Save San Diego's Sustainable Seafood

San Diego's sustainable seafood needs your help. San Diego's fishermen need your help. Our good, clean & fair seafood system needs your help.

The Port of San Diego plans to redevelop our Downtown waterfront, but the proposals they are considering, by and large, fall short of sustaining our local fishing industry. You can speak up and let them know that we support our fishermen and need a fishing harbor. No fishing harbor means no local fish. You can do two things to help:

1. Send a letter to the Port of San Diego and ask them to support a healthy, local seafood system and a distinctly local Downtown waterfront. More details below.
2. Attend the Port of San Diego meeting to review the proposals October 13th. Provide public comment in support of our local fisheries. Details here.

Read San Diego fishermen's Downtown waterfront vision

Support good, clean & fair seafood for all San Diegans.

Help maintain our access to some of the most sustainable seafood in the world by sending a letter to the Port of San Diego. Points to include in letters and contact information for Port Commissioners and staff are below and downloadable here.

Points to include in letters:

• A world-class community fishing commercial fishing harbor on the Embarcadero is a crucial and beneficial part of the fabric of the waterfront and the San Diego community. Our fishing harbor and the people within provide food security, economic value, legal consistency, and strengthen connections to our history and culture.
• We encourage the Port to work with the San Diego fishing community to ensure that their needs are incorporated into the redeveloped waterfront. Please ensure that San Diego fishing will have the infrastructure, visibility and community involvement it needs in order thrive.
• San Diego fishermen provide food security. San Diegans want access to safe, secure and healthy food. While 90% of the U.S.’s seafood is imported, with most from unknown origins, San Diego fishermen provide a local source of traceable seafood. This seafood is a safe, secure, healthy and affordable option for the community, and is some of the most sustainable seafood in the world.
• San Diego fishermen contribute economic Value. The San Diego fishing industry has an extensive economic value to our community and this should be maintained. The San Diego fishing industry supports 130 commercial fishing vessels, including crew members and their families. In the San Diego area, 2.3 million pounds of seafood were landed in 2014, at a value of $10.3 million. Our commercial fisheries bring other values to San Diego including: networks, stewardship, lifestyle, income, fishing expenses, gifting and trading seafood, culture and tradition, education, spiritual, intergenerational, and transportation.
• The Port should maintain legal consistency. The Port should redevelop the waterfront in a manner consistent with local and State plans and acts that protect the coast and its people and consider proposals for Central Embarcadero development. Redevelopment should meet the requirements of the Unified Port of San Diego Master Plan and the Commercial Fisheries Revitalization Plan to maintain a working fishing harbor at this location; the State Land Commissions Public Trust Doctrine that holds the waterfront in trust for the people of California; and the Coastal Act that states that fishing harbors should be maintained.
• We want to maintain our history and culture. San Diego wants fishing operations in sight. Downtown San Diego is the cultural and historical home of San Diego fishing. Young San Diegans need the opportunity to view fishing and consider it as a viable line of work in order to keep our food sources secure. Once fishing is not visible, it will disappear along with the food security, economic stability, jobs and local identity it provides.
• Please keep our local sustainable seafood system within reach. San Diego deserves a thriving local food system, of which fishing is an integral and respected part. We want access to fresh, healthy, sustainably sourced seafood, that we can afford. A thriving fishing industry in Downtown San Diego is critical to this future.
• Downtown San Diego, like many other downtowns, has its share of large hotels, chain and non-local retailers and restaurants, and a lack of fresh, locally sourced food. Redevelopment represents an opportunity to highlight San Diego’s local treasures and create a beautiful, unique, accessible, and purposeful world-class waterfront.
• San Diego deserves a world-class, working waterfront. To accomplish this, we need a thriving fishing industry. Downtown San Diego can be known for its healthy, sustainable seafood; its strong fishing heritage; and its beautiful, fully operational fishing harbor accessible to all.

Support food security, economic value, our cultural identity. Support local fisheries. 

#knowyourfishermen

Email the San Diego Port Commissioners Marshall Merrifield (Chairman)- City of San Diego mmerrifield@portofsandiego.org Robert “Dukie” Valderrama (Vice-Chairman)- National City rvalderrama@portofsandiego.org Rafael Castellanos (Secretary)- City of San Diego rcastellanos@portofsandiego.org Bob Nelson - City of San Diego bnelson@portofsandiego.org Ann Moore- Chula Vista amoore@portofsandiego.org Dan Malcolm – Imperial Beach dmalcolm@portofsandiego.org Garry J. Bonelli - Coronado gbonelli@portofsandiego.org

Email the Port Staff Jim Hutzelman jhutzelm@portofsandiego.org Randa Coniglio rconigli@portofsandiego.org Wendy Ong wong@portofsandiego.org Penny Maus pmaus@portofsandiego.org Sofia Bayardo sbayardo@portofsandiego.org

How the New Pacific to Plate Bill is Bringing Good, Clean and Fair Fish to San Diegans

Pacific to Plate Bill San Diego

By Kathryn Rogers and Sarah Shoffler, Slow Food Urban San Diego Board Members

Slow Food Urban San Diego (SFUSD) joined the San Diego Food System Alliance (SDFSA), local fishermen, scientists, government leaders and community partners this week in celebration of local fisheries.

