Author: Mildred Bell

When a sentence is less severe than anticipated, a certain silence descends upon a federal courtroom. In late January, Dennis Dopico, the Miami seafood executive at the center of what prosecutors had previously described as one of the industry’s most aggressive antitrust pursuits in years, escaped punishment. No headline-grabbing fines, no perp walk footage, and no handcuffs. Just a quiet conclusion to a case that the Justice Department had presented in remarkably strong language just months before. It’s important to keep in mind how this began. In September 2025, Dopico, the vice president of D&D Seafood in Winter Haven, Florida,…

It was not really planned. Around day four, while sitting at a plastic table in Olhão and observing a man fan charcoal with a folded newspaper, the vague craving I had when I first arrived in Faro turned into a habit. I ate grilled fish for thirty days. Very little else. Sea bass, bream, sardines, and sometimes a whole dinner-plate-sized tuna steak. In writing, it sounds constrictive. At the time, it didn’t feel that way. To be honest, the Algarve makes this kind of choice simple. The area is located on Portugal’s southern border, where centuries of fishing customs and…

A good Niçoise salad transitions from feeling like diet food to feeling like something you’d order at a little restaurant by the water in Nice, usually around the second bite. Perhaps that’s the idea. The dish was never intended to be harsh. It was created by people who enjoyed eating healthily and didn’t see why a midday meal couldn’t serve as both a satisfying meal and a source of energy. It’s interesting how frequently nutritionists mention this specific salad on their own initiative. When you ask a dietitian to describe a “complete” meal, a surprising number of them point to…

After the third bend in Bayou Lafourche, there’s a point at which your phone’s GPS just stops working. A guide by the name of Skip (or Romy, depending on who is asking) cuts the engine and lets the boat drift toward a stand of trees covered in moss as the water narrows and the cypress knees crowd in. A small but growing number of travel writers claim that this is the closest thing remaining to an authentic American meal. It’s not a tasting menu. Not a food hall. Somewhere outside of Des Allemands, a fish that had been removed from…

Eating fish in a picturesque setting can lead to a certain kind of disappointment. The plate that arrives tastes like it was frozen for a year somewhere outside of town, the menu features photos, and the view is flawless. It occurs frequently enough that it begins to feel more like a pattern than bad luck. It seems that the food has less to do with the sea directly outside the window the more picturesque the harbor. Because Sunny Beach, Bulgaria, makes such an effort to avoid being one, it serves as a helpful example. Visitors describe passing restaurant after restaurant…

You realize you’ve left the version of the coast that everyone talks about at a certain point along Lankford Highway, after the pine stands open up into salt marsh. There is no traffic. There are no valet stands. Just a few satellite dishes from the NASA facility on Wallops Island protruding over the trees, and spartina grass bending in the wind. That’s typically the first indication that Chincoteague isn’t making a lot of effort to be located. The ponies are well-known. That was accomplished decades ago by the Misty books, and every July, the pony swim continues to attract large…

Something heavier than normal is coming off the trucks this week on a portion of Virginia’s Eastern Shore where pony herds still roam the marshes and the tide controls the schedule. clams in gallons. oyster bushels. To be honest, there’s enough seafood to make one wonder how one tiny island plans to consume everything by Saturday afternoon. The Chincoteague Seafood Festival is returning for its 56th year, and the math alone is overwhelming if the Chamber of Commerce’s figures are to be believed. About fifty thousand steamer clams are waiting their turn in mesh bags. 75 gallons of chopped clams…

When the shrimp boats remain docked, a certain silence descends upon Bayou Dulac. The only movement is caused by gulls circling low over water that should be churning with activity by this stage of the season, while nets hang motionless from their rigging. Legislative summaries rarely include this type of scene, but it was the one that compelled Louisiana lawmakers to take action that most other states have only discussed. Governor Jeff Landry signed House Bill 857 into law in June at the Jean Lafitte Auditorium, adding what he referred to as “teeth” to the state’s seafood labeling regulations. The…

On the evening of June 23rd, a distinct odor permeates the Lithuanian countryside; it is not woodsmoke from the bonfires, though that is a contributing factor. Fish, including bream, perch, and occasionally a stray salmon if the river has been abundant, are cured slowly over alder coals in improvised smokers that appear to have not changed much since the Teutonic Knights were grumbling about pagan rites in 1372. The earliest known reference to what Lithuanians now refer to as Joninės, or occasionally Rasos, is that complaint, which was documented by a chronicler by the name of Hermann von Wartberge. It’s…

At Spud Point Marina in Bodega Bay, the boats sit low in the dark water before dawn, their engines idling, waiting for captains who already appear worn out. Bait buckets, coiled rope, the smell of diesel and mackerel—a scene that hasn’t changed much in decades—but now there’s an additional layer of anxiety looming over the docks. In an attempt to prevent humpback and gray whales from becoming entangled in fishing lines, California recently tightened its regulations on Dungeness crab fishing, and many of the men and women who depend on it for their livelihood are not happy about this. When…