Food = Art

I've been a fan of Baltimore's own Chef Chad Wells, Executive Chef at Alewife, since I heard he was sauteing snakeheads in an attempt to eradicate the invasive fish and working with the Department of Natural Resources to promote menu items centered around local seafood species. Turns out his sustainable initiatives aren't limited to the sea.

Earlier this month, Chef Wells teamed up with Joe Squared at Power Plant Live to host a "Campfire Dinner" in conjunction with the new monthly event promoting local talent called Food = Art. The inspiration for January's event was to take people camping by using food you can kill yourself - all cooked in a way that can be duplicated deep in the woods - with limited local ingredients, cast iron pans, smoke and fire. And boy did they pull it off!

The constant-campfire vibe of the event, which included an all-evening performance of folky, old-timey, American awesomeness from The Manly Deeds, was authenticated with each family-style entree arriving in foil and with a single utensil per diner - a fork. If that weren't enough, several people at our table were involved with the meal on a personal level. Mike Naylor, the DNR's Chief of Shellfish Programs, foraged the morels that accompanied the trout dish. Austin Murphy, Pro-Staffer for Whackfactor Outdoors, "harvested" the main ingredient in the venison stew in Flint Hill, Virginia.

So in case you haven't heard: wild game dinners are the new black. Here is the full menu for those of you anxious to recreate the deliciousness with your own circle of hunter-gatherers:

Hot Mulled Cider, Honey Comb Infused Bourbon

Hickory Smoked Trout, Pan Fried Wild Morels, Roasted Beets

Wild Duck Cast Iron Mac and Cheese, Two-year aged Grafton Cheddar, Grana Padano, Duck Confit

Fire Roasted Quail, Sweet Potato, Chorizo and Granny Smith Apple Stuffing, Smoked Pork Belly BBQ Baked Beans

Venison Stew, Dutch Oven Chipotle Corn Bread

Smore Dessert, Graham Cracker, Dark Chocolate, Marshmallow, Candied Bacon

To keep up with Food = Art events, 'like' them on Facebook. Most photos displayed in this post, with the exception of a few, are from the artistic view of Sean Scheidt See more of his images from the event here.

Invasivore > Vegetarian

It's no secret that becoming a vegetarian is one of the best things you can do for the environment. Take it a step further and aim to eat local, in-season produce and you may just get a personal thank you note from Mother Earth. Take it several steps further and you may find yourself stepping outside the vegetarian menu and into a growing culinary trend: eating invasive species.

Thanks to some courageous Baltimore chefs, the option to eat invasive may be coming to a restaurant near you.

Last week, I sat down with 49 other adventurous and environmentally conscious eaters who entered their names into a raffle in hopes to win a seat at Alewife Baltimore's Snakehead Fish dinner. The dinner consisted of four courses centered around the invasive snakehead fish. Chef Joe Edwardsen of Joe Squared, Chef Dave Newman of Brewer's Art, Alewife Executive Chef Chad Wells, and Alewife's Grace Gonzalez each contributed a dish. As you look at their delicious, inspired twists on the fish, consider the fact that consuming these critters helps protect native aquatic life.


Chef Joe Edwardsen's Smoked Snakehead Risotto with Arugula



Chef Dave Newman's Tempura Snakehead and Green Papaya Salad
with Peanuts, Spicy Ginger Aioli and Yuzu Scallion Vinaigrette



Chef Chad Wells' Grilled Snakehead, Chimichurri, Blistered Tomato
Chipotle Mecco Salsa with Black Bean Croquette, Micro Salad,
Orange Cumin Vinaigrette

Grace Gonzalez' Coconut Mousse with Caramel Ginger Sauce,
Tropical Fruit Salsa and Candied Snakehead Skin

As always, the saying goes: Everything in moderation - including moderation. Few human beings can completely restrict their diets to local produce and invasive species alone. Life gets busy, the joy of cooking relegated to holidays and Sundays, we have children with nutritional needs paramount to our ideals, and the organic market closes before you can say, "Is it September already?!" So think of it like this: When given the opportunity to do the best possible thing for the environment, seize the snakehead!

Eating Invasives

Earlier this year, I was invited to dine on a Canada goose and Maryland deer (pictured right) hunted, prepared and cooked by my hosts and long-time friends: Heather and Michael Havlik. Although the menu wasn't suited for a traditional vegetarian (which I am often mistaken for), it was ideal for an exercise in local, sustainable eating. Not to mention, the meat was so tender and full of flavor I nearly forgot I was eating animals.

Throughout our often holiday-therefore-dinner-party-centered relationship, the subject of what we eat, don't eat and why has often been debated. Michael Havlik, like most hunters, fishermen and outdoors men, is a conservationist at heart. His wife Heather will stalk over-populated deer and shuck local oysters with the best of 'em. Years ago, they opened my eyes to the dangers of non-native birds and helped shape my current respect and admiration for hunters - particularly those who set their sites on species that threaten the local eco-system. This year, they ignited my curiosity and taste for another level of eco-eating: dining on invasive species.

While the adorable waddle of Canada geese and smile-inducing relationships between mother and fawn prevent me from going forest-to-table alongside the Havliks, the newest "invasivore" movement in town, aimed at eradicating the snakehead fish, is one almost all of us can endorse without remorse.


Alewife Executive Chef and sustainable seafood steward, Chad Wells (pictured), has made it his mission to get these creatures out of the waterways and into the kitchens of environmentally conscious restaurants locally and nationwide. He recently told The Baltimore Sun, "We've proved time and again, the best way to destroy something is get humans involved."


The aggressive and predatory snakehead fish, well-known for their canine-like teeth, are thought to have entered U.S. waterways via aquarium owners and the live fish food market. The fish reproduce rapidly and, during all of their life stages, compete with native species for food. If left to their own devices, the snakeheads could drastically effect biodiversity and forever disrupt the ecological balance of native aquatic systems.

This Tuesday, August 23, 2011, Chef Chad Wells is teaming up with fellow chefs and conservationists Dave Newman of Brewer's Art, Joe Edwardsen of Joe Squared, and Brian Strumke of Stillwater Artisinal Ales for an official snakehead dinner kicked off by a talk from Steve Vilnit of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources fisheries service.



I have the honor of an invitation to the dinner and am as excited about Steve Vilnit's talk as I am about being a part of  snakehead eradication. There has been some debate in the scientific community as to how and why we, as human beings, get to designate plant and animal species as invasive. In an article published in the Boston Globe in July, The Invasive Species War, Leon Neyfakh highlighted various movements and opinions both popular and scientific. After reading the article, Brian Knox, President of Sustainable Resource Management, Inc and co-snakehead-diner this coming Tuesday, pointed out the importance of distinguishing between non-native species and invasives.



"We have loads of non-native plants everywhere," Knox explained. "Any plant can become a problem if it spreads aggressively and pushes out diverse native vegetation replacing it with a monoculture desert. It is important to remember that ecosystems are dynamic and will change naturally over time (succession) but many invasives (mile-a-minute, kudzu, autumn olive, bittersweet, etc) spread at a speed only matched by developers on bulldozers."

Luckily, there isn't much debate about the environmental dangers of snakeheads however Chef Chad Wells doesn't intend to stop his crusade at the river bank. He is currently experimenting with invasive plants like Kudzu for an upcoming event with Baltimore's Food = Art.

Proof of a growing interest in invasive eating graces the pages of the September-October issue of Mental Floss magazine in The Joy of Cooking Invasive Speicies: Recipes for American Cannonball Jellyfish, Nutria, Kudzu, Lionfish and Canada Geese. Snakehead fish, and an accompanying recipe for it, is noticeably absent from the Mental Floss feature but Wells' new recipe is due to publish in an upcoming issue of Maryland Natural Resource Magazine and will most certainly be raved about on this blog after Tuesday's tasting.



For more information about invasive species in Maryland, check out the DNR's Invasive Speices Resource Center. For further reading on our relationships with and interest (or lack-thereof) in eating animals, I recommend Hal Herzog's Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat and Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals.

Adventures in Local Eating

This week, thoughtful Marylanders participating in the Buy Local Challenge have been flocking to farmers markets and produce stands. While we here at Just Saying have purchased plenty of local produce since the challenge began on July 23rd, we've also had the pleasure of enjoying our very own locally grown produce harvested from the University of Maryland's Public Health Garden.

Thanks to Mother Nature and the hard work of our partners at the garden and dozens of volunteers throughout the growing season, the Public Health Gardeners harvested several pounds of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, beans, and peppers just before dinner time last night. As always, we sent lots of produce home with volunteers, but this time we held on to several pounds of tomatoes and beans and headed to Baltimore City for an extraordinary adventure in local eating and cooking at a restaurant near and dear to our hearts: Alewife.

Alewife has been in the news recently thanks to a brilliant environmentally-sound endeavor by Chef Chad Wells: serving invasive snakehead fish. If you haven't read about it yet, do so here and here. While we hoped to sample some snakehead ceviche, Wells explained that the fish are currently nesting and spawning in shallow, marshy waters which are out of reach of commercial fisherman.

Previously, the snakehead bycatch had been killed and discarded. Thanks to Steve Vilnit, a fisheries official with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and John Rorapaugh of ProFish, Wells is hopeful that snakeheads will be popping up on local menus and the radar of environmentally-conscious eaters within a few months.

Humbled yet excited by all the press, Wells credits Vilnit for the idea of putting invasive species, specifically the Blue Catfish he recommended to us in place of the snakehead, on the Alewife menu. After engaging our inquiries about sustainable seafood, food safety, local markets and food policy, Wells agreed to create a few one-of-a-kind appetizers (just for us) with the produce from the Public Health Garden and we put in our order for the Blue Catfish Tacos (pictured).

What came out of the kitchen from that point forward was pure, delicious joy. For full details of our unique meal, stay tuned to our sister blog: Adventures in Container Gardening and Local Eating.