Eat Like a Fish
My Adventures Farming the Ocean to Fight Climate Change
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER
IACP Cookbook Award finalist
In the face of apocalyptic climate change, a former fisherman shares a bold and hopeful new vision for saving the planet: farming the ocean. Here Bren Smith—pioneer of regenerative ocean agriculture—introduces the world to a groundbreaking solution to the global climate crisis.
A genre-defining “climate memoir,” Eat Like a Fish interweaves Smith’s own life—from sailing the high seas aboard commercial fishing trawlers to developing new forms of ocean farming to surfing the frontiers of the food movement—with actionable food policy and practical advice on ocean farming. Written with the humor and swagger of a fisherman telling a late-night tale, it is a powerful story of environmental renewal, and a must-read guide to saving our oceans, feeding the world, and—by creating new jobs up and down the coasts—putting working class Americans back to work.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Who knew that a book about farming seaweed could be this fascinating? Bren Smith, commercial fisherman turned ocean farmer, has a voice somewhere between Michael Pollan and Anthony Bourdain; he makes you smell the fish guts and feel the heaving sea. Smith’s passionate, gritty memoir relates stories from his tumultuous life and reveals larger truths about our relationship with nature and, more specifically, the oceans. The book builds up to a galvanizing vision for a sustainable future built on growing (and eating) kelp, a crop that protects the oceans while absorbing carbon. Eat Like a Fish is a vital environmental read that’s also very entertaining.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Smith combines memoir and sustainability treatise with mixed success while recounting his path from a rugged youth fishing the Bering Sea to inventing 3D ocean farming, a process that harvests a mixture of shellfish and ocean greens. In addition to telling his own story, he celebrates sea greens, gives guidance on starting an ocean farm ("Keeping Your Farm Afloat"), and looks back at the history, and into the future, of ocean farming. Any of these subjects could make a book of its own, and the resulting m lange is overstuffed and disappointingly under-realized. However, the work does have its highlights, such as discussions of the positive impacts brought about by ocean farming sustainable food production, increased employment, improved ocean water quality and of the many, sometimes surprising, uses of seaweed in fertilizer, animal feed, and fireproofing. Smith even provides seaweed recipes for at-home experimentation, such as Barbecue Kelp and Carrots, Kelp and Cauliflower Scampi, and Kelp Butter. This uneven but sometimes rewarding work shines a needed light on a lesser-known area of sustainable agriculture.
