Sampling Sustainability at Sea Delight Ocean Fund Event

To kick off National Seafood Month in October, FishWise was honored to participate in our partner Sea Delight’s 3rd Annual Taste of the Sea event on October 1 at the Gallery of Amazing Things in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida!

Designed to celebrate sustainable seafood and benefit fishery improvement projects (FIPs) supported by the Sea Delight Ocean Fund, the Taste of the Sea event boasted mouth-watering culinary sampling, educational outreach from marine conservation and research organizations including FishWise, and a live chef cook-off.

Fourteen celebrity chefs, many of whom have been featured on Food Network competition shows such as “Chopped” and “Cutthroat Kitchen,” used Sea Delight-sourced seafood from FIPs or Monterey Bay Aquarium Green and Yellow-rated sources to put forward their best dishes to over 350 event attendees. The dishes ranged from a smoked mahi dip with hot pickled vegetables using longline-caught mahi from the Peru FIP to seared grouper with Buerre blanc using longline-caught grouper from the Campeche Bank, Mexico FIP.

Guests voted for their “Fan Favorite,” a title swept up this year by Latin House Grill’s Chef Michell Sanchez for his Puffy Poke Taco, featuring marinated handline-caught yellowfin tuna from WWF’s Vietnam FIP with avocado, candied jalapeño, fried onions, and chipotle aioli nestled in a flash fried flour tortilla–YUM!

In the live cook-off, six of the chefs were challenged to use mystery ingredients of octopus, marshmallows, plums, and canned chipotle to whip together a dish in short order. Chef Adrienne Grenier of 3030 Ocean took home the top prize.

FishWise had the opportunity to speak to guests about a range of seafood sustainability topics throughout the night, starting with foundational questions about what “sustainability” means all the way through the specific fishery improvement projects being presented at the event and how Sea Delight and FishWise work to advance such important efforts.

We continue to be proud to partner with such a progressive company as Sea Delight and look forward to future events!