Fin Magazine

From the
Editor: A Shore Thing

My first food memory is of a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich on the beach. Every
morning during summers on the coast of South
Carolina with my cousins, my mom would make
PB&Js using the whole loaf of sliced white bread and
stack them back in the plastic sleeve for a beach picnic.
No matter how much we tried to avoid it, they were
sand magnets. Occasionally, my dad would bring a tray

of foil-wrapped chili dogs down to the beach “for the
adults.” If this was adulting, I wanted an upgrade. By the

1990s, I got one: Dinners at the beach rental grew epic
in scale, with my grandmother and aunt, dressed in
their muumuus, one-upping each other with Italian
spiedini or sh stew. It was a time of prodigious
shing and gloppy sunscreen by day and
cheap Chardonnay and aloe by
night. Those formative family
vacations established
my love of beach
food.

Everything
tastes better with
a view of the water,
whether it’s BBQ oysters at
e Marshall Store on Tomales Bay in
California, platters of raw scallops at Gatto
Nero in Venice, or, as I recently discovered,
tacos by the white sands of Mexico’s Riviera Maya.
In November at Rosewood Mayakoba on the Yucatán
Peninsula, I attended Taco Academy, a three-day immersion in
all things tacos and tortillas taught by resort chef Juan Pablo Loza
and guest chef Enrique Olvera, chef-owner of Pujol in Mexico
City. One of the simplest tacos we learned to make featured
salpicón, a basic salsa, to which one can add grilled shrimp,
pulled pork, or steak. It was simple and perfect—as is so much
of the world’s best beach cooking. In this special travel issue,
we celebrate the vibrant cuisines of beaches around the

world, from the shores of St. Croix to Vietnam, from
Puerto Rico to Zanzibar. And also Rhode Island, for

that state’s homely (but delicious) clam stu es.
After all, everything, even PB&J, tastes
better at the beach.

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Contents

Letter From The Editor
Contents
Brine on the Brink
Sustainable Seafood
Recipes
Index

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Brine on the brink
If we want to keep eating oysters, we need to ensure the
populations can thrive.

Who ate the first oyster? How do — grow and eat by sorting out and baby oysters. Man’s relentless
hungry would you have to the microscopic critters in all that pressure and the misguided notion
be to pick up what looks like a filtered water. of a seemingly limitless resource
slimy rock and think, “Can I eat The other thing they finally pushed even the prolific
that?” It was a history-changing do really well is to make baby oyster beyond limits.
moment. The lowly oyster, laboring oysters. A single 25-acre reef can Today as much 85% of
silently without recognition — other produce 10 million adult oysters oyster habitat has been lost. Much
than, of course, by the billions of in about 18 months. Amazing, but of what has not been mined either
plants and animals that depend on understandable when you know for shell or through destructive
them as the foundation of coastal that a single female oyster can harvesting is off-limits because
ecosystems — suddenly takes on a produce up to 100 million eggs of poor water quality. What an
whole new role directly affecting each year. Yes, there are male and insult to the world’s most efficient
us all. female oysters, even though you and prolific filtering machine. The
Oysters changed the can’t tell them apart — oysters oyster, whose reefs were once so
course of civilization. They inspired themselves do not care. They can expansive they could filter and
Shakespeare and Dickens; provided change sexes as needed and they clean the waters of an entire bay,
the foundations of modern trade; spew eggs and sperm out into the have been diminished for roads and
kept the masses from starvation; water in dense clouds. Oysters are chicken feed.
became a delicacy for the rich; and, amazingly adaptable. After studying The Harte Research Institute
by the way, they are said to have them on and off for 50 years, I am for Gulf of Mexico Studies of Texas
undefined but powerful aphrodisiac still amazed. A&M University-Corpus Christi is
powers. That lesson was not lost on determined to restore oysters to
This is the story I want to those settlers who finally pushed the their former role as the foundation
relate to you. As with many things Gulf’s natives to near extinction. In of estuarine health and productivity.
key to our existence that are small the early 19th century oysters were Yes, we believe oysters can be
and unnoticed, atoms for example, cheap, easy to harvest, and known harvested and eaten. Our goal is to
we have not thought much about as the poor people’s meal, both in keep our ecosystems and economy
oysters. We take them for granted as the Gulf and worldwide. As Charles in balance.
always being there under our feet. Dickens wrote in The Pickwick Oyster mariculture was
Only when they go missing do we Papers, “poverty and oysters always legalized by the 2019 Texas
finally appreciate their value — you seem to go together.” We thought so Legislature, and with new science
may not know it, but today oysters little of them as food, vast dredging to help us better grow, raise and
reefs are some of the world’s most enterprises once mined oyster reefs, harvest oysters on the Texas Coast,
threatened habitats. living and dead, not for food but we hope to restore the status of the
We must begin the story to provide the base for shell roads lowly oyster, and its once-abundant
of the oyster by helping you to that extended out from coastal habitats, to their true place in
understand a little bit about their margins like spiderwebs. Reefs history.
biology. Oysters are bivalves, like were so extensive they were used as
clams, only mvuch tougher. They underwater roads to cross the bays, Larry McKinney is the senior executive
are the only reef-building bivalve. like Nueces and Galveston. director of the Harte Research Institute
They feed by filtering, and cleaning, Driven on, aten by the for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M
water. A lot of water. A single oyster masses, mined thoughtlessly, the University-Corpus Christi. He wrote this
can filter around 50 gallons of lowly oyster bore the burden and column for The Dallas Morning News.
water a day. That is about all they continued pumping out water