On December 7, 2015, more than 100 fish-loving friends gathered together at the waterfront Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego for inspiring speeches, a lively panel discussion and delicious local seafood served in honor of the recent passage of the “Pacific to Plate” bill AB226. The new bill, sponsored by Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) and signed into law in October by Governor Jerry Brown, allows fishermen’s markets to operate as food facilities, vendors to clean their fish for direct sale, and multiple fishermen to organize a market under a single permit. Put simply, the bill makes it easier for fishermen to sell directly to the public, much like farmers can.

Chef Graham Kent, of SoCal Fish, and his staff prep uni shooters for attendees to try

The process to develop the bill sprung from the early success of Tuna Harbor Dockside Market (THDM), which opened to the public in August 2014 and averaged more than 350 customers and 1.1 tons of seafood sold each week in its first months of operation. Recognizing the potential of a longer-term, direct-to-consumer market (the original operated under a temporary permit), County Supervisor Greg Cox, the County’s Department of Environmental Health, Port Commissioner Bob Nelson, the Unified Port of San Diego, California Sea Grant, NOAA, California Restaurant Association, The Maritime Alliance, California Coastal Conservancy, the local media, fishermen, researchers and supporters collaborated to draft a bill that met the desires of local fishermen and consumers. It received unanimous support in the California Assembly and Senate.

How does the new bill align with Slow Food’s mission of Good, Clean and Fair Food for All?

Good: The bill makes it easier for local fishermen to sell directly to consumers, and eliminates added transit time and processing/freezing compared to seafood imported from other countries or regions. The fish sold at THDM is caught by San Diego fishermen in local waters, most of it coming out of our oceans no more than a couple of days before it ends up in consumers’ kitchens. If you’ve ever tasted fresh caught sea urchin (a San Diego local favorite), you can tell the difference - big time. If you haven’t, get yourself down to THDM for an uni scramble or shooter. Your taste buds may never be the same.

Clean: Local sourcing means a smaller carbon footprint - no added fuel costs for fish flown or trucked to our markets from other states and countries. And US fisheries are among the most stringently regulated the world, meaning that if there’s a problem – either we’re fishing them too fast, there are too few or we’re catching protected species, we are mandated to do something about it. Our fishermen are required to stop fishing, slow fishing, or change fishing practices in some way to ensure we’re fishing sustainably.

Fair: One of the greatest benefits of a true fishermen’s market is that it promotes collaboration among local fishermen. Take it from fisherman Pete Halmay, a member of the Fishermen’s Market Working Group and longtime sea urchin diver:

“One of the best things I've seen with this direct market is that every Saturday 10 to 12 fishermen sit down together, work together, to maximize the benefits to the population. They are bringing in a wider variety of fish so each fisherman can generate more sales and bring more diverse options to consumers.”

San Diego’s seafood is wide-ranging indeed. We don't have just tuna and shrimp (two of the most commonly eaten seafood products in the US) in our waters. Our harbors and oceans are full of rockfish (dozens of species!), crab, lobster and snails, among other smaller fish like sardines, sand dabs, and mackerel.

Manchester Grand Hyatt Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa and Scripps Mercy Chef Cindy Quinonez admire the wide variety of rockfish available at Tuna Harbor Dockside Market

For All: The direct-to-consumer market allows fishermen to run specials when they catch a big run of fish, passing the abundance onto consumers in the form of lower prices.

The passage of the Pacific to Plate bill is a major milestone in bringing good, clean and fair seafood to all San Diegans. So what’s next?

During Monday’s event, Dr. Theresa Sinicrope Talley, Coastal Specialist for the California Sea Grant Extension at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego moderated an expert panel that raised some important questions about where we can go from here to create an even more sustainable seafood system. Barriers to getting seafood from dock to dish still remain, including:

1. Lack of infrastructure for San Diego fishermen to offload their catch at local docks.

2. Logistical constraints including limited market hours (currently Tuna Harbor Dockside Market is only open Saturdays from 8 a.m. until around 1 p.m.) that make it hard from some consumers and chefs to get there.

3. Limited awareness among locals and visitors that the market exists, where else they can buy local seafood, and how they can prepare the less well known seafood produced locally.

