Seafood Cooking Showdown: Competing for the Most Sustainable Ingredients

Text by Chen Man-jung (Public Relations and Planning, Sea Dragon King Loves the Earth Association)

'This seemingly upscale and luxurious seafood banquet nevertheless quietly tells the story of the depletion of marine resources'

On Thursday, August 22, at Dunnan, the birthplace of Taiwan's bookstore culture, a new way of thinking about seafood was quietly taking shape. At 1:30 in the afternoon, I had the good fortune, in my capacity with the Sea Dragon King Loves the Earth Association, to step into SOLO Pasta. A skilled server greeted me in the shop, leading me over beside the screen, where I was to introduce the concept of sustainable seafood to everyone at the seafood dinner. As it turned out, this was the beginning of something stunning.

Slow Food gourmet Hsu Chung took the Tropic of Cancer in Taiwan as the dividing line: to the north was the famous Italian chef Master Wang Chia-ping; to the south, the famous French cuisine chef Master Chien Tien-tsai. The two masters took highlighting Taiwan's diverse island characteristics as their theme, and while choosing seafood ingredients unique to Taiwan, they also had to incorporate "ecological sustainability" into their considerations for ingredient selection. And for such a splendid "Two Master Chefs Seafood PK Contest," the kitchen had to start preparing ingredients from just after 2 p.m.!!

For the appetizer, Master Wang chose "coffin fish" as the starter. And what is coffin fish? The dish made from coffin fish is what everyone commonly sees at roadside banquets as "Xi Xiang Feng." This fish is an inexpensive, abundant species at the bottom of the food chain, making it very much in line with the concept of sustainability.

But Master Wang found that the traditional method mostly involves deep-frying whole fish coated in flour, yet when eaten, the slight bitterness released when chewing the fish bones and organs detracted somewhat from the sweetness of the flesh. So he tried removing the bones and organs, splitting the fish in half and flattening it, keeping the flesh intact before coating it in flour and deep-frying it. After eliminating the bitterness, all that remained was the crisp outer coating and tender flesh, which was then served with an Italian-style sauce - saffron orange fish liver mayonnaise. Dipping in a little of it cut the greasiness of the deep-fried fish, and the orange fragrance blended with the fish liver brought out the fresh sweetness of the flesh even more, completely overturning the memory that Xi Xiang Feng had once left on my taste buds.