This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
Names like sculpin, hemitripter, whelk or Stimpson’s surf clam mean nothing to you? However, it is the species of fish and seafood that inhabit the waters of the St. Lawrence River that deserve to be known… and tasted! On February 22 and 23, the very first Fourchette Bleue show will be held in Rivière-du-Loup to make the delicious creatures of the St. Lawrence more accessible.
For 13 years, Sandra Gauthier has been active in the direction of the museum institution Exploramer, located in the small municipality of Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, in Gaspésie, to promote and enhance the marine and halieutic resources of Quebec. A long-term battle that led her to identify three major obstacles to our knowledge of this heritage: “The St. Lawrence River is full of species that our ancestors fished, but which have fallen into oblivion despite their economic and gastronomic potential,” she begins, citing as examples the pout, which looks like an eel, as well as the sculpin, from the same family as the anglerfish.
You should also know that fish such as the pomegranate, a kind of small sardine, are caught in fishermen’s nets…and thrown dead into the water for lack of commercial potential. A waste that could be avoided, just like the export of 89% of razor clams, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, Stimpson’s surfclams, rock crabs and even turbots caught on the Quebec coasts to Asia and the United States. -United.
“We basically only see the color of our lobsters, shrimps and snow crabs, the most expensive products on the market, passing by others of high quality, caught here in optimal conditions, without additives and which would be more accessible, argues Sandra Gauthier. In addition, we import white shrimp from the Mekong, striped bass from Chile, tilapia and pangasius with really questionable origins and taste. We cannot sit idly by! »
Committed professionals
The observation of the director of Exploramer is shared by more and more chefs and professionals in the marine environment, who also want to change the situation. Colombe St-Pierre, Jean Soulard and Stéphane Modat, to name a few, have already spoken out on several occasions in favor of better access to our marine resources.
This is also the case for Simon Langlois and Olivier Dupuis, owners of Pêcheries Gaspésiennes, a processing company specializing in groundfish, dried salted fish, the smoking of several species and, more recently, the drying of algae. They export a good part of their production, but want to protect and, even more, develop their sales in Quebec.
As Mr. Dupuis points out, “if the promotion carried out with lobsters in recent years has borne fruit, why couldn’t we better promote our turbot to consumers, as well as more specific species such as anglerfish and hake, which look like cod? Or the redfish, which in my opinion gives the best fish and chips in the world ? We would be proud to find all these products on our tables and store shelves. »
“A Paradigm Shift”
However, the goodwill of the professionals involved are faced with major problems: the lack of knowledge of marine products in Quebec households, of course, but also poor traceability of products in stores and a faulty transport chain.
This is why the director of Exploramer has great hopes in the Fourchette bleue show, the very first of its kind to bring together in the same place fishermen, processors and buyers from HRIs (restaurants, institutions, fishmongers). “I know it won’t be immediate fireworks,” she admits, “but it’s another concrete step towards a paradigm shift. »
The event, which will take place on February 22 and 23 in Rivière-du-Loup, that is to say before the Boston Seafood Show, has the assumed objective of putting local orders ahead of foreign ones. It will be conducive to discovery and exchanges. “But the heart of the show will be a closed-door exchange where negotiations will be carried out,” says the organizer, who sees this meeting as a premise for the reappropriation of our marine resources.
We are able to send thousands of pallets of frozen fish and seafood overseas, but we have no carrier that makes regular trips between the coasts and Montreal. All products are still transported on ice by bus. It’s crazy, though!
Resources that will grow over the next few years, since species such as redfish or squid — we still import 110,000 tonnes of them a year — will no longer be under a moratorium and will once again be able to be fished off our coasts. Not to mention very abundant and long-lasting reserves of products made from gray seals from Harp, so populous that they are decimating the schools of cod, or even seaweed, a booming market.
Can we then assume that we will enjoy, in our restaurants, cafeterias and homes, these many treasures of the river in the next five years? “This is what we are working on, indicate the two processors. There are so many products worth highlighting here. And we are ready to accompany this change. We got there! »