David Leck, who buys oysters for Elliott's Oyster House in Seattle, recalls harvesting abundant shellfish from Hood Canal as a child. Now, summers are warmer and more people compete for fewer fish and shellfish. Bacteria and toxic algae limit harvest times, making restaurant-bought shellfish safer but pricey.
Oysters that once cost $1 apiece now sell for $4.50. A marine heat wave in Bristol Bay caused an Alaska red king crab population crash; prices jumped from $25 to $150 per pound. Whole Washington Dungeness crab averaged $8 to $13 in 2016 but now run $25 a pound due to warm-water die-offs and algae blooms.
King salmon from Alaska's Copper River, falling for 20 years due to heat stress, cost $2,000 for a single 25-pound fish. Langdon Cook, a wild food educator in Seattle for 35 years, notes that scarcity has turned everyday food into occasional splurges. Recreational harvest seasons for Puget Sound shrimp and Dungeness crab have shrunk.
Bar patrons once paid a dollar for a simple oyster shooter; now servers describe "merroir," the marine equivalent of terroir. High prices inspire reverence, causing people to notice how special wild foods are. He fly-fishes for wild steelhead, which have declined due to warmer ocean temperatures, and releases every fish to reproduce.
Certain foods are no longer on our plates."Maybe you could call that the ultimate reverence — foods that we don’t eat any longer.".
Source: New York Times Business · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing