Fishmongers, Restaurants Grapple With Sourcing Seafood Sustainably

More often than not, when a new shopper at Haskell’s Seafood asks for a popular type of fish — think salmon, or grouper, or even shrimp — the first thing they hear is, “No.”

And that’s simply because they’re not caught on Long Island.

“Think about that as a business model,” owner Peter Haskell said with a laugh. “If you can get past that and you can reach somebody within those two minutes of interaction and explain who you are, talk about why this is different and special, you may lose a few people who go down the street to find shrimp at the grocery store — but, at the same time, you’re finding that clientele that appreciates you.

“So it’s a process,” he said, “and it’s a slow process.”

Haskell’s Seafood, which runs a market and cafe in Westhampton Beach, is the only fishmonger of its kind on Long Island, committed to working solely with local landings, explained Haskell.

From Freeport to Montauk, fish and shellfish are caught with hook and line, or collected from free-diving, hand-collecting and raking, processed in small batches in Quogue, and then sold to the consumer — a model born out of a need for increased environmental awareness and looking at seafood with a more sustainable eye.

“The concept of sustainability is a tough one to talk about, because there are so many interpretations,” Haskell said. “Nobody’s really ever written a rule about it.”

According to NOAA Fisheries, the United States is a global leader in sustainable seafood, which is the most environmentally efficient source of protein on the planet. Both wild-caught and farmed fish and shellfish are managed under a system of enforced, environmentally responsible practices, and are caught according to fishery management plans.

By law, they must consider social and economic outcomes for fishing communities, minimize bycatch and interactions with protected species, identify and conserve essential fish habitat, prevent overfishing, and rebuild depleted stocks.

“There are other countries on the globe that don’t have any regulations, so here’s what happens,” Haskell said. “If you see calamari in the supermarket, you may be able to buy that for $1, $2 a pound. If you encounter domestic calamari, which we have a very good resource of here on Long Island, it’s gonna be more money, because of supply and demand.

“If you have a country with no regulation that can catch, catch, catch as much as they want, it drops the price, it crushes it, and it gets shot all over the world,” he continued. “Now, what also happens with that calamari is that it has a huge carbon footprint.”

The amount of greenhouse gas emissions attached to the seafood industry varies widely and depends on a range of factors, from the health of fisheries and what the fish eat to how they’re farmed and make their way to a consumer’s plate.

For that reason, Rashid Sulehri, owner of Stuart’s Seafood in Amagansett, says he shops locally whenever possible — and when he can’t, he only imports from suppliers who offer certified sustainable seafood, going so far as to request meticulously kept records.

“The channel of transportation and the practices they adopt do matter,” he said. “Even the water quality, where the fish is being produced — that matters. We do question them, but most of the time we don’t get the answers that we’re looking for. Then, we just simply say, ‘No, we’re not gonna buy from you.’ We’d rather not sell.”

Of the production companies that Sulehri has contacted, only 20 percent have confirmed that they sell certified sustainable seafood, he said — a percentage reflected in the number of his customers who ask questions about where the seafood comes from, too.

“That’s where I think the consumer behavior needs to change,” he said. “The consumer, at first, will pay an extra price for it. But once the consumer’s behavior enhances the demand of it, when we place orders only with the companies that are providing the sustainable product, the other 80 percent will move toward it, because they’re not gonna have enough business.”

It starts with a collaboration of effort, Haskell said. Chefs need to communicate with processors, who need to communicate with fishermen, he said — but it all starts with the consumer.

“When you go to a store, ask if that fish is local — whether it’s King Kullen or a fish market,” he said. “If the person can’t answer that, then ask that person if there’s somebody working, like a manager, who can tell you where exactly this fluke or flounder came from. If enough people do that in an establishment, it creates awareness up top.”

For chef Doug Gulija, sustainability has always felt like common sense, even before he put a name to it. But when he decided to open a seafood-centric restaurant on the East End nearly three decades ago, he was met with pushback when he began asking questions of his suppliers.

“Seafood is a challenge, especially when we try to focus on local and sustainable,” Gulija said. “It wasn’t really that important 27 years ago, when I started, so I was getting a lot of real weird looks when I would ask people, ‘Hey, where did this come from? How was it caught? How was it stored?’ It was all hush-hush — nobody wanted you to know.

“It started with me, right away, with shrimp. I was just, like, ‘What do you mean they come from China or Thailand?’”

Today, at The Plaza Café in Southampton Village, seafood dishes dominate 90 percent of the menu, Gulija said, and during the summer season, about 80 percent of that is local — fluke, black sea bass, swordfish, tilefish, striped bass and Montauk Pearl oysters, to name a few — though he imports cod from Iceland, shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, and salmon from New Zealand, he said.

“I’m no expert, by any means,” he said. “I just try to learn every day and learn a little bit more about where this is coming from, are we taking care of the environment, are the fish being treated humanely. It’s a full-time job, to be honest with you.”

Asa Gosman, co-owner of the famous Gosman’s seafood business in Montauk, finds that most restaurants he supplies prefer a mix of imports and sustainable offerings. For Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton, for example, he rotates local black sea bass, porgy and fluke, he said.

“I’d rather sell a local fish any day of the week than sell a farmed branzino that’s gotta get flown in from Turkey or Greece,” he said.

Several years ago, chefs began requesting sea robin, Gosman recalled, tapping the underutilized bottom-dweller — known for its wing-like fins and flat, bony head — for high-end dishes. But it just didn’t catch on, he said.

“You can say you want to use that stuff, and we can say we want to sell it till we’re blue in the face, but if people just don’t want to buy it in our market and it doesn’t make sense, what can we do?” he said. “There has to be a demand for it.”

Lately, the fishmonger has noticed an increased call for porgies — “Do we sell as many as we do fluke? Not even close,” he added — which is an abundant local fish that Haskell has long promoted. The charter captain and commercial fisherman said he first began breading porgy and selling it to high-volume restaurants, which helped kick-start its presence on the East End.

“You can make a difference,” he said. “To grab that abundant fish that has a huge trip limit, that doesn’t cost much and then build a reputation for it is a lot of what we do all day. I mean, this week, we processed skate. A lot of people don’t realize that a skate is edible or delicious. A little caper and lemon butter sauce, and you’ve got a five-star meal.”

And so, when a new customer walks through the door of Haskell’s Seafood and inevitably asks for salmon, he is already prepared — and immediately points to the local weakfish, which also is high in omega-3s and, as far as a health benefits go, provides the same experience, he said.

“You don’t tell people ‘no’ and that’s it,” Haskell said. “You say, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have that, but I’d like to show you something — and I think you’re gonna really enjoy it.’ If you have a passion for this, you can share that with that person.

“And before you know it, you have people knocking on the door for skate and porgy and weakfish, whatever it might be.”