Ah, Florida! Sun, sea, dinners of snapper and grouper fresh out of the ocean…Wait, scratch that last thing.
Some harsh realities have made local seafood hard to come by in the “Fishing Capital of the World,” says a New York Times story by Damien Cave:
“Florida, from sea to plate, just is not the seafood buffet it once was. Reeling from a record, fish-killing cold snap and tougher federal limits on what can be caught, commercial fishermen and charter-boat captains are struggling. Distributors and restaurants are relying more and more on imported seafood — some of it clearly labeled, a lot of it not.”
Some eateries in the Sunshine State are getting around this bad news by simply labeling seafood menu items “local,” based on the distributor’s address. In other words, that fish sandwich may have, as Cave so cleverly puts it, traveled farther than you did have to end up in Florida.
(The story makes one wonder: How many other local labels are more fiction than fact? Perhaps we should expect more of this sneaky stuff as the eat-local movement gains momentum.)
This situation is about more than truth-in-labeling. Proposed tightening of federal limits on fishing might well push a regional industry right over the edge, cutting an estimated 1,800 jobs. But don’t think that fishermen (fisherpeople?) are going to accept this without fighting. As Cave notes, a “sea party” of protesters recently got the attention of Washington:
“Fishermen from several Atlantic states turned up to blast federal bans on red snapper, grouper and other species that feed their livelihoods. They shouted: “Where’s the data?” and waved signs that read: ‘United We Fish’ and ‘I Fish. I vote.’ “
-Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett
