You’ve heard of a food truck, but what about a food boat? This fall, the nonprofit Eating with the Ecosystem will be bringing it’s 19-foot ‘food boat’ to farmer’s markets in Newport, Middletown, and Bristol for fun, educational, and delicious interactive seafood events. For each event Eating with the Ecosystem will partner with local chefs to host cooking demos featuring local seafood species and provide visitors with free samples of the delicious dishes they create, while providing education about our local seafood, fisheries, and marine ecosystems. These events will focus on four themes:

  • “Underwater and Overlooked”- focusing on the abundant local species that are often overlooked by consumers and how consumers can balance their seafood diets with our local ecosystems.
  • “Fisheries of the Future”- focusing on the species that are becoming more abundant due to climate change and how these environmental changes are impacting our local fisheries.
  • “Salt Marsh and Sugar Kelp – focusing on the importance of protecting local seafood habitats to sustain healthy fisheries and ecosystems.
  • “Know Your Fisherman”- Meet a local fisherman and learn how consumers can help support our local fishing communities.

Eating with the Ecosystem believes that us consumers can play an important role in protecting the habitats that produce our local seafood and that a familiarity with a wide variety of local wild seafood and flexibility to switch between species in a dynamic ecosystem is a critical step to adapting the New England seafood system to a changing climate. To that end, the organization promotes local species like sea robin, scup, skate, mackerel, whiting, and butterfish.

The cooking demo and tasting samples will be accompanied by educational handouts and talking points so that every attendee learns how to help protect local seafood habitat, support local fishing communities and appreciate seafood through diversified eating.

Copies of Eating with the Ecosystem’s recently released eco-cookbook Simmering the Sea: Diversifying Cookery to Sustain Our Fisheries will be available for purchase ($20). Blending first-person species profiles, whimsical illustrations, and accessible recipes, this unique little cookbook is a tribute to the rich diversity of nourishing food that these ecosystems produce: not just the well-known species that take center stage at the seafood counter, but also species that are plentiful in the sea but overlooked by the market. By following the book’s culinary advice, readers will find that these neglected species can be just as delicious, and perhaps even more interesting, than their more famous counterparts.

The food boat is part of Eating with the Ecosystem’s Scales & Tales program, which blends food experiences with education to promote a place-based approach to sustaining New England’s wild seafood. To learn more about Eating with