Don't be alarmed. I'm not talking about a horde of angry Cossacks here. Or a group of Communist hardliners. I'm talking about a different kind of Red invasion altogether. One that has been steadily increasing year after year for the better part of this decade. I'm talking about Russian Red King Crab. It's everywhere we look. At the Fred Meyer, in Wal-Mart, in the fish department at Safeway. It's nearly impossible to find Alaskan caught King Crab in stores these days. Sure you can ask around but supermarkets and groceries aren't obliged to tell us where their crab is coming from. They may all proudly label their selections Wild, as this is the watch word of the day in sustainable seafood, but Wild in this case guarantees nothing. Who caught this crab? Was it within their quota or in excess? Is the crab of legal size? All questions that can not be answered, or will not be answered at the point of sale. So what the hell are we supposed to do? I love King Crab and I've grown accustomed to having it during the winter holidays. In years past I haven't had this problem because I was fishing on a crab boat and knew exactly where the crab was coming from and who had caught it. Since leaving that particular fishery though I find myself facing a moral dilemma. Who do I turn to for advice, who can I trust?
Well if I listened to Sig Hansen of the Northwestern he'd probably say, "Go ahead, buy yourself some Russian caught crab. By reducing the excess crab on the market it will drive up the price and benefit the industry as a whole, including the Alaskan fishermen." It's great PR, and seems like a reasonable argument, but most Alaskan fishermen I've talked to aren't buying it. Especially not after the ring leader of Global Fishing, Arkadi Gontmakher, the man responsible for bringing thousands of Wal-Mart customers Northwestern brand King Crab (caught in Russia - shhh), was jailed in Moscow for allegedly selling illegally harvested seafood in the United States. It's difficult to picture Commercial Fishermen being outraged by violations of conservation policy no matter what country brings them, but in this particular case they had a vested interest in smearing Global Fishing (one of the leading importers of King Crab at the time) and their specious supply chain. Who's watching these crafty Russians anyways? Isn't the whole industry mobbed up over there? So far it hasn't been a difficult sell and most Seafood Watch organizations are advising against the purchase of imported King Crab. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_factsheet.aspx?gid=8
I'm not entirely certain that this call to avoid these products is warranted though. I know there is a knee jerk reaction to buy American and that fishermen are especially prone to this reflex, but I can't help wondering how a country that imports 83% of the seafood it consumes (and 70% of its King Crab) can or would benefit from forcing arbitrary prohibitions on to certain products. There must be some legitimately caught Russian Crab. Marine Treasures Inc. supplies the King Crab to Fred Meyer here in Washington State. The crab sections they're offering are large and full of meat and look in all respects like their cousins in Alaska. Now is this South Korean company involved in some sort of shenanigans with the Russian fishing fleet? Are they landing Russian crab in Korean ports to obscure the quota allocation in the Sea of Okhotsk? I don't have the foggiest of ideas? You can make all the accusations you want but until there is proof, until these Seafood Watch organizations can provide evidence that these specific companies are involved in illegal fishing activities I just can't see limiting my choice based on some sweeping claim. 
Sure my decision may make some fractional difference in the price of crab caught here in the US, but then again it might not. It might hurt the stock in the Eastern Bering Sea, or it might help to eradicate the pesky Barent Sea Reds that were introduced there by Stalin and are decimating local fish populations. Weighing all of these alternatives gets to be a tricky and burdensome ordeal. I want to make good food choices. I want to reward people who deal in a high quality and sustainable product. But I've done the research. I've checked into Marine Treasures (you can get full details of their shipments to the US, their licenses and certifications at http://www.panjva.com/, it isn't free however) and I can't honestly say that they're more or less criminal than any other corporation on this planet. So I say, Fuck it, I'm buying Fred Meyer's King Crab for $7.99 a pound. It's a hell of a deal. And it's not like it's poisonous. I mean other than the fact that I have to agree with Sig Hansen. Russian Crab isn't going to kill the Alaskan King Crab Industry. And it's certainly not going to hurt the IFQ holders sitting on their asses in Seattle collecting 70% from their quota share. That's the real crime. You want to talk about hurting "Alaskan Fishermen", try taking a look into rationalization.
Sure my decision may make some fractional difference in the price of crab caught here in the US, but then again it might not. It might hurt the stock in the Eastern Bering Sea, or it might help to eradicate the pesky Barent Sea Reds that were introduced there by Stalin and are decimating local fish populations. Weighing all of these alternatives gets to be a tricky and burdensome ordeal. I want to make good food choices. I want to reward people who deal in a high quality and sustainable product. But I've done the research. I've checked into Marine Treasures (you can get full details of their shipments to the US, their licenses and certifications at http://www.panjva.com/, it isn't free however) and I can't honestly say that they're more or less criminal than any other corporation on this planet. So I say, Fuck it, I'm buying Fred Meyer's King Crab for $7.99 a pound. It's a hell of a deal. And it's not like it's poisonous. I mean other than the fact that I have to agree with Sig Hansen. Russian Crab isn't going to kill the Alaskan King Crab Industry. And it's certainly not going to hurt the IFQ holders sitting on their asses in Seattle collecting 70% from their quota share. That's the real crime. You want to talk about hurting "Alaskan Fishermen", try taking a look into rationalization.Anyway, enough. I've made my decision and I'm sticking to it. Take it as an endorsement, take it as hypocrisy, take it however you like, but I'm having King Crab this X-mas. And it's going to be Red.
Recipes to follow :)
No comments:
Post a Comment