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A crowd gathered to watch, hear and enjoy the smell of the chefs work at the Port Clyde Fresh Catch sponsored seafood cooking event. Fish filleting was also demonstrated. Fishermen's Voice photo
September 26 - Fishermen from Port Clyde Fresh Catch sponsored a Seafood Throwdown at the Commom Ground Fair in Unity, Maine. The Seafood Throwdown featured two well known Maine coast chefs competing to cook seafood dishes.

The event drew a crowd of fair visitors who watched the chefs prepare the food, asked them questions, and heard fishermen in attendance talk about seafood freshness, and the advantages of locally supplied fish.

Port Clyde Fresh Catch is a Community Supported Fishery (CSF) which has established links with the network of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) organizations in Maine. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), the oldest such organization in the country, has sponsored the Common Ground Fair for the last 33 years.


Port Clyde Fresh Catch had a booth at the fair with promotional materials. Visitors could learn about CSFs and sign up for fresh fish deliveries. The booth was an opportunity for face to face contact with thousands of potential members over the three days. Fishermen's Voice photo
There were Sea-food Throwdowns at waterfront festivals around coastal New England this summer. But the connection with agriculture at the Common Ground Fair was seen as significant for the large number of people the fair draws – 51,000 attended this year. A rainy Sunday brought attendance down by half for that day, while Saturday was the fair’s best day ever, said fair manager Jim Ahearne.

Over the last couple decades CSAs in Maine, New England, and across the country have developed a strong and growing market position by supplying locally grown and distributed fresh produce, cheese and meat. Consumers, dissatisfied with low quality vegetables, fruit, and meat produced on industrial farms, and sold in supermarkets, have been finding what they want at farmers markets and CSAs.

Consumers have been equally dissatisfied with the quality of seafood available. One woman in the Throwdown audience asked where she “could buy fish that didn’t turn to mush in the frying pan, smelled bad, or smelled of chemicals.” Fresh fish in recent years has gone from meaning caught that day or the previous day to caught last week or more. After spending that much time on trucks, being handled, and sitting in a market wrapped in plastic, there is not much left to call fresh.


Chef Kerry Altiero, of the Café Miranda in Rockland, cooking seafood at the Seafood Throwdown in Unity, Maine. Fishermen's Voice photo
In addition, there has been a shift by consumers away from the meats produced on industrial farms to fresh seafood. The demand for seafood has been rising, in particular, for wild caught seafood. Publicity about farm raised seafood products, and especially those imported farm raised seafood products from countries with no regulations on the use of hormones and chemicals, has helped drive the demand.

Farmers markets sell food picked that morning or the afternoon before it is sold. The CSFs are bringing to market fish that is truly fresh, handled in a way that preserves the integrity of the product, without the need to mask the deterioration of a perishable product.

The chefs featured at the Seafood Throwdown, Kerry Altiero from Café Miranda in Rockland, and Mike Greer from the Badger Café in Union, were tasked with walking to the farmers market at the fair, buying ingredients, and returning to the Throwdown tent to prepare a dish using fresh fish provided by Port Clyde Fresh Catch.

The buying ingredients, and food preparations were all on a timed schedule, with a deadline for serving dishes to the two judges who would rate the dishes.


The newest technology is side by side with antique apple varieties and heirloom tomatoes. The fair is mix of reviving agricultural traditions with a new twist and inventing the future of susutainability. Fishermen's Voice photo
The object of the event was good fun and good food. The chefs provided both. They talked to the audience about the seafood they were preparing, their thoughts on meal preparation, ingredients, tastes, etc.

The common ground fair features small organic farmers from around Maine. Many of them have been in the forefront of reviving traditional agriculture and animal husbandry. There were exhibits of bee hives, apple tastings of some of the hundreds of apple varieties never seen in super markets, spinning wool, making baskets, and dozens of other events and demonstrations. Ahearne said there were 720 different events from timber framing, to sheep dog demonstrations, to talks on sustainable farming over the three days.

The small farm, self-sufficient farmer innovating and marketing his products, reflected the goals of CSF fishermen. These fishermen have been in the forefront of developing gear to reduce bycatch, reduce the impact of fishing gear on ocean habitat, and bringing a higher quality seafood product to market. All of which results in leaving more of the revenue from their efforts in the communities in which they live and fish.


New Hampshire apple farmer Michael Phillips (far left) talking about apple varieties. The crowd is tasting a few of the hundreds of apple varieties grown in Maine at one time. No supermarket cardboard tasting Macs or Delicious varieties thanks. Fishermen's Voice photo
Both chefs engaged in showmanship for the audience, many of whom were passersby drawn in by the aroma of food cooking. Port Clyde fishermen talked to the audience about fresh seafood, and how people who join the Port Clyde Fresh Catch CSF get weekly deliveries of fresh locally caught seafood.

Following the cooking event, fishermen demonstrated fish filleting. Port Clyde Fresh Catch also sells whole fish, which of course costs less and enables consumers to use more of the fish they buy.

The Port Clyde fishermen have seen rapidly increasing demand for their products. Port Cldye fishermen formed the Midcoast Fishermen’s Cooperative in 2007 as a means of getting area fishermen together and marketing their fish themselves. They have ambitiously sought to develop markets for their products, and consumers are responding.


Not Hannaford’s meat aisle. Traditional farm animal exhibits and competitions are big part of the three day event. The Common Ground Fair is what agricultural fairs were before ferris wheels, cotton candy, and winning stuffed animals. Fishermen's Voice photo
Fresh Catch also supplies shrimp in season. Northern shrimp, caught in the cold clean waters of the Gulf of Maine in the winter and spring is like no other shrimp product on the market. Its freshness alone makes it stand out from the others shipped across the country or from Asia.

In the 1970s, the early days of the movement to grow food in the traditional sustainable ways – small scale, good soils, no chemicals – the farmers had a hard sell with a lot of consumers. No longer. One of the largest super market chains in the country focuses on this quality food. Fishermen will be able to benefit from the markets established by farmers for higher quality foods.

CFAs have been established in recent years along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

For information about the Port Clyde CSF : 207-975-2191. Or jessica@midcoastfishermen.org

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