From Sea to Table: Barton Seaver Explores Our Relationship with Seafood in Maine's Aquaculture Sector

Corinne:

It's an absolute pleasure to be here with Barton Seaver, a renowned chef and author, who's particularly passionate about sustainable seafood. Barton has a fascinating story of how his work evolved and sustainable seafood became such an integral part of who he is. I had a great time visiting with Barton here in the very picturesque South Freeport, Maine.

As a chef, Barton's enthusiasm for seafood is contagious. His eyes light up as he delves into the amazing diversity of seafood, which I find incredibly exciting from both a culinary and environmental standpoint, which I can safely say I believe Barton does as well

BARTON:

Hey, I'm Barton Siever. I'm a chef. I'm an author. More importantly, I'm a husband and a father. Live here in South Freeport, and life is really good. I live on a garlic farm. Oyster farmers drive past my house every day. And, you know, life is delicious here in Maine. It's the way life should be. And this was a very specific evolution of my work. My wife is from Maine and so entirely borrow her legitimacy here in this place. We wanted to invest ourselves and our sons, our family, to root them within a place that we have long worked in our career to sustain. Ultimately, seafood, sustainable seafood is the product of a community, right? And so we chose to literally root ourselves into that community

Corinne

Barton's career and personal philosophy are closely tied to the concept of sustainability, which as he mentions is something Mainers seem to place such high value on. In the realm of seafood, to me, sustainability is our commitment to harvest and culture organisms wisely, to protect marine habitats, and ensure a lasting abundance for both our tables and the oceans. Starting over two decades ago, his approach to sustainable seafood was one of respect and responsibility towards marine ecosystems. However, it was the realization of seafood as a catalyst for change that I believe has shaped his perspective on sustainability.

BARTON: Seafood has always been just the most interesting ingredient category to me. Just as a chef, as a culinarian. It's far more interesting, right? Chicken white or dark beef grill cut or braised cut or a grind cut. That's kind of where you are. But salmon, there's five wild species. There's all the different farmed Atlantic and the incredible diversity of culinary exploration that that offers. There's arctic char, there's steelhead trout, there's rainbow char. You know, there's so many just facets to seafood just from culinary standpoint. And that's just the salmon category right there. Let's talk about flaky white flesh fish. It's just so interesting and diverse and meaningful in a way that just coming up as a culinarian. Seafood was the most interesting category for me to pursue an expertise in, and that led me to understanding well, the best products come from the best users, right? The best producers are ones that are focused on an ecosystem approach, not only just to the quality of the product at hand, but also to the environment in which they are working, to the culture and community and economy in which they are working that are active participants in something bigger than themselves. And so this idea of just that connectedness of seafood kind of begat my understanding of sustainability of seafood. You know, if you are working within these systems you are most likely working to sustain those systems, right, because they matter to you. And so that idea that seafood was this catalyst to develop and to invest in and to become part of food systems that wanted to be a part of sort of a world that I wanted to see was really what drove my culinary career, but then also sort of the intellectual aspects of how I viewed food systems and my participation in them. When I first started out with Sustainable Seafood, though this was 20 plus years ago we were still very much in a cover your ass mentality around sustainability. It was do no harm approach, right? Much discourse or conversation or even allowance for conversations that seafood was actually this catalyst. Seafood was actually a product through which we could create systems. And so, so much as sustainability started off as just the bad human bad, guilty, stop screwing it up. And my analysis and interest in sustainability grew past that. Yes, of course it's our responsibility to reduce the impact we have on marine ecosystems. It's also our opportunity to maximize the impacts that they have upon us. And to me, the end result of sustainability is the endurance of thriving humans. And so if we measure our ability to thrive in our places in which that we love, as the end result of sustainability, we begin to see seafood, really as this catalyst product that enables us to create, as I said earlier, to sort of create the change that we want to see. But it also takes sustainability away from being a cover your ass, do no harm approach to really being this radical process by which it's not just, hey, humans, don't screw up ecosystems. It's like, wow, maybe instead of getting people just to fix seafood, we can also use seafood to begin to fix people and to address climate change and economic outcome, positive economic outcomes and women's empowerment and all sorts of different issues that are so close to the surface with seafood that it becomes a category driver for the change. We want to say. Pretty circuitous. Sorry. No, that was great, actually. So seafood is more than just seafood. It's more than just this food we're consuming. It's like. Stepping stone to get to this better version of self, better version of environment, better way we think about how we interact with, I mean, super broad, but the world that we're living in.

