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Atlantic fishermen ask chefs to also work with fish considered “less attractive” to educate the consumer
Saturday 27 June the chef Angel León, with a total of five Michelin Stars between Aponiente (3) and Levante (of the), said in Jameos del Agua What other rooster would crow if fish didn't have names?. Just three days later, in it Meeting of the Seas held on the island of Tenerife, the fishermen of the Atlantic They ask chefs to also work with fish considered “less attractive” to educate the consumer. something is moving.
For three days the seventh edition of Meeting of the Seas -event promoted by Tenerife Council, through Tourism of Tenerife y Primary sector, and organized by Vocento Gastronomy-, has explored the thousand faces of salt: its impact on our health, its role in the green energy revolution, its impact on climate change, its role in history or its gastronomic use with fermentations, salted, cures… With all this, chefs, Fishermen and scientists have not only learned but have also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting the oceans, final objective of this meeting committed to recovering marine biodiversity for the year 2050.
To contribute to this purpose, modifying some of our behaviors is key and that is why the director of the congress Benjamin Wool He explained during the closing of the meeting that in the next edition “we will advance our commitment to education with a Junior Seas Meeting day to educate young people” about fish consumption.. In addition, and to ensure that this consumption is diverse, “The participating chefs will be asked to make less famous fish the protagonists of their dishes.”. A way to set an example and help the fishing sector. Primary sector to which the Vice President and Tourism Councilor of the Cabildo de Tenerife has also referred, Lope Afonso, who stated that “the trinomial primary sector-gastronomy and tourism is a great catalyst for employment opportunities.”, of local development and differentiation of tourist destinations”. The counselor of the Primary Sector of the Cabildo of Tenerife, Valentín González, He added today that “with the Meeting of the Seas held in Tenerife we value what is ours, which is the product and the proximity, and responsible tourism. From the Cabildo we are committed to sustainable fishing, artisanal and selective. “The local product has come to life thanks to gastronomy”.
The kitchen, salt and health
With Luis Valls, chef in charge of the Dacosta group restaurant El Poblet** (Valencia) It has been shown in the Meeting of the Seas that salt is much more than a seasoning, It is “a fire with a flame that is worked on over time”, according to the chef's own words. Through your explanations, Valls has outlined the different methods they use in the kitchen of El Poblet to use salt “not only as an addition, but as an enhancer giving dishes depth and complexity”. Something they achieve through curing or fermentation, with which they also “generate healthy foods for the body with the creation of microbiotics”. As an example of all this, he has prepared a dish that uses several techniques with salt., emulsify a gazpachuelo of pine nuts in the water from the lacto-fermentation of an asparagus, enhanced by a garum and a miso, rested in time, of pipes.
Beyond gastronomic use, Meeting of the Seas also wanted to delve into how salt affects our health. He has done it with the help of the pharmacist and professor of the Department. of Nutrition and Food Science of the Complutense University of Madrid Arancha Aparicio who has warned that excessive salt consumption “is a risk factor not only for the well-known hypertension but also for many other diseases, such as stomach cancer or cognitive impairment”. For this reason, Aparicio recommends reducing consumption with tricks such as “replacing salt with spices.”, citrus, vinegars or fermented, buy low sodium salts, prioritize fresh foods, use culinary techniques that enhance the flavor of food and, above all, Learn to read the nutritional labeling of processed foods correctly.”.
And from the salt as the protagonist to the thorns. The Italian chef Moreno Cedroni (Madonna of the Fisherman**, Senigallia) has presented his most recent work at Encuentro de los Mares: a menu designed around fish bones. “Beyond sustainability, of the use of the entire product, “We wanted to know why we liked thorns until now, but only to a certain point.”, if Cedroni was sincere. The answer is that we couldn't cook them. The thorn has a 50-60% of calcium and a 20-30% collagen. Moreno and his team have managed to break down the collagen with the use of a Korean double pressure cooker that pressure cooks with heat and infrared. The next step, the chef advanced, “ripe the thorns”.
The future of fishing and fish consumption
The future of artisanal fishing has been debated in depth on the final day of the Meeting of the Seas, event held with the support of Tenerife Despierta Emociones, with the objective, as the manager of Artesáns da Pesca Roberto Rodríguez has said, “to look for solutions together, not guilty". All participants agreed, from various coasts of the Atlantic, in that it is essential to “educate to promote second-line fish” and to do so “we must free ourselves from the fashions to which we are subject in gastronomy”. In this sense, the fisherman and collaborator of the Cataria restaurant (Cadiz) Emilio Marín explained that “pieces weighing one kilo are bought because aesthetically speaking, it serves the chef better on the plate.”, but the same species comes in different sizes and you can buy it in larger pieces, "They are cheaper and you let the animal continue reproducing.". Following this thread, Pedro Bastos (responsible for the Portuguese fish and seafood distribution company Nutrifesco) He asked the chefs to “be flexible and understand that there are seasonal fish, that the sea does not offer the same thing every day or that the fisherman can decide what to catch each day, because one day tuna may be too far away and you opt for amberjack, For example". He also shared Bastos with the fisherman from the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Light (Tenerife) Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez, the intuition that “the ocean is confused and whether due to natural cycles or the effect of climate change, the truth is that the ocean is dynamic, And there are years when some species come and others don't.". For this reason, Rodríguez asked “not to be afraid to try new things” and claimed to “recover the education of eating fish at home of many species.”, with thorns and with hands, so that the new generations enter without prejudices”.
Not in contrast but as a complement to artisanal fishing, Aquaculture has subsequently taken the stage at the Meeting of the Seas. He has done it with the help of Rafael Ginés, coordinator of the aquaculture facilities of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, who has spoken about the differences between a fish from extractive fishing and another from aquaculture. Ginés sought to overthrow prejudices by explaining that many surveys carried out by his department showed that “the ratings assigned to aquaculture fish when it was not said that it was so were higher.”, sometimes even above those given to wild fish”. During his intervention, The researcher has emphasized the greater amount of fat that aquacultured fish has, “which contributes to more intensity of flavor”, but on the other hand he also highlighted that the accelerated growth of these pieces - "because they eat every day and in large quantities"- affect his firm, “to pieces of the same size, “The aquaculture one is younger and does not have such a firm muscular structure.”. The open debate that this presentation has left is that of the diets of these fish and the replacement of fish meals with vegetables., something that can cause a lower amount of Omega 3 in these pieces or the environmental problem of the implication of water consumption for their production.
Beyond this controversy, The truth is that haute cuisine is embracing aquacultured fish, as evidenced by the presentation by the Andalusian chef Juanlu Fernández (LOU, Kitchen and Soul**, Jerez de la Frontera) who, while he showed the attendees his particular adaptations of traditional Andalusian dishes such as mackerel with piriñaca and 'bienmesabe' (a fried shark), stated that “the important thing in aquaculture is to do a good job in a sustainable way”.
The final point to the seventh edition of Encuentro de los Mares was given by local chefs Jorge Peñate and Luis Martín ( The Terrace) that accompanied by Marcos Ymia, sailor and manager of Impescan, demonstrated through their culinary creations how the salinity of the ocean, according to its depth, transform the flavors.
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