Scales & Tales Food Boat
The Scales & Tales Food Boat is a skiff (a shallow, flat-bottomed open boat) that our team has converted into a mobile education platform, complete with a cooking demo station. Through the Scale & Tales Food Boat program we offer FREE, fun, and educational events to teach consumers about our local seafood, fisheries, and ecosystems! These events include seafood cooking demos, free samples of local seafood, and fishermen or scientist story telling.
Our Maiden Voyage:
Fall 2017 was our first launch of our Scales & Tales Food Boat. Our maiden voyage took place at the Aquidneck Island Farmer's Market as part of the Aquidneck Community Table Local Foods Challenge where we partnered with chefs from the Genesis Center and Newport Lobster Shack to teach consumers about the diversity of delicious local seafood available to them, demonstrated how to prepare Scup in tasty tostadas, and handed out over 100 free samples.
Bowen's Wharf Seafood Festival
Our next stop on our voyage was the Bowen's Wharf Seafood Festival where we partnered with Resilient Fisheries RI and four groups of local chefs: Rich Silvia and Chris Jones from the White Horse Tavern (Newport), Peter Gobin from Mijos Tacos (a food truck in Providence), Joshua Riazi from the Genesis Center and Ripe Hospitality (Providence), and Jason Hegedus and Nick Gillespie from the Dune Brother's Seafood (Providence) for our Fisheries of the Future event. For two full days we educated seafood lovers about how to be more adaptive in their eating habits and support our local fisheries and ecosystems as the climate changes. We cooked and served over 900 free samples of Black Sea Bass and Squid, two species which are becoming more abundant as our waters warm.
School yard Market
Eating with the Ecosystem hosted Chef Mike Oozoonian from Chomp Kitchen and Drinks as our guest captain for a demonstration and tasting of Sea Robin at Hope & Main's Schoolyard Market on Oct 22. Mike prepared Sea Robin two ways. First, as a ceviche with chips from Titos. Second, seared with seared polenta and braised chicory from Nest and Song Farm. Everyone loved getting to know this plentiful local species a little bit better!