At the last moment, I was invited by native San Diegan and longtime commercial fisherman John Law to accompany him at Dine on the Dock, a seafoodie event intended to support locally-caught seafood and Italian cuisine. It was a cool May evening with a touch of clouds as we headed toward Pier 4 at Driscoll’s Wharf in Point Loma, anticipating the struggle to find a parking spot in this touristy area.
Just a couple of days before, John showed me a photograph of his exciting catch—a 25-pound California halibut—as he had the opportunity to contribute this massive fish to the occasion. Just for good measure, John also pitched in a couple of moray eels to the ice chest, and as time approached toward this “Cine Cucina” festivity, we were both curious what a small gathering of acclaimed San Diegan chefs would do with such seafood.
We both signed in at the front table, and soon enough Peter Halmay, a sea-tenured urchin diver and representative of the San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group, greeted us and prompted introductions with some of the fishermen, chefs and foodies surrounding us. Peter explained right away that history served as the common bond between the commercial fishing industry and Italian culture in San Diego, which enabled his group to collaborate with the San Diego Italian Film Festival, SD Weekly Markets and Slow Food Urban SD to hold such an admirable culinary celebration.
At first pleasantly overwhelmed with the social chaos, I slowly began to decipher the nuts and bolts production of such a well-attended event. Teams of high-profile chefs and their expert aides bustled about, providing aesthetically presented samplers of their original Italian dishes to eager seafoodies clustering around their ivory-white tables. Such lively and enthusiastic activities were set against a backdrop of neatly stacked lobster traps, draped with large posters portraying the “Faces of California Fishing,” or more specifically, well-composed photographs of men hard at work on their boats, coupled with eye-catching phrases such as “We don’t do 9-5,” “Welcome to my office” and “Preserve one of California’s oldest professions.” Some Cine Cucina guests meandered to the portside of the venue, where they could enjoy their seafood delights amidst sky-blue tablecloths and rustic auburn floral arrangements. All was nestled within a somewhat mystical view of commercial fishing boats lining the docks and a silhouette of Point Loma at dusk in the not-too-far distance.
After scouting the diversity of Italian eats available to me, I decided to first satisfy my mild hunger with rockfish polpette—or more precisely, and in English, “vermilion rockfish meatballs with fisherman’s sauce and wild fennel”—from Chef Trey Foshee of George’s at the Cove. I do admit that my taste buds received a pleasurable workout, as my narrow California Native mentality has long been wired to associate marine dishes with Asian cookery and fish tacos rather than Italian cuisine.
Since one of the intentions of Dine on the Dock was to raise awareness of where our seafood comes from, I asked around until I was able to determine the “seafood ecology” of this rockfish polpette, or the sequence of human activities that enabled a fish from the local seas to become my dinner at the dock. I quickly realized this ecological chain of events was just as much political and economic: fisherman Phil Harris, who owns the boat Sea Nag, caught quite a few pounds of vermilion rockfish (or red rock cod), which can be found around rock pilings roughly five nautical miles off-shore and about 300 feet in depth. These rockfish were then delivered fresh to Chef Foshee, who made rockfish meatballs for all of us seafood enthusiasts to enjoy.
After stopping by the Sip-and-Savor beer/wine pairings table, and taking note of the miniature cupcakes from Cups Organic, John and I discovered his moray eels served as a vital ingredient in Italian Wedding Soup, a creation of Chef Chad White of Gabardine. At the next table, Chef Pete Ballistreri of Tender Greens described his elaborate poaching process of the halibut, which yielded a fish-and-vegetable fusion dish entitled “ippoglossoaffogato olio d’oliva” (yikes!).
Eventually we were able to scour through the potpourri of seafood samplers, which also featured sanddabs, red sea urchins and sardines, paired with the talents of Chefs Amy DiBiase (The Shores Restaurant), Andrew Spurgin (Campine Catering), Ryan Johnston (Whisknladle), Craig Jimenez (Craft and Commerce) and Melissa Mayer (Martini Media).
While scrutinizing the display tanks filled with urchins, sea cucumbers, turbine snails, whelks and even more sanddabs, I overheard some more serious conversations among fishermen and chefs. With a multitude of political and economic walls closing in around the participants of California fisheries—whether it be tighter state and federal regulations linked with increased licensing fees to ensure resource sustainability; the recent fishing closures through the Marine Life Protection Act process; fierce competition with less-regulated, lower-priced and often-mislabeled foreign imports of seafood; diminished port infrastructure for commercial fishing activities around southern California; or an onslaught of naïve scapegoating by various special interest groups, painting local marine harvesters as the “source of all global ocean problems”—the mere prospect of creating a persistent dockside market at Driscoll’s Wharf, where fishermen would be able to sell their fresh catch directly to the consumer at a fair price, is serving as a glimmer of hope for business viability of small-scale, independent commercial fishing operations within San Diego.
Throughout the occasion, I could sense a mildly tense coexistence amongst the seafood ecological and economic chain of fishermen, processors, restaurant owners and chefs. Each and every one simultaneously occupy a shifting collaborative and competitive space, struggling to provide fresh, sustainable and locally caught seafood to the public, while attempting to maintain one’s financial sustainability. The theme of a delicate juggling act has emerged: though San Diegan fishermen can bring high-quality, seasonal catches to the table at lower volume and slightly higher prices, in many situations, regional restaurant owners and chefs have to sacrifice quality for large quantities of imported fish at lower grades and prices, just to satisfy the continuous, year-round customer demands for seafood and the need to keep the doors of their businesses open.
Given the dynamic properties of California fisheries and the perishable aspect of seafood in general, there will always be a need for efficient processors and distributors. Yet, why not open more direct-sale avenues of opportunity for fishermen, which can make seafood prices even more affordable to local consumers and more generous to the hard-working harvesters?
To top off the evening, urchin diver Matt Pressly, also a member of the San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group, offered me a brief tour of Driscoll’s Wharf, as he described his dock as a cozy, tightly knit community of fishermen. We bypassed the ongoing screenings of three short fishing films by Director Vittoria de Seta and the musical ambiance of the Chris Whynaught Trio jazz band, only to soon encounter a fantastic nighttime view of downtown San Diego. Maybe Driscoll’s Wharf truly is a hidden treasure of this town and can serve as an ideal locale for organizing a more persistent, direct-sale fishermen’s market.
After picking up an event goody bag, John and I headed inland, buzzing about the evening’s course of events. Not only has Dine on the Dock been an immersive educational experience in terms of expanding one’s palate for Italian cuisine and culture, but this festivity could also be viewed as a part of an ongoing solution to broader social-environmental problems. It certainly has been an excellent opportunity for seafoodies, fishermen and chefs to connect and interact, not only leading to a newfound appreciation of the stories behind our dinners, but hopefully providing novel possibilities for localizing the distribution of sustainably caught San Diego seafood.
For more information, please visit http://www.dineonthedock.com.
Recently dubbed the “Accidental Anthropologist,” Victoria Minnich has always loved interacting with people who love organisms and a diversity of environments. Victoria has dived into fisheries issues around southern California since summer 2007, when she was captivated after meeting her first-ever fisherman.