a doozy.

The terms shrimp and prawn cover an amazing variety of species. There are literally thousands of different shrimp species, but approximately 20 key species are considered to be commercially significant. Within that group of 20, seven species in particular are caught and consumed in particularly large numbers.

Most recipes simply call for shrimp, meaning that it's up to the consumer to learn about individual fisheries and aquaculture operations. Further confusing the matter is the fact that within a single species (for example the incredibly popular whiteleg shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei) there may be examples of sustainable and unsustainable fisheries AND aquaculture operations.  Basically, you could have a good farmed shrimp, a bad wild shrimp, and everything in between.

Sadly, environmental issues aren't the only ones to consider here.  In recent years, the Southeast Asian (and particularly Thai) shrimp/prawn industry has come under heavy fire for sever human rights abuses.  The Guardian has posted a series of articles addressing this topic, and I encourage you to check some of them out here.

Once again, this is a situation where it's not enough to simply know what you're eating.  In order to eat shrimp that are responsibly and ethically harvested, it's imperative that we know the fisheries they come from.  As I've said before (and will again), getting to know a good and eco-conscious fishmonger in your city can be a huge help, as can access to agencies like OceanWise and the MSC/ASC.

Now, hopefully that wasn't too much of a downer.  Here are some shrimp recipes that focus on sustainable and responsible species and varieties!

Alright folks, I've got some good news on this one. Clams, mussels, oysters, and other bivalves are among some of the most eco-friendly, sustainable seafoods on earth. In fact, they're some of the most sustainable animal proteins on the planet. As anyone who's ever tried to dig up a clam can attest, they tend to be a lot of work to harvest from the wild. Fortunately, they're very easy to farm sustainably.

If you've ever been unsure about cooking with these ingredients, it's worth noting that a) they have quite different flavours (mussels are stronger and more distictive for example, while clams are a little more mellow and easy to get acquainted with).

Vegans and vegetarians fret not! That is, assuming any of you are still reading this article. In any case, one of the best foods to come out of the ocean is also one of the most underrated - seaweeds! There are PLENTY of different kinds of seaweed out there, and by-and-large they tend to be incredibly nutritious and very sustainable foods. As you'll see from some of the recipes below, seaweed also offers a great way to bring some of the briny, oceanic flavours into plant-based foods without using fish itself.

I could never cover all of the fish (sustainable or otherwise) being served around the world, but I want to highlight a few other amazing recipes featuring fish that didn't fit into any of the categories above.