KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
Kayla Desroches/KMXT
Locally sourced produce is all the rage in Kodiak – from farmer’s markets to food co-ops, and some residents hope that attitude will extend to seafood. On the first day of Crab Fest Thursday, a collection of local groups joined together to host Edible Kodiak at the Afognak Native Corporation building on Near Island.
Kodiak residents milled around inside tasting food made from locally grown or foraged resources – like rose petal jam and cornbread made with roasted spruce tips. Outside the building, Chef Bradley Ewing, from the Outdoor Channel TV Show “Alaska’s Wild Gourmet” whips up some fish spread.
Ewing cuts into a hunk of cheese and throws it into a food processor.
He’s making rockfish spread, and adds mascarpone, lemon, salt, pepper, and rockfish – which is yellowtail rockfish, as Theresa Peterson explains during her introduction to the demonstration.
“It’s actually caught by jig fishermen when they’re targeting black rockfish and dusky rockfish, so it’s kind of a secondary bycatch species that very few people know about, one of those underloved species that we should all learn more about.”
Peterson is the Kodiak Outreach Coordinator for the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and the organizer behind Edible Kodiak. She says eating fresh, local produce ties Kodiak residents to the resources around them, and the same goes for fish – even those that tend to be overlooked like yellowtail rockfish.
“I think about the seafood and these variety of fishermen, hundreds of small boat fishermen, where most of our seafood goes into the processing plant and gets shipped off. And we want to make sure we have access to that down on the docks too. That it’s something that Kodiak community members can go down and meet their fishermen and buy it direct from the boat is kind of a vision we see down the line.”
How far down the line is to be determined.
One barrier Peterson identifies is a city ordinance with language that seems to prohibit vessel owners from doing business in the Kodiak harbor. There are catcher-seller permits available through the state that allow fishermen to sell unprocessed fish from their boats in most places in Alaska.
Jig fisherman Darius Kazprzak, who caught the rockfish for the demonstration, points out that selling from vessels is common practice across the United States. He says fishermen like him want to be free to meet the demand from local consumers.
“All you need is a catcher-seller permit and you can sell from your boat. I’ve done it. It’s just lately we’ve realized that it’s actually against city regulation. It’s something everyone’s turned a blind eye to or not enforced up to this point, but as the food co-op movement grows and as people become more aware of slow food and fresh food and the popularity of jig caught rockfish and stuff continues to grow, we want to be legal and all that.”
A public sentiment petition is currently circulating to gather names of other people who feel the same. Peterson says they hope the city council will see the level of interest from the public and take a look at the ordinance and its language. She says the issue is likely to come up again in September, after the fishing season has slowed down and fishermen have returned to Kodiak.
