Good Fish_ Sustainable Seafood Recipes From the Pacific Coast - Becky Selengut [56]
Her older brother played patient and bemused teacher as she cast her first line onto her shirt. He laughed and detached the hook, pointed her shoulders in the right direction, and ducked as she sent her first successful cast into the lake. She stood back and acted as watchful sentry over that bobber, looking for any whisper of movement. Before too long that bobber disappeared under the water and then popped back up with a little dance. She tried to pull the fish in, but it appeared to have the upper hand. Her brother got the better of it and declared that trout to be, by far, the biggest catch of the whole trip.
For years afterward, April would beg her father to take her fishing. Father and daughter would set up their stools, place a forked stick in the ground, and lean their poles in the crook. They’d commune in silence (“shhh—the fish will hear us!” he’d warn her), staring out at the lake, a world of action beneath the illusion of stillness. April let me fish with her father’s pole this summer; we spent an entire day sharing the silence while I carefully baited the hook, cast the line just so, and then reeled in branch after branch after branch. April kindly didn’t say a word.
WHAT MAKES THIS A GOOD CHOICE: Rainbow trout are native to the Pacific Northwest. Back in the day, native wild trout and oceangoing wild steelhead teemed in our rivers. These days, hatchery-stocked trout outcompete wild stock and have contributed to wild steelhead being listed as an endangered species. It’s good, therefore, to be aware of sustainable substitutes for native wild species, such as farmed rainbow trout.
Idaho produces about three-quarters of the farmed trout sold in the United States. Farmed trout is a sustainable choice for several reasons: 1) It is farmed in closed-containment systems, where escape is negligible. 2) Pesticide and antibiotic use is strictly regulated (though farmers do vaccinate their trout to prevent disease). 3) The feed conversion ratio for trout is relatively low, somewhere around 1 to 1.5 percent, meaning it takes anywhere from 1 to 1.5 pounds of feed to produce a pound of usable protein. 4) Water is partially treated before leaving the raceways, which limits pollution to neighboring areas.
One more thing to keep in mind with farmed fish in general: you are what you eat, and by extension, you are what your fish ate. We all need to put pressure on closed-containment fish farmers to feed their fish healthy food.
BY ANY OTHER NAME: Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) are also known as silver trout and sometimes golden trout (although golden trout are technically a subspecies). To confuse matters further, outside the United States, trout can be farmed in the ocean in saltwater pens or cages and marketed as “steelhead” or “salmon-trout.” The flesh of these trout is reddish, as opposed to that of rainbows, which is white. This type of farming incurs the same sorts of significant environmental problems as offshore salmon farming (see page xxx).
SEASON: Year-round.
BUYING TIPS: Look for trout that have glistening skin with eyes that are bright and are not sunken. When pressed gently, the flesh should bounce back. It should smell good or neutral. Trout don’t need to be scaled. Fishmongers are happy to remove the head, butterfly the trout, or fillet it for you.
QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE YOU PULL OUT YOUR WALLET: Where does it come from? Trout is raised on every continent but Antarctica. Buy domestic trout—if possible, from as close to your home as you can. If you see wild steelhead being sold, please consider giving it a break and not buying it.
CARING FOR YOUR GOOD FISH: When I get any fish fillet home that I’m not able to use that night, I take it out