Corinne

I think I share that sentiment with Barton, thinking about, like he said our ability to thrive as the end result of sustainability, and when I think about why I am in this field I think back to my childhood, I’ve always been drawn to nature and the outdoor growing up in Colorado. And I think this mindset comes from both interacting with these natural fragile legacies around me but also understanding from early on that our food systems are so deeply connected to our ecosystems, which led me to be curious about our oceans as well. I wondered if Barton’s intriguing childhood, split between the bustling streets of Washington D.C and the tranquility of the Chesapeake Bay area, set the stage for his future career? and if his early experiences around the tide pools of the Chesapeake Bay perhaps planted the seeds of his lifelong fascination with seafood and the environment.

BARTON:

I had a very dichotomous childhood. So I was born and raised in downtown Washington, DC. During the height of the crack epidemic when DC was the murder capital of the world. It was a very interesting place and time to be growing up. I spent a lot of time outside because that was just my parents babysitter was kicking me out the front door. But, yes, I had a very urban upbringing, but I also had opportunity to spend some of my summers down on the Chesapeake Bay tributary of the Potuxant River. Yeah, it was there that I just spent my days in the quest for food, and I walked around with my Ewell. Gibbons manual and just wondered what delicious was, underfoot or Underwave? And that's where I first got lost in a tide pool. And just in terms of the epic wonderment that tide pools offer and that certainly colored a lot of my interest to this day.

Corinne

In addition to these early experience, I would say an essential part of Barton's love for seafood, and sustainability is certainly tied to the state of Maine. He describes this interesting correlation between the state’s history and the functioning of its democracy, explaining how the two uniquely shape Maine's food system and in particular, the aquaculture industry.

BARTON:

One of the things that I love so much about the sort of crucible of aquaculture and fisheries that we have here in Maine is that in settler America, cod is our first heritage food. We celebrate tomatoes and heirloom corn and all these things, but, like, cod was our first heritage food. It was why whitefoot stepped onto the shore initially. So the idea that both the ancient, quote unquote history of America still is alive here in wild capture fisheries, but also that it represents this crucible of development and evolution and technological prowess, and just all that we're seeing with aquaculture is. Is so compelling to me that we have our history and the future on display in sort of equal parts here. Something that I also have come to so appreciate about Maine is the functioning of our democracy here seems to just work a little bit better than elsewhere right now, it seems. And and something that I think is so often lost in conversations about food and food systems is that a food system is a function of democracy. It is a function of the vision that people within that community have of themselves have, of their stewardship of the land, have of their sense of health and well being, a sense of their heritage, their pride and continuity in place, et cetera. So a food system being a function of democracy is an important vantage point, I think, to take when we begin to discuss what aquaculture is, what it has been, what it could be, and how we can approach it in this very intentional way that says to a community, you are engaged in this because this is you. What do you want your place to look like? What do you want our presence in your place to look like? What do you want our economy to look like? What are those civic social virtues and values that we can expound upon and manifest through food systems? And unlike a lot of other places, some of the other functionaries of democracy are really at play in aquaculture. And when I mean functionary, I mean like the Portland Press Herald, you know, local news media is an exceedingly important part of democracy, is an exceedingly important part of a food system. Why? Because it is that town forum, that town hall by which ideas are shared. So I just think that Maine is so well set up to harness the power of community input and to really be the progenitor of intentional aquaculture in ways that other communities elsewhere can then begin to see themselves and their values reflected in. Not all forms of aquaculture belong in all places. That must be a decision of that community. That community must be well informed in order to make that decision. And I think that process is playing out here in Maine in ways that are exceedingly important for the rest of the planet to take note of.