Stay tuned for local efforts to address these issues. In the meantime, SFUSD is seeking local chefs and community partners interested in collaborating on these efforts. Contact us to learn more.

And, be sure to pay a visit to THDM to see these fish tales come to life. While you’re there, make sure to ask your local fishermen for their favorite seafood preparations!

Tuna Harbor Dockside Market

A Depression-Era Reflection of the San Diego Fishing Industry

In observation of the upcoming Sustainable Seafood Week, how about a little (art) history lesson? This is the story of a recently discovered mural depicting the San Diego fishing industry of the 1930s.

Back in the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a New Deal agency developed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the US Congress to give employment to the many Americans who were unemployed as a result of the Great Depression. Known as one of the largest job-creation programs in the history of the US, the WPA commissioned millions of Americans--many unskilled laborers, but also musicians, writers, actors, directors, and artists--to carry out projects designed to help pull the country out of economic decline. Bridges, parks, and schools were built, and numerous literary, musical, and arts projects were developed.

As part of the WPA, the Federal Art Project (FAP) employed hundreds of artists who created in total more than 100,000 paintings and murals, as well as more than 18,000 sculptures. You may have heard of some of the artists that were employed by this project: Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Stuart Davis, and Jackson Pollock, to name just a few. And you may have seen some of the great murals that have resulted from these WPA efforts, as many have been preserved in post offices, courthouses, and schools across the nation. Typically, the murals tell us a great deal about society during the Great Depression, because Social Realism was the popular style at the time. Depicted are everyday scenes of the working class and the poor as critical commentaries about the institutions that perpetuate their plights.

Many FAP projects were commissioned right here in San Diego, and some excellent murals have been preserved throughout the county, such as the "Progress of Man" at the Balboa Park Club, "The Transportation of the Mail" at the downtown post office, and the "Scenic View of the Village" at the La Jolla Post Office.

Several murals were also commissioned for the San Diego State University (SDSU) campus for the iconic Hardy Tower. Surprisingly, these murals, assumed to be destroyed long ago when Hardy Tower was renovated in the 1950s, were only recently rediscovered during ceiling repairs. Seth Mallios, Chair of the Department of Anthropology at SDSU, has worked extensively on efforts to document, recover, restore, and preserve these important aspects of San Diego and SDSU history.

One mural at SDSU has been of particular interest. The 25-foot long "San Diego Industry" was completed in 1936 by SDSU student George Sorenson, and provides an excellent snapshot of the tuna fish industry in San Diego at the time. This restored mural, and others, are now displayed prominently in the SDSU Library Dome, and this video provides an excellent full view of the mural along with an informative discussion by Mallios.

Each step of the industry is depicted in the mural, though not all of it has survived the years of neglect. On the left-hand side of the mural we see men fishing, weighing the fish, and then gutting them. In the middle we see women in assembly lines, and to the far right, Asian men are working in front of bins of cylindrical cans. Mallios assumes that Sorenson used as his model for the mural the Van Camp Seafood Company, which had the first commercial tuna canneries, one of which was located in San Diego.

One interesting aspect of "San Diego Industry" is that it features the diversity of people who worked in the tuna fish industry at the time: men and women, Asians, and African Americans; though, as Mallios observes, not everyone worked side-by-side. Sorenson's placement of figures within the scene says a lot about American society in the 1930s.

Additional murals continue to be discovered in SDSU's more historic buildings, and a dedicated webpage has been created to document efforts to preserve these important pieces of SDSU history. You can also read more about the WPA murals and Mallios' work to restore them in The SOAP.

In Season: Olives

If you live in San Diego, chances are there's an olive tree or two growing in your neighborhood. In fact, the history of the olive industry in California starts in San Diego. The trees planted by Spanish Missionaries at Mission San Diego de Alcala at the turn of the 19th century provided the cuttings for most of the trees planted across the state and sold in nurseries across the country (ever heard of The Mission Olive?). Monoculture, overproduction and the olive fruit fly led to a decline in commercial production of olives in San Diego county, but many of the trees remain and some of them offer up beautiful, fruit-fly-free fruit that is perfect for curing at home.

When curing olives, you've got a few options.  You can ferment them as you would a kosher pickle in a process that takes up to year to complete or you can take a couple of shortcuts and start snacking in three weeks. The University of California Davis offers this extensive guide on olives and olive curing. Here are our favorite and tested methods from their guide for curing olives in 2 - 6 weeks.

MEDITERRANEAN-STYLE CRUSHED OLIVES

Use green-ripe fruit of any variety to prepare this style of olive. After these olives are cured and placed in the finish brine, you can also add a variety of seasonings, such as oregano, garlic, and lemon slices, to provide additional flavor.

