Capitan Ego and the safety of the oceans

The idea is one that makes you jump from back to feet, Save the Oceans: feed the world in the words of Oceana, the foundation in Washington promoting it. Oceana, 2001, with Andrew Sharpless at its head since 2003 – in the spring of 2013 he was the author of The perfect protein, a book that is now once again in the limelight thanks to the event launched in mid-March in San Sebastian, Spain.

An info that is hardly negligible: Oceana is the largest organisation for the safeguard of the sea, it controls as many as 1.2 millions of square miles of waters between the Americas and Europe, a geographic info that denounces the troubled frontlines between Africa and Asia, as it was easy to notice during the conference. At the Basque Culinary Centre in San Sebastian, Sharpless inaugurated the involvement of some twenty super chefs in a project that was launched, from a scientific point of view, two years ago and which now begins a phase that most people defined as cool, because trendy chefs are involved, those who, with their choices, can influence taste.

The reasoning is simple: in 35 years-time the world’s population will move from 7 to 9 billion people, who will we be able to feed the world in 2050? Even including wild fish, though senseless fishing is emptying out the oceans, what will our children and grandchildren find? I appreciate the fact the response is not vegetarian or vegan and Sharpless himself was clear on this point: “Our aim is to repopulate the oceans and to those who ask you what sense can it make to promote sustainable fishing, if we then kill the fish, I reply that it is more practical and simple – or less complicated – to distribute fish than convincing a billion souls to eat salad”.

Which, fish though? Blue tailed fish, anchovies, herrings and mackerels, already massively caught, but in mostly to feed salmons, pigs and chicken. The question is shifting the attention of consumers from large, convenient and noble fish, to small, inconvenient and poor fish. And to those who, like me, know that in Italy people have been saying that for decades, and thus tends to be sceptical, another representative of Oceana, Swedish Lasse Gustavsson, recalls how “yesterday you were eating sushi in Japan, today there’s a sushi-bar even round the corner where I live, in Sweden”.

So here we are, for the first public phase. The date is set on Monday 8th June, elected as the World Oceans Day. By then, those who were present in the Basque country will include at least one dish with blue tailed fish in their menu, and then we’ll see the effect. The good example will come from Grant Achatz (Alinea in Chicago); Gastón Acurio (Peru); Ferran Adrià (el Bulli Foundation in Spain); Andoni Luiz Aduriz (Mugaritz in Errenteria); Juan Mari and Elena Arzak (Arzak in San Sebastian); Alex Atala (D.O.M. in San Paolo); Massimo Bottura (Osteria Francescana in Modena); José Luis González (Gallery Vask in Manila); Brett Graham (The Ledbury in London); Rodolfo Guzmán (Boragó in Santiago del Cile); Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park in New York City); Normand Laprise (Toqué in Montreal); Enrique Olvera (Pujol in Mexico City); René Redzepi (Noma in Copenhagen); Heinz Reitbauer (Steirereck in Vienna); Joan Roca (El Celler de Can Roca in Gerona); Pedro Subijana (Akelare, another three-star in San Sebastian with Arzak); Joachim Wissler (Vendôme in Bergisch Gladbach); Ashley Palmer-Watts (Dinner by Heston Blumenthal in London).

It’s easy to miss the criterion according to which they were chosen. They don’t all have lots of stars, France is missing (like Italy, it has a low importance in terms of fishing but a great one in terms of fine dining) and so is China the second country in the world as for fishing, after Peru, and Japan, the eighth, but there’s Austria. The answer is: almost all of them are (or have been) in the top 10 of the latest editions of the 50 Best. Plus a few more were chosen directly by Oceana who is present, for instance, in Canada and in the Philippines, but not in China and Japan. Of course one could find an excuse to include a starred French chef, there are 609... Otherwise, more than a cause what seems to count is marketing and people’s ego.