PORTLAND, Maine — August 5, 2012 — Redfish is going from lobster bait to the dinner plate.
Twenty Maine restaurants from Kittery to Bar Harbor put Acadian redfish dishes on their menus in June, and 23 eateries served up menu items with Atlantic mackerel in July as part of an effort to raise public awareness — and demand — for unappreciated seafood species.
Redfish at one time was a popular food fish, but is now best known as a source of lobster bait. Mackerel is popular overseas, but demand is low in the U.S. because Americans tend to shun its strong, oily flavor.
But redfish and mackerel dishes sold well when featured on the menu at The Salt Exchange, an upscale restaurant in Portland, said Charlie Bryon, who owns the restaurant with his wife.
Bryon's chef devised a dish of pan-roasted Acadian redfish, with fresh English peas, house-cured bacon, sweet onions and pea sauce, a chi-chi creation for a fish that's often thought of as lowly. With mackerel, the fish was grilled and served with a house-made potato salad, arugula puree and a tomato jam.
"We had some of the old-timers come up and comment, `Oh, we used to catch this as a kid, but it's just bait fish now. I love seeing it on the menu,'" Bryon said.
Promotional efforts involving underutilized ocean products aren't new. The seafood industry once successfully petitioned the federal government to allow the plentiful and low-value dogfish to be sold under the more consumer-friendly name "Cape Shark."
The latest promotions are part of a program called Out of the Blue coordinated by the Portland-based Gulf of Maine Research Institute, which formed a team of fishermen and restaurant owners and chefs last year to devise a plan to build markets for underutilized and undervalued seafood products from the Gulf of Maine. The project was funded through a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe.