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elfsOmaha and I went out to one of our favorite restaurants, Mashiko, also known as SushiWhore, and the sole proprietorship of dedicated chef Hajime Sato. Although it's one of the most expensive restaurants in the city, Omaha and I love it for its challenging "chef's choice" menus and for its dedication to using only sustainable fishery products.
In the evening, after an exquisite meal of sushi, sashimi, fried fish, and delicate seaweed salad, Omaha and I were on our way out to pay the bill when I happened to notice something. Hajime-san includes with every receipt a copy of the Monterey Bay Guide, a color-coded guide to the fishes that are currently sustainable, in categories of "best," "good," and "avoid." The very first item on the "avoid" is ankimo, also known as monkfish.
I asked the waitress about that, because right above my head, on the chalkboard above the sushi chef bay, was "New! We have ankimo!" and a price per serving for this delicacy. She said that Hajime-san went out of his way to only buy from sustainable fisheries, so the Monterey guide was only a general one.
Just as Omaha and I were finishing up paying for the meal, Hajime-san himself came out from behind the sushi bar and gave us a 20 minute and rather impassioned about how he had personally found a fishery off the coast of Georgia that did not use trawling lines for monkfish, worked in one area, and was working with biologists to make sure that he wasn't getting fish from a declining source.
He then went on to explain how the big sustainability groups were being co-opted by big buisinesses, and how it was becoming impossible to get certified as sustainable or organic unless you were the size of McDonalds or Whole Foods, both of which had recently received certification for practices he felt weren't entirely legitimate. Those groups had, however, the cash necessary to throw at unspecified certification groups and could buy a lot of good will from those groups. The same issue arises with land farming. Hajime-san said that he went out of his way to purchase only from sustainable sources, that he personally visited as many small-scale fisheries as he could to ensure he was buying only from sustainable outlets, and that he did so even if those fisheries were too small to make the necessary donations
It was surprising that he took that much time out from behind the kitchen to make his case that he was doing the best he can, and if he didn't always abide by the sustainibility certification rules, it was because the rules were blunt instruments that could sometimes be corrupted by money, influence, and the appearance but not the substance of doing good. It was a pretty solid case.
Omaha and I can't afford to eat at Mashiko's often, and to the best of my knowledge there are exactly two steakhouses that bill themselves as sustainable: one in Sydney, Australia, and the other in Oregon, USA, so tacking other dining experiences with remotely similar expectations is probably unwise. But it was good to hear his case, I appreciated it, and it encourages me to eat with him more often.
In the evening, after an exquisite meal of sushi, sashimi, fried fish, and delicate seaweed salad, Omaha and I were on our way out to pay the bill when I happened to notice something. Hajime-san includes with every receipt a copy of the Monterey Bay Guide, a color-coded guide to the fishes that are currently sustainable, in categories of "best," "good," and "avoid." The very first item on the "avoid" is ankimo, also known as monkfish.
I asked the waitress about that, because right above my head, on the chalkboard above the sushi chef bay, was "New! We have ankimo!" and a price per serving for this delicacy. She said that Hajime-san went out of his way to only buy from sustainable fisheries, so the Monterey guide was only a general one.
Just as Omaha and I were finishing up paying for the meal, Hajime-san himself came out from behind the sushi bar and gave us a 20 minute and rather impassioned about how he had personally found a fishery off the coast of Georgia that did not use trawling lines for monkfish, worked in one area, and was working with biologists to make sure that he wasn't getting fish from a declining source.
He then went on to explain how the big sustainability groups were being co-opted by big buisinesses, and how it was becoming impossible to get certified as sustainable or organic unless you were the size of McDonalds or Whole Foods, both of which had recently received certification for practices he felt weren't entirely legitimate. Those groups had, however, the cash necessary to throw at unspecified certification groups and could buy a lot of good will from those groups. The same issue arises with land farming. Hajime-san said that he went out of his way to purchase only from sustainable sources, that he personally visited as many small-scale fisheries as he could to ensure he was buying only from sustainable outlets, and that he did so even if those fisheries were too small to make the necessary donations
It was surprising that he took that much time out from behind the kitchen to make his case that he was doing the best he can, and if he didn't always abide by the sustainibility certification rules, it was because the rules were blunt instruments that could sometimes be corrupted by money, influence, and the appearance but not the substance of doing good. It was a pretty solid case.
Omaha and I can't afford to eat at Mashiko's often, and to the best of my knowledge there are exactly two steakhouses that bill themselves as sustainable: one in Sydney, Australia, and the other in Oregon, USA, so tacking other dining experiences with remotely similar expectations is probably unwise. But it was good to hear his case, I appreciated it, and it encourages me to eat with him more often.
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What's the issue?
Date: 2011-11-07 02:22 am (UTC)There must be thousands of small cattle ranches all over the US that avoid the obvious problems such as massive doses of antibiotics, grazing on grasses that grow only because of synthetic fertilizers, and so on-- but heck, even these practices are "sustainable" in practical terms, since nothing is really being consumed or worn out.
I've seen restaurants that talk about getting their beef only from ranches of this type. So where's the problem? Are almost all of these ranches really not sustainable, or are almost all of these restaurants doing something else to raise the ire of the Green Police?
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-09 03:09 pm (UTC)Then there's the problem of "ugly apples." What does one do with apples that aren't picture-perfect? Why, press them for cider or cook and can them into apple sauce! Except … you need to get commercial certification before you're allowed to apply for the license to do either of those, then you need to get your "equipment" certified to get the production license.
For the cider, that "equipment" must include your industrial pasteurizer. So, no selling fresh-pressed cider. For the applesauce, the "equipment" would be the kitchen in their house. So, there goes one of their income streams.
And, when you hear about the actual details of what's required to get these certifications and licenses, it becomes clear that they're designed for industrial production. Yet these laws designed to monitor corporations are being enforced against mom&pop home businesses … in this case, canning applesauce in Mason Jars, like our great-great-grandparents used do.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-10 10:14 am (UTC)