Author: Mildred Bell

Since 2017, the state Department of Environmental Quality and a Pacific Seafood processing facility in Charleston, Oregon, a small fishing harbor close to Coos Bay on the southern Oregon coast where the fishing industry has operated for generations, have formalized an agreement for the installation of a wastewater treatment system. The year is now 2026. There is no installation of the system. The facility’s wastewater, which includes “detritus from them filleting the fish and other seafood that they process,” according to DEQ compliance and enforcement manager Erin Saylor, has been leaking into Oregon waterways against the company’s permits. On April…

The classic New England clambake, which takes place on a beach in Gloucester, Wellfleet, or Watch Hill, Rhode Island, with a pit dug in the wet sand and stones heated overnight, requires preparation, a certain location, and in certain localities, a fire permit. It doesn’t happen on a Tuesday in July because someone decided to do something with the lobsters they purchased at the fish counter. A trip to any supermarket with a good seafood counter is the first step in the backyard version, which uses a 32-quart stockpot on a gas grill or stovetop and yields nearly the same…

The Food and Drug Administration examined 211 fresh papaya samples that were imported from Mexico during the summer of 2011. Thirty-three samples from 28 different companies in almost all of the nation’s key growing regions tested positive for Salmonella, a rate of 15.6%. The calculation was simple but concerning: about one in six shipments included a human pathogen. Fresh whole papayas from Mexico are placed under Detention Without Physical Examination by the FDA’s Import Alert 21-17. This means that companies on the alert’s red list have their shipments automatically held at the U.S. border without having to first fail a…

A firm named Atarraya is raising saltwater shrimp and stacking cargo containers at a site on South Belmont Avenue in Indianapolis, which is close to West Raymond Street and Kentucky Avenue, in the kind of industrial corridor that usually doesn’t inspire much excitement linked to food. The shrimp are Pacific White shrimp, the same species that is raised in warm tropical waters from Ecuador to Thailand. They are kept in climate-controlled containers with a closed-loop water system that recycles, purifies, and reuses nearly all of its water without releasing any water into the environment. The closest ocean is about 1,200…

During the fifteen minutes it takes to set the table with mussels in white wine, people often think that this can’t possible work out as well as it seems. In another, better version of your week, the shallots are in the pot, the garlic is softening, the white wine is hitting the hot pan and creating steam that smells like a Thursday night in a French cafe. It seems too simple. Although there are variations of this meal around Europe’s Atlantic coast, the French and Belgian version, known as moules marinières, is actually simple. Its simplicity is what gives it…

The problem about the Pacific Coast between San Diego and Seattle is that the farther north you travel, the more intriguing the seafood becomes, and the prices typically move in the opposite direction of what you might anticipate. A cooked Dungeness crab may be purchased right off a dock in Crescent City, California, a little harbor town on the Oregon border nestled between the Pacific and the redwoods, for about the same price as a lousy sandwich near Santa Monica Pier. This road trip’s main economic premise is that the seaside favors those who know where to buy rather than…

Anyone who grew up close to the Chesapeake will tell you right away that reading the newspaper is required. It is neither a rustic affectation nor a charming aesthetic decision. The table is the newspaper. The idea is that the shells, seasoning, Old Bay residue, and general entropy of a dozen people eating with wooden mallets all land directly on that paper, not on anything that needs to be washed. At a proper Maryland blue crab feast, the entire surface is covered in thick layers—multiple sections, overlapping. When it’s finished, the table is spotless and the newspaper is rolled up…

People who work with their hands on land that their families have known for generations tend to develop a certain kind of stubbornness. That was the stubbornness of Kevin Lunny. As he stood outside his operation on Drakes Estero in the fall of 2012, surrounded by miles of submerged wooden racks containing Pacific oysters, he appeared less like a man facing eviction from federal waters and more like someone who had just not been informed that the story was about to come to an end. Since the 1950s, Point Reyes has been home to the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. When…

Late October brings a certain type of cold along the Massachusetts coast that makes eating warm food seem more necessary than desirable. It is easier to understand why a bowl of fish chowder became something close to cultural identity in New England when you stroll through Gloucester or the old North End of Boston on a gloomy afternoon. Not a fad. Not a dish on the menu. a method of feeding people that predates the United States. In 1751, the Boston Evening Post published the first known recipe for fish chowder. That is a truly astounding figure, not just a…

On a Thursday morning, while standing on a functional dock somewhere along the coast of South Carolina, you notice something that shouldn’t be there: silence. No processing workers sorting catch, no trucks backing up to unload hauls, and no familiar odor of diesel and saltwater permeating the air. Only a couple of tied-up boats, gently rocking. It’s the kind of silence that conveys a message without using any words. Once a dependable pillar of South Carolina’s coastal economy, the state’s commercial fishing sector is shrinking. The reasons are complex and multifaceted, including deteriorating infrastructure, a lack of dock space, a…