Supplies needed

• Green-ripe olives • Pickling salt • White wine vinegar • Herbs, garlic, lemon, or other seasonings (optional) • Airtight, food-grade plastic, or glass containers (for olives) • 1-gallon container (for mixing brine)

Preparation

1. Sort the olives according to size, if desired, and discard any bruised or defective fruit.

2. Rinse the olives in water, and drain.

3. Place olives one or two at a time on a clean cutting board and strike with the flat side of a mallet or with a rolling pin. Crush each olive just to crack the flesh—do not break the pits or remove them.

4. Place the cracked olives into a food-grade plastic pail (or other container as listed above) and cover olives with fresh, cool water. Keep the olives submerged by placing a heavy plate or a sealed plastic food-storage bag filled with water over the fruit. Close the container lid loosely and leave the olives to soak.

5. After 24 hours, drain the olives and cover again with fresh, cool water. Repeat the water change daily for 6 to 7 days to reach the desired level of de-bittering. If you want less-bitter olives, continue to soak for a few more days and change water daily.

6. Prepare the finish brine—add 1 pound (11⁄2 cups) of pickling salt to 1 gallon of cool water, stir to dissolve, and add 2 cups of white wine vinegar. This amount of solution is enough to treat about 10 pounds of fresh olives.

7. Drain the de-bittered olives and cover with the finish brine. At this point you can add herbs or other seasonings if desired, such as chopped oregano, lemon slices, and garlic cloves. Close the container lid firmly and refrigerate. Note: These olives must be kept refrigerated. The olives are ready to eat after 4 days in the finish brine or you can allow the flavors to develop more fully during longer refrigerated storage.

8. These Mediterranean-style cracked olives can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 year in the finish brine.

DRY SALT-CURED OLIVES

Prepare dry salt cured olives from fully ripe, mature fruit that is dark red to black. Oil-rich varieties such as Mission are commonly used, but other varieties will also work. Use smaller olives; larger ones will soften too much during the process. Salting dehydrates the olive flesh, resulting in a soft, moist, shriveled product. Dry salt cured olives will be ready to eat about 5 to 6 weeks after you begin the salting process. These olives are salty and also slightly bitter because dry salt curing removes less oleuropein than other methods.

Dry salt cured olives can be stored for up to 6 months in a refrigerator, as described below, or they can be frozen for longer storage (see Methods for Preserving Cured Olives).

Supplies needed

• Mature, fully colored (dark red to purplish black) olives • Pickling salt • Slat wood box, wicker or plastic basket, or plastic bin (for olives) • Cheesecloth or nylon mesh • Airtight, food-grade plastic or glass containers (to store olives)

Preparation

1. Sort the olives and discard any bruised or defective fruit.

2. Prepare a large container that will hold the olives and salt. Use a slat wood box, a large wicker basket (it will likely stain), or a plastic bin with some drainage holes cut into the bottom. Line the bottom of the container with clean cheesecloth or nylon mesh. NOTE: Place the container outdoors (under cover) or over a large pan so the draining brine will not ruin your floors. Raise the container on small blocks to improve air circulation around the bottom.

3. Weigh the sorted olives and place them into the container. Add about 1 pound (11⁄2 cups) of pickling salt for every 2 pounds of olives. Mix the salt and olives very thoroughly in the container to distribute the salt and prevent mold from developing. Pour a 1-inch layer of additional pickling salt over the olives. Cover the container with clean cheesecloth and let it stand at about 60° to 80°F.

4. After 1 week, re-mix the salted olives by pouring them into a clean pail and then back into the first container. Add a small layer of salt over the top of the olives. Cover the container with a clean cloth and let it stand.

5. Repeat the mixing process once a week for the next month, until the olives are cured and edible.

6. When the olives are ready, pour them over a coarse screen to sift out any remaining salt. Allow the olives to dry overnight at room temperature.

7. Before storing the olives, add 1 pound (11⁄2 cups) of pickling salt to each 10 pounds of cured olives. Mix the olives and salt thoroughly and pack them into airtight containers (to minimize surface yeast and mold growth). Store in a cool place and use within 1 month, or refrigerate for up to 6 months, or store in a home freezer for up to a year. (Olives tend to become rancid if stored longer.) You can use these olives, as is, for cooking. For eating out-of-hand, you can first dip the olives briefly into boiling water to remove salt, allow them to air dry, and then rub them with a little olive oil and add herbs, such as rosemary, before serving.

WHERE TO FIND OLIVES IN SAN DIEGO?

If you don't have a tree in the neighborhood, you can find fresh olives at Specialty Produce and some smaller markets with extensive produce selections (We've heard they've been spotted at North Park Produce...)

WANT TO GROW YOUR OWN?

Check out this video on planting olive trees from Peaceful Valley.