UPDATE: Shifting Baselines will premiere on Georgia Public Television TONIGHT. Thursday, November 20th at 7pm.
A watch party with the film’s producers will be held at White Whale Craft Ales in Savannah’s Victorian District. Click here for details.
I don’t think there is any question in my book that one of the top three things I enjoy about my job is the variety. Some days its beef, some days it’s cheese, some days it’s seafood. Much like my days as a TV news anchor, when you roll up your sleeves and really dig in to a topic, a lot of times you come to realize how little you know. A journalists job is to have a natural curiosity, even when the topic is incredibly boring. Your job is to listen and tell your audience the most important things regarding that topic. Thankfully, I am and always have been a sponge. I pay attention to pretty much everything everyone says (my wife will say that excludes her, but that’s another story). There is no question I’ve gained an unbelievable amount of respect for the culinary community since I turned my journalistic focus to food. You have to remember, unlike a lot of guys and gals out there, I’m not a former player. The nuances of the game were pretty foreign to me when I started reporting on it. Luckily for me, I find it all incredibly fascinating. When it comes to the foods you eat, where they come from and the chefs that prepare them, I’ve become pretty obsessed with the entire journey. Last week, I enjoyed a place at a round table discussion that did nothing but change the way I will look at the world, primarily our oceans.
Cathy Sakas is the Education Coordinator at Grey’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary out on Skidaway Island. The science below the surface of the ocean is their job, their lives really. For those who aren’t familiar, Grey’s Reef is a protected area off the coast of Brunswick, Georgia. The people tasked with protecting it and conducting countless other studies on the seas operate here in Savannah.
Cathy picked me up at home Friday evening for a 45 minute drive down I-95. We were headed to Hampton Island Preserve to participate in a round table discussion for a documentary being shot on sustainable seafood. That term certainly wasn’t foreign to me, but I have no problem admitting that compared to a room full of scientists and chefs, I would probably score near the bottom of the list when it came to in-depth knowledge on the subject. That was OK, though, because I have experience in that regard from High School.
For starters, if you’ve never had the pleasure of visiting Hampton Island Preserve, it sits smack dab in the middle of nowhere. It is where Ben Affleck’s Georgia home is. Off of exit 67 on I-95, there are no signs. You absolutely have to know where you are going. The gate looks like one from any other farm in rural Georgia, complete with padlock and chain. The sign on it is about 2 feet by 2 feet. At night, there is one street light hovering above the dirt road entrance, just to help you with the combination on the lock and chain. Though you’ve already been in the car 40-50 minutes, you still have another 10 or more minutes to go once you lock the gate behind you. Bizzare doesn’t even begin to describe the isolation. There are no signs, no street lights, no paved roads.
10 or so minutes deeper into the marsh, we arrived at Settler’s Rest. A guest cottage, if you will. Enough parking for probably 10 cars and 4 impeccable bedrooms. Inside were a group of film makers, a couple of guests and two chefs: Matt Roher, from The Landings here in Savannah and Matthew Raiford, of The Farmer and The Larder in Brunswick. The room smelled amazing. Once we were dusted for shiny foreheads and mic’d up, the conversation turned to the sea and the focus of the documentary that is being shot. Our oceans don’t have an unlimited supply of seafood. If we don’t do something about this, eventually it is going to be gone. The causes are many, they include over fishing obviously and abuse of the environment which, many times, alters the marine ecosystem. There was a lot of science flying around the room. My observations were that of a consumer. Not only am I one, but my audience is far more interested in their view from a grocery store than anything. “Why should I care” is a question most will ask, but few will take the time to answer. Over time the hope is that more and more people will be more interested in not only the seafood they buy, but where it comes from as well.
“I see the ocean as a giant cookie jar.” Cathy says. “We can’t see inside just how many cookies are left, but we keep taking.” A brilliant analogy, I thought, because it fits. We generally want our seafood at all costs. Yes, many people want fresh, but many more don’t care where it came from. If they did, Tilapia wouldn’t be nearly as popular as it is. Have you seen how some of those fish are handled in Thailand? If you did, you probably wouldn’t eat it anymore, but I digress.
The most interesting part to me in the entire 2 plus hour discussion, really was the fact that there isn’t a magic bullet to fix this issue. A lot of chefs are doing their part by only serving locally sustainable fish. “I know that Kyle at The Florence is doing an incredible job working with Charlie Russo.” Roher tells me. “He uses the same docks that I do. Also Mashama at The Grey and Nick at The Collins Quarter.” he added. Can’t say I was surprised to hear those names and places. We have a lot of great restaurants in town and those aren’t the only ones trying to be responsible. So then how do we get this to trickle down to the consumer level?
Education was certainly a big part of the discussion. Teaching our children to eat better would not only address the catastrophically huge problem we have with childhood obesity, but it would also allow us to be more responsible with our food supply, including what comes out of the ocean. There are efforts out there to show our children a better way to eat, but it certainly isn’t enough. Promotion? Lectures? Campaigns? Roher tells me there is a fine line to walk. “If you jump up and down and restaurants say ‘We only buy’…you can get too political and people get alienated.” There is a lot of truth in that. No one wants to be told they can’t go to their favorite restaurant anymore because their friends will look down on them. That’s kind of silly.
Instead, we can do our part by asking our servers where the seafood a restaurant serves comes from.”If it’s a spot tail bass” Roher says “Then is likely from here.” Obviously, it is going to cost a little more than somewhere else that is getting something frozen off of truck, but that’s the nature of the beast. Grass-fed beef has become as popular as it has because people are asking for it. People are looking for healthier options in the big picture. A lot of us anyway, but not as many as we need to be. For a lot reasons.
Cathy shared a story that certainly got my attention and pretty much everyone’s in the room, it offered a little bit of perspective. In her research for this film, she came across old photos from Tybee Island where young men posed with a fish they had caught. We’ve all seen the shots from a day on the pier. Many times, she said the fish was as large or larger than the young man who was fishing off of the pier. Funny thing happened, though, when she looked at photos from a few decades later. “Overall the fish in those photos were getting smaller. It made me wonder why.” Sounds like a story line for a Stephen King movie, but the answers are pretty obvious. No one is going to correct this problem in days weeks or months. It’s a generational issue that can only be helped if we all do our part.
The name of the film is called “Shifting Baselines” produced by local filmmakers at Blue Voyage Productions. It largely deals with the dangers of over fishing, but as you can see, that isn’t the only problem we have. The 5 year project is expected to wrap up by this summer.
See you on TV,
Jesse
