4SEAS

Some of Britain’s most iconic dishes involve fish – from the ubiquitous Fish and Chips, to regional specialities like Cornish Stargazey Pie, and London’s Jellied Eels. But stocks of Cod, the fish most used in Fish and Chips, are getting so low that we are advised not to choose it anymore. Other fish stocks are also feeling the brunt of our increased appetite for this nutritious food source – but at the same time we are advised to eat more. What should we do? And how should you choose your fish, if you want to make sure its from a sustainable source?

Over the course of the evening, our audience heard from a wide range of speakers from science, industry and government, both UK and EU. In the interval, they were able to see a selection of fish brought out specially from our fish collections and ask questions to James Maclaine, the curator who looks after them. This was a unique opportunity to see material that is normally kept behind the scenes.

The audience also took part in a blind taste test – a selection of sustainable fish from Billingsgate Fish Market were expertly prepared by Jo from the Billingsgate Seafood Training School, and the audience voted on which they liked the best. The idea behind this was to demonstrate that one possible solution to over fishing is to broaden our pallets – if we ate a greater variety of fish, we would put less pressure on single species.

In the second section, the floor was opened for an audience led debate, with questions such as how to make sustainable choices, and questions about the EU quota system being hot topics.

The event concluded with some good advice as to what we could each do to make our choices more sustainable, simple things like looking for eco labels, and choosing sea food from particular sources, and at particular seasons.