Local Fishes, Global Dishes
This program links to our Community Anchor
*THIS PROGRAM ISN'T FUNDED YET. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP FUND IT, CONTACT SARAH@EATINGWITHTHEECOSYSTEM.ORG*
Our board president Sarah Schumann (right) with Chef Joshua Riazi (middle) of the genesis Center, with three of his students. they spent an afternoon exploring the application of African, Central American, and Caribbean recipes to local herring, mackerel, and scup. More about this experiment can be found in sarah's write-up in 41N, Rhode Island's coastal and ocean magazine.
“Local Fishes, Global Dishes” is a prospective program designed to leverage a unique aspect of Rhode Island’s human resources to solve a predicament facing Rhode Island’s natural resources. That predicament is the mismatch between fishery catches and consumer demand: Rhode Island fishermen catch increasing numbers of fish like scup, whiting, and dogfish, but most Rhode Island consumers think of seafood as only white codfish fillets. There is one group of consumers that is a refreshing exception to this rule: immigrant home cooks. By designing a platform for immigrant home cooks to share their culinary know-how about a wide variety of fish with the broader Rhode Island community, this project hopes to increase appreciation and demand for a wider array of Rhode Island’s local fish catches and build community and cultural exchange among immigrants and non-immigrants.