This rain or shine launch will feature delicious spot prawn dishes, spot prawn specials at the award-winning Go Fish, a gathering of Vancouver’s chef and restaurant community, and the arrival of the season’s first spot prawns as local fishermen return to the wharf with their catch. Get all the details after the jump…

Launch date: Saturday May 8th, 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Duration: The Spot Prawn Festival will run for eight weeks
Buying times: After 1pm daily
Location: False Creek Fishermen’s Wharf | MAP

The annual Spot Prawn Festival will provide another local, fresh, and sustainable ingredient for our restaurant chefs and home cooks to enjoy. Those who take pride in serving the bounty of British Columbia can use this annual six-to-eight week window of opportunity to purchase live, locally sourced and sustainable spot prawns directly from our local fishermen at False Creek Fishermen’s Wharf and at participating restaurants serving local spot prawns. At $12 per pound for the public ($10 for Chefs’ Table members), they are an excellent and affordable alternative to the farmed tiger prawns.

This year the Spot Prawn Festival is proud to feature wine samples from Ganton & Larsen Prospect Winery, a kids play area from the Vancouver Aquarium Ocean Wise Program, a special guest speaker from the David Suzuki Foundation, and entertainment from local blues-rock band Terminal Station. As the Chefs’ Table Society is continuing to spread awareness for it’s latest cookbook Vancouver Cooks 2, festival goers can purchase books at the festival and have them signed by their favourite Vancouver chefs.

The festival creates a virtual ‘spot prawn frenzy’, as the event is growing bigger and better each year! Bringing energy and excitement down to the docks, attendees will flock to local fishermen at the wharf generating long line-ups for spot prawns bought fresh off the boats.

Local. Sustainable.

For further event information please visit:

www.chefstablesociety.ca

Banding together for sustainable seafood

If you try to minimize the environmental impact of the food you eat, you likely know how tricky it can be to source sustainable seafood.

The first step in this epic plight is to visit seachoice.org, where you’ll find a downloadable wallet card of Canada’s Seafood Guide.

The card places seafood into three different categories: best choice, some concerns or avoid. On the SeaChoice website, you can also search the database for specific items, geographical areas and methods of capture.

Bluefin tuna has been so heavily over-fished that the World Conservation Union lists southern bluefin tuna in its grouping of most threatened wildlife. Their numbers have declined by 97 per cent during the last four decades.

You can even download drop cards to leave in your favourite stores and establishments, urging them to offer sustainable seafood choices.

However, if you’re visiting a Fairmont hotel or resort, you won’t need to drop any hints. The international chain recently announced it will remove threatened fish species, such as Chilean Sea Bass, a. k. a. Patagonia Tooth, and Bluefin Tuna, from its restaurant menus and align itself with reputable seafood watch organizations (such as Canada’s SeaChoice).

By making this commitment, Fairmont exerts considerable pressure for healthier practices, which flows down to suppliers, who then offer better choices to restaurants. (That’s what we call the opposite of a vicious circle.)

Fairmont will also make it easier for guests to make informed food choices by identifying responsible seafood choices on its restaurant menus.

Now, if only the federal government would help ensure seafood in stores and markets is as well-labelled as it will be in Fairmont restaurants!

The David Suzuki Foundation has just launched a campaign that hopes to push us in that direction by calling on federal government officials to implement stricter seafood labelling regulations.

“Canadians across the country are using SeaChoice’s seafood guide to empower them to eat well and to support sustainable fisheries, so that future generations can eat healthy fish too,”writes the foundation in an action call. “However, in order to make best use of the SeaChoice consumer guide, our seafood needs to contain information about exactly what kind of fish it is, where it was caught, how it was caught or farmed and whether it contains any additives or health warnings.”

The foundation is calling on concerned Canadians to send letters asking that Canada create national seafood labelling requirements that allow Canadians to make responsible sustainable seafood choices to: the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Gail Shea; the Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz; and the president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Carole Swan.

Visit davidsuzuki.org and then click on “Conserving our oceans” to send these letters in the click of a mouse.

The foundation also encourages concerned citizens to share their letters with local seafood restaurants and grocery stores so that seafood retailers know what their customers are looking for.

Tell us what you’re doing to protect the environment. E-mail

egilchrist@theherald.canwest.com

© The Calgary Herald 2009

It is not as though we go out of our way to choose non-sustainable products.  Largely it is a slick marketing scheme that shows the finished product much differently than its origin.  Price often is a factor.

This  Coffee House blog touches on sustainability  and a link to a  Prawn Consumer Guide.

The majority of prawn harvesting techniques and resulting available products that we find in local markets are less than acceptable to consumers today.  Our spot prawn by trap fishery is recognized worldwide as an acceptable, recommended and responsible fishery that provides a high quality product.

BC Prawns are choice.  Support our local industry.