Corinne

In the year I’ve lived here, I absolutely think Barton is on to something - the way in which Maine seems to have such intentionality with aquaculture, place based values, and community pride are some key aspects that drew me to this state in the first place. Since he’s been here for much longer than I have I asked Barton if these qualities in regard to aquaculture are something in herent to this place or if he’s seen growth and a shift in attitudes towards over the past decade, perhaps hinting that if its possible here, other areas to can harness this idea of community, stewardship, and the importance of our food systems being a function of democracy, so lets here what he had to say about that

BARTON: In the time that I've been in Maine, the ten years my wife and I have been rooted here, I've absolutely seen the trajectory shift a little bit around Aquaculture, and I think this is globally as well as the World Economic Forum and the UNFAO are now majorly involved in this. You've got mega health networks that are looking at seafood as these very positive sort of flow throughs for positive outcomes in various health circumstances, et cetera. Just basically the conversation about seafood has been elevated in different ways so that people are receiving information through different headlines. Now headlines about seafood really don't reflect the interest of a vast majority of people, but public health and economics know diversity and climate change and dei and all these other things. Yes. Okay, so there are these multiple access points for seafood information. But I also think that one of the things that s happened with Aquaculture is that for so long, the contention was, you know, it's the NIMBYism. It's the no in my backyard. And the problem with NIMBYism is that it's so rarely countered by, YIMBYism, what is the yes in your backyard? What are we giving people to say yes to? And that's what Maine has done so very well, I think. Not only do we have a 60 year history with Net Pen farming here, some of that with its contentions, of course, but bottom line is, it's done pretty darn well. But now that we have these oyster leases, small scale, big scale air quotes on big scale there, because it's still very small in terms of total scale. But the bottom line is we now have something to say yes to. People are wearing Love Point oyster T shirts and hats, and it's cool to have oyster gel tattoos, and it's a cultural thing now. And so people now, they know what an oyster farmer looks like. They know that she drives a truck just like a lobsterman, and that she takes boat off from South Freeport just like anybody else does. And they can see her getting up and going to work and putting in a hard day's work and having a really great product at the farmers market at the end of the day. 1s To hold forth and to say with pride, this is of my making, and this is of my love and effort. 3s Wait, and you're a daughter of the community who was born and raised here. Well, gosh, isn't this a great story? Yes, we've been trying to tell you that story for 20 years, but, yes, we've given people something to say yes to. They see a mirror now in Aquaculture that that reflects their own values, that reflects their own desires about what they want their community to look like, that they want a son or a daughter to go off to college and then come back. Because there's hope in the water. There's opportunity here to do something really radically cool. Right? So that's what's changed most, is that there's this percolation, this fomenting of YIMBY, and then there's all these other civic and community virtues and values. So whether it's wastewater treatment and runoff from upstream non point source pollution of nutrient cycles, whether it's climate change mitigation, whether it's tidal surge mitigation, I mean, you name it, all of a sudden, all of these other positives now have a nucleus of a personal image around which they can actually add value to a meaningful conversation.

Corinne

Barton’s mention of YIMBYism' or Yes In My BackYard.' Reminded me of the New Meadows River Coop event last month and how it was this great community event where anyone could paddle or kayak or what have you on the new meadows to the farms out there, meet the farmers, hang out on work floats, and learn more about oyster farms while having this shared value and connection to our communities and our waters!! This got me wondering if aquaculture and interacting with this practice in ways such as this could transform our relationship with our oceans from being a distant, unexplored territory to a more familiar space, a kin to visiting an apple orchard to pick fruit and meet the farmers, or visiting a dairy farm to eat ice cream and see the cows that produce our food?

BARTON: That's awesome. And it's like, yeah, what you're saying, it's this cool thing that people have value and connection to, and knowing the person that is producing your food and they're just your next door neighbor that's also. And this is where the tight knit community comes into play, even if you don't eat oysters. But you've gone to church with Mr. And Mrs. Sellinger for 40 years, and their daughter is now growing oysters, and you watched her grow up. It's like there's an immediacy of just affection there. And that is what Maine is, I think maybe most unified by, is an affection we share for this place. And now that we begin to see with that same affection our presence on the water being seen as beautiful, that we look out upon an oyster float and say with pride, I'm happy she's out there. That's what's beginning to shift. For so long, we've looked at land, and our presence there is beautiful. We think of a farm as this glorious presence of humanity, right? The perfectly patterned rows of crops undulating into autumn splendor, setting sunlight on these hills and the picket fence and the farmhouse and the red barn and all of this scene like, hot damn. This is literally the thread by which the fabric of a settler America was woven, right? But then we look out at the know and we gaze wistfully at the wine dark sea, thinking as though a fishery or a farm is somewhere, something that happens elsewhere, executed by someone other beyond the horizon of our attentions. And so we have this idea that land is beautiful for our presence and the sea is beautiful for our absence. And Aquaculture begins to shift that narrative subtly with contention as we are, quote unquote, privatizing the commons in ways that just putting a lobster pot down doesn't in sort of our cultural capacity for thinking of this. And so that idea that we are slowly pioneering, just the idea that people belong out there. Is like, whoa, this is what we are fighting against. Like that level of misunderstanding or lack of understanding when it comes to Aquaculture, that we you know, it's easy to just say, hey, my my oyster is delicious. But the very nature of the presence of that oyster in the water is is something that we are able to consensus around here in Maine, better so than anywhere else. And that's why I think we really are sort of the bleeding edge of this, that we are not only just developing the technology and educating the students and creating these pathways and entry points, but we're also literally writing the cultural textbook

Corinne

Barton's insights offer a captivating glimpse into the depth of aquaculture’s impact. Beyond the flavor of the seafood, there's a broader, more profound story about Maine's relationship with its waters and inhabitants. Here in Maine, we're not just cultivating oysters; we're cultivating a cultural understanding. As Barton said, we're in the process of writing a cultural textbook that future generations will refer to. This Maine-centric approach to aquaculture, set against the backdrop of a global sustainability narrative, truly showcases how our local efforts can shape and influence global perceptions. But to truly appreciate how far we've come, let's journey back to a time during Barton's budding chef career, a time when the conversations around sustainable seafood were few and far between...

BARTON:

When I was coming up through the ranks, and I went to Culinary Institute of America and then taught there in the seafood program for a couple of years after graduation, sustainable seafood was just becoming a topic of conversation. And Carl Safina at the Blue Ocean Institute was pumping out his initial wallet guide that Monterey then did a sort of West Coast version. And so all of that was happening at the time that I was coming up. The idea of sustainable seafood is much older than that, of course, but in terms of those functional mechanisms of it that were widespread, it was just beginning to happen. But when I opened my restaurants, even my business partner, the first question he asked me is, wait, what's sustainable seafood? When I said, let's open a seafood restaurant. So, yeah, we were very much in a place where we needed to. Before we even sold the dish, we had to sell the concept of just what it represented and also a big part of that was selling the negatives. You know, we had to say, well, the oceans are in crisis and that's a really shitty place to start off at the table when you're trying to sell somebody a nice fancy dinner which is the oceans are in crisis, it's all going to hell except here at my restaurant. So it, it certainly started conversations off on a negative. But that narrative has also shifted to the point now where sustainable seafood is a category now. It exists, it has mechanisms to protect it and regimens of management that are scientifically backed. And so all of a sudden it's not this concept that we're fighting to get recognition for, it is now, oh, let's really push forward the best actors because they really are solving for problems that we need answers to.

BARTON: You know, it really didn't even filter into the curriculum so much as it was 2s there's so much to teach around seafood. And the industry, the culinary industry at the time really didn't need people educated on sustainability the way that you do now. Like, you can't can't graduate from school not knowing how to use local produce and seasonal menus. And it's literally shifted the way that culinary creative pathways operate because it is part of modern cuisine that you are engaged more closely with the networks by which food comes to your table. At that time, with seafood in particular that wasn't there, the industry didn't need us to educate 1s for cooks to be able to parse out the subtle differences between salmons. They just needed to know how to cut it and cook it. And so it really was a very functional education at that time, and it's still being really developed how we educate around sustainability with seafood from those core levels onward.

Corinne

Yet, while the broader narrative surrounding sustainable seafood has matured, the importance of experiential understanding remains. Considering we are also looking at this from a culinary perspective, It's not just about sustainability in isolation. My own introduction to Barton exemplified this. When he brought students to the Darling Marine Center, it wasn’t just an aquaculture facilities tour; it was a lesson blending culinary education with sustainability ethos, where the kitchen and coastline collaborate, offering budding chefs a holistic perspective that extends beyond the stove to the very waters that nurture their ingredients. So let's delve into a recent endeavor that encapsulates the synthesis of culinary brilliance and sustainable seafood we're nurturing right here in Maine...

Trail. These were four of the: 1415

Corinne

Conversing with Barton about the experiences these culinary students underwent during their Maine and eastcoast visit, led me to think The intimate encounters they had with seafood might be the key to unraveling the mystery surrounding this protein and its culture methods.

I think the confidence around understanding seafood comes not only knowing how to craft a dish but understanding its origins, the hands that reeled it in, and the waters it lived in, kind of like a sea-to-table understanding.

Barton drew a parallel that I really liked, which is the connection consumers feel when they handpick their produce from a local farmer’s market. It's that tangible link to the land, or in this case, the sea. When you can trace the path from the source to your plate, there's an unparalleled sense of appreciation and confidence. And perhaps, that's an important characteristic of aquaculture education – weaving in culinary stories of origin and sustainability.

BARTON:

Yeah. Something that I relate seafood in comfort and confidence to is the advent of farmers markets. Or the re advent, I guess the reemergence of farmers markets coming back. Green tomatoes that are ripe when crunchy and green. Fractal looking weird cauliflowers that maybe it's the mechanical arm 1s end piece of some alien conqueror overlord. These are just weird things, right? Like, these weird vegetables that we look at, and we're like, california is supposed to be round and white. And what is this? This looks like an alien brain. Like, cool, right? Cool. Why? Because you can see the dirt under the farmer's fingernails. There's an association with this. You're participating in something cool. You woke up on a Sunday morning to go to a farmer's market. Because it's cool. Right. Like there was this idea that we were participating in this larger community. That we were is not just the halo of it all, but it actually offered something of value to us, a sense of belonging and a community and a grouping of like minded people. Even though farmers markets attract an incredibly diverse array of people, but we all find this commonality there finding that commonality with seafood. Is that's why I think we are so divorced from a culture around seafood for a confidence in cooking it? From seeing just the seafood counter in the store as the first stop always. And so farmers markets have had such a great impact in terms of 1s opening our eyes to the culinary possibilities of just what vegetables are out there, right. From fractal, weird cauliflower things to tomatoes that are green and crunchy even when they're ripe. These are radically different experiences within that vegetable sort of experience. Right. But we buy into them. Why? Well, because we think we're really cool for going to the farmers market, because we're part of a community. Because we can see the dirt under the fingernails of the farmer that's passing it to us and our dollar passing to them. Right. We really understand this transactional, but also social, civic virtues that are much more sort of a halo over the entire experience with seafood. 1s Just kind of guilty before proven innocent, right? I mean, people just we don't have that same sense of just acknowledgment of candor around seafood conversations, comfort around seafood conversations. And so we just kind of hold it at arm's length. And because the fishing community and the water farming community is some what out of sight, there just isn't that much of that opportunity to build those confidences, what I would call seafood literacy, just, hey, do you know how seafood is produced and how to cook it and how to eat it? Just all the way through? 1s So when you create that personal narrative for things, then as we've spoken about with just experiencing things, knowing people who work on the water, then all of a sudden you have exonerated that guilty before proven innocent aspect of seafood. And so people just approach the seafood counter or seafood on the menu with just like, oh, hey, seafood cool. That could be what's for dinner rather than seafood. Wait, it's unsustainable, isn't it? I've heard all wild farm, all wild fish is unsustainable, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just like you end up in these conversations that are so circuitous that we forget to just say, no seafood. It's what's for dinner. It's what's for dinner. Let's just start there and move forward. And I agree with you when you said, when you're asking this question. and the quickest, I cook it in a toaster oven. Chicken. It's got salmonella on it, and you have to overcook it just to make it safe. Right, okay. Like, that's a pretty crappy place to start, right. But seafood, you put it in your toaster oven, 275 degrees for 20 minutes, and you're done it's easy. So where that trepidation comes from is complicated. The path away from it, I think, are complicated and involved. But ultimately, I have a lot of faith that seafood trends towards increased consumption are going to continue to rise just because seafood is going to be important to people for various ways, whether it's public health, whether it's women's economic and empowerment issues, whether it's climate change, whether it's just diversity, economic inclusion. There's so many different entry points to seafood now that we're beginning to sort of boo up the entire category. Food has got this weird fear around it because we talk about it in a very different way than we talk about land protein, in the sense that no one's like. 1s