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Sustainable Seafood: Where are we now?

What may be true in online dating turns out not having to kill fish. A similarly promising “clean
to be the case in real life: There may not, in fish” start-up, Wild Type, just attracted $12.5
fact, always be more fish in the sea. million after offering a public tasting of its salmon
that was grown from salmon cells as opposed to
A new report finds that as global fish populations salmon slaughter.
crash, governments around the world are dumping
ever-more lavish subsidies on the fishing industry, If such start-ups are able to scale up and produce
spelling an ocean of trouble for the three-quarters products that actually satisfy seafood-lovers at an
of our planet covered in water. The result: Our affordable cost, alt-fish may not be that alt for long.
extermination campaign that’s emptying the seas is In the same way that plant-based milks have taken
only accelerating. the dairy aisle by storm, making seafood with a tiny
fraction of the resources needed to catch or farm
With 90% of fish populations fully exploited and no actual fish could become far more normal in the
sign of our appetite for fish decreasing, the question years to come.
of what, if anything, we can realistically do to save
our seas is pressing. If governments are largely None of this is to let governments off the hook,
making the problem worse by increasing subsidies, of course. Offering ever-growing subsidies to
is there a role for the private sector to stem the tide? extractive industries preying on ever-dwindling
stocks of wildlife is as poor of an idea as it sounds.
That’s in fact what many deep-pocketed investors If anything, governments ought to be declaring
are betting on right now. Impossible and Beyond marine safe zones like Barack Obama did at the
burgers may be generating all the headlines at end of his presidency rather than incentivizing
the moment, but companies making seafood more fishing. But if governments really want to
alternatives are officially big business. do something to help save our seas, in addition
to ending such perverse subsidies, offering R&D
Meat giant Tyson Foods just invested in New Wave assistance to startups seeking to produce truly
Foods, a startup making plant-based shrimp for sustainable seafood — whether from plants or cells
everyone from kosher Jews to those who just want — would be a good place to start.
to enjoy juicy shrimp without jumbo guilt. Aramark
is now serving Ocean Hugger Foods’ tomato-based After all, many governments are already funding
“tuna” in its cafeterias. And Chipotle recently bet research to invent new clean energy technologies.
on Sophie’s Kitchen, a small company making all Why not clean meat at the same time?
manner of animal-free seafood products.
The fact that there are always more fish in the
Some companies, however, aren’t content to make dating sea is good for single people. But without
fish-free seafood out of plants. Rather, another new technologies to help us produce more with
category of start-ups is reeling in major funding by less, an ever-growing humanity isn’t that good for
making real fish meat while leaving the animals to the actual fish in the sea. Perhaps alt-fish start-ups
swim free. will be part of the solution that helps us lighten the
burden we’re placing on the nonhuman world.
Two thousand year ago, Jesus is said to have
multiplied just a couple fish into enough to feed Now that would be a good catch.
5,000 human mouths. Today, companies like San
Diego’s BlueNalu are doing pretty much the same Shapiro is the author of “Clean Meat: How Growing Meat
thing: taking miniscule biopsies of whole fish and Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World” and
multiplying them to grow actual fish meat without the CEO of The Better Meat Co.

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La Mer

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