Crabs, shrimp and lobsters — the Holy Trinity of St. Lawrence fisheries — will soon have a new companion in the grocery store. Redfish will make a comeback in Quebec fish stores this summer. Will it also make its way onto our plates?
Everything indicates that redfish fishing, banned after years of overexploitation, will reopen in July. After 30 years of moratorium, the small goldfish has once again become sufficiently abundant for 60,000 tonnes to be harvested each year.
“It will allow Quebec to reclaim local fish at a popular price,” enthuses Sandra Gauthier, general director of Salon Fourchette bleue. “We have had little or very little fish from the St. Lawrence available at a fair price for the last 40 years. »
In Gaspésie, some call it “perch”. Its official name in grocery stores will be “redfish”. Its fillets of white flesh have already been on shelves for a short time, the result of exploratory fishing. Once commercial fishing opens, the fish will be distributed and displayed in several establishments. Its price, around $13 per pound, has already attracted the cafeterias of CISSS, CPE, CHSLD and even that of UQAM, all of which have already claimed their share of the landings.
Based on the information we have, that will give us about two fishing trips. You can’t make a fishing business profitable with just two trips.
This pleases Sandra Gauthier, who is hopeful that consumers will come forward. “We can’t feed people in CHSLDs with lobster. We don’t have the budget. So, we are giving back a piece of the St. Lawrence to Quebecers.”
To tame before it flies away
Fishermen are feverishly waiting for the federal government to specify fishing conditions. Claudio Bernatchez, general director of the Gaspésie Captains Owners Cooperative, fears that prices and catch volumes are too low for the industry to take maximum interest in them. “Based on the information we have, that will give us about two fishing trips. You cannot make a fishing business profitable with only two trips,” he said in an interview. “We hope that the market will develop. You have to start somewhere. »
Above all, Sandra Gauthier hopes that Quebec consumers will support this new local fishery. Otherwise, the product risks finding its way into international markets and never coming back to us. “If Quebec does not appropriate it now, it will go abroad,” she says. “If he leaves for abroad, it will be impossible to bring him back, because our factories [de transformation] will have signed contracts with Americans or with Asian companies or whatever. »
“I’m not throwing stones at them, they have to sell the fish. Except that afterwards, we cannot ask them to say no to their client because Quebec has just woken up,” she emphasizes.
How to cook it?
The redfish that were once caught were much larger than the ones that are pulled out of the water today. After decades of moratorium, the population of this fish has recovered to the point of unbalancing the Gulf ecosystem. However, for unknown reasons, the St. Lawrence redfish has not regained its former size: it does not exceed 70 cm.
Taste-wise, “we call it sea tofu,” explains Sandra Gauthier. “He will taste what we put around him. »
“It’s the easiest thing, a white fish fillet. You should not overcook it, because it is a fish that is not very fatty; it dries quickly. So, the minimum amount of cooking,” advises the expert. “It’s a fish that I call entry-level, in terms of taste. It is not very tasty and will be quite all-purpose in the end. »
The industry is also working to revalue redfish by-products. Because for 4 kg of fish, we obtain 1 kg of fillets and 3 kg of scraps.
“The head, the tail, the central spine, can we revalue that? Certainly yes, but how? Industrial researchers need to get to work,” said Sandra Gauthier, who has been preparing the commercialization of redfish for over a year. “Can we make fertilizer?” Can we make mud to catch lobster or crab? Can we make flour like with shrimp? The important thing is to have as little loss as possible. »
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.