Corinne

Barton's insights shed light on a pivotal challenge: the distance many of us feel from our seafood sources, a stark contrast to the tangible relationships we've nurtured with other food producers. So, what happens when we shift the conversation? When we decide to explore seafood in a different context, emphasizing not just its origins, but its far-reaching implications on health, economy, and community?

By reframing our dialogues and engagements, can we demystify seafood, granting it the same everyday familiarity we reserve for our land-based proteins? It’s a tantalizing thought – one that Barton dove right into, offering perspectives that stretch far beyond the dinner plate, highlighting the myriad connections seafood has with broader societal themes. Let's hear more from him on this.

BARTON: It's so hard to 2s summarize seafood in such takeaways 2s that don't borrow or outright just usurp existing conversations like sea seafood. It's what's for dinner that would be a great place to start. There's another animal protein that has that taglined. I don't know if you've ever heard that before, but wouldn't it be great if we just like, it's what's for dinner that we just had? This starting point of yes would be a really wonderful thing. I think there's ways to kind of come at you consumers, regardless of well, depending on where their community is, whether it's public health outcomes that you're interested in, great. The three S's of public health are don't smoke, wear your seatbelt and eat seafood. It's that important. It's that important in terms of positive public health outcomes with an attendant reduction in red meat consumption and an increased rise in omega three rich seafood consumption. Right. Wow. Okay, great. Public health. That's a big topic. How do we just inject seafood as this positive presence within those conversations? 2s Whether it's brain drain and economic empowerment and opportunity here in the state of Maine. Like, wow, great. We have our universities. Every one of our universities is actively the leading edge of not only technology development but also just community integration and sort of the civic social virtues and values and the social license aspects around aquaculture. This is a teachable employable skill that is uniquely applicable in Maine. How many other opportunities do we have like that to really create a brain gain in our state through not an extractive resource economy but really a cyclical recyclic, recircular nutrient economy around food where all of the outcomes are positive? It's like when we begin to start talking about seafood in these realms, in these terms with these intentions, that is when our affection for seafood and all of its pathways towards us grow

Corinne

After delving deep with Barton into the complexities of seafood, the significance of aquaculture, and the nuances of our food systems, there was still one pressing question lingering in my mind. If you had to pick one seafood to eat for the rest of your life.. what would it be?

BARTON: I go with oysters. Every single oyster is different and unique and interesting. Every single oyster requires you to start with intention. Why? Because it's inside of a rock. Right. So I have to intend to get it outside of this rock. It's like there's this very participatory, very detailed, very attentive 1s relationship you have with oysters, just by virtue of how they exist. 1s Of course, we all know that an oyster from this side of the river to that side of the river is going to get a completely different product. So there's just more there to mine in terms of interest and to captivate not only just the sensor's senses, but also just the intellect of what this is. So not to say that any other seafood is not as

Corinne

And I of course went with Mackerel

BARTON: THere you go. So mackerel mackerel is our second favorite fish in this house.

BARTON: Yeah. And why is the fish called Barramundi baramundi? It sounds like something Count Chocula would say. Right. Thought that. Right. Which is delicious fish.