You can do your part in saving our oceans!

Small Bayou

When I was a kid growing up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, we lived just a few hundred yards from “Small Bayou.” It’s a tributary of Contraband Bayou where it’s rumored that master pirate Jean Lafitte buried a huge treasure trove.  Every day after school I would drop my books and grab my fishing pole, dig up a few worms from the backyard worm bed, and snatch a couple of slices of Wonder Bread for the resident alligator. The bayou was an enchanted world of dissonant characters that wielded a grip on me every bit as strong as Milne’s ‘Hundred Acre Wood’ or Riordan’s ‘Camp Half-Blood.’ Among the cast of bayou characters were a three-legged alligator named Long John Silver, legions of croaker fish, spine-chilling water moccasins hanging from moss-covered tree limbs, gigantic jumping frogs, darting dragonflies, and blood-thirsty mosquitoes. I was after croakers—the indigenous fish that swam to the surface of the water and croaked obstreperously in obvious competition with the frogs. I could catch two croakers in about 10 minutes. Sometimes I would hook a stray catfish, but the croakers were the staples of the bayou.

Every afternoon, after gutting and scaling my two fish, I would toss about a half stick of butter in a frying pan and plop the two fish into the sizzling butter. When they were a nice golden brown I ate one as my after-school snack and I wrapped the other one in aluminum foil for breakfast. To my parent’s horror, the next morning I ate the left-over croaker cold, right from the fridge. I still love leftover fish--cold from the fridge-- for breakfast.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the bayou was horribly polluted. I found out much later, years after I moved to Texas, that a part of Calcasieu Parish is a superfund site. Pollution has made the recreational waters in southwest Louisiana lethal. Much of the aquatic life has disappeared and humans are warned to avoid eating the few species that remain. Clean-up operations are helping, but with all of the refineries producing contaminants faster than they can be remediated, efforts to restore these vital waterways have not been able to achieve adequate cleanup.

But the problems experienced in Calcasieu Parish are indicative of larger issues. All of our water resources are in jeopardy. Climate change and pollution are impacting our oceans by increasing the acidity of these vital waters; coral reefs are dying, Florida and the Gulf Coast have lethal red tide problems, and we are seeing massive fish and turtle dye-offs. Some of the fish and shellfish farming operations are not sustainable and it is imperative that we understand that there are healthy, sustainable seafood choices available to us. We can all do our part to make these waters healthy and supportive of sea life again.

The Monterey BayAquarium in Monterrey, California, is on the forefront of oceanic sciences in research, conservation, and public education. Recently, it has embraced the plastics problem that is so prominent in the destruction of our sea life. Its Seafood Watch program provides a platform for business and the public to make sustainable choices in the seafood we consume at home as well as in restaurants. It has made available a downloadable app that assists individuals as well as businesses in making the most appropriate choices for seafood consumption. My old friends, the Croakers, are a sustainable “Best Choice” when caught with Beach Seines in the Northwest Atlantic. They are still plentiful around Louisiana oil rigs but those are not considered to be a sustainable choice. Like most other species, there are no longer plentiful reserves of these wonderful fish.

Another one of my all-time favorite fish is tuna. If you love canned tuna as much as I do, look no further than Fishin’ Families. Their tuna is pole and line caught and is certified by MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) as sustainable. Not only is it a Seafood Watch “Best” choice, it actually (in my opinion) tastes better than the leading grocery store brands. You can mail-order it from their website or from Amazon. One of my favorite ways to eat it is in a big salad. It's a delicious, healthy choice for not a lot of money.

One of our family traditions is to have a really large salad on Wednesdays. We use our garden veggies and sometimes have a 25 or more ingredient salad. We amp up the nutritional level with beans—sometimes dried beans that we cook the day before, sometimes steamed Asian long beans from the garden, and we add a can of tuna. In cool months we use various lettuces and herbs, asparagus, beets, and blood orange slices. In the summer months when lettuce dies off, we use a couple of types of sorrel, beet greens, kale, and chard.

Another delicious option is a nicoise-type salad with grilled tuna, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, nicoise olives, boiled eggs, greens, asparagus, and herbs. Be sure and check the Seafood Watch app for sustainable varieties of fresh tuna.

Our all-time favorite is a Mexican salad with black beans, jicama, cilantro, cojita cheese, bell peppers, tomatoes, pickled sweet peppers, and mild green chilies. Add a can of sustainably-caught tuna and toss everything with plenty of greens and serve with oven-heated tortilla chips. You can feed a family of four a healthy meal for less than ten bucks—way less if you grow your own veggies.

Sustainably-caught or farmed seafood might cost you a little more, but it won’t break the bank and you can feel great about serving it. You are, after all, making positive contributions toward a better, more sustainable world with healthy oceans and abundant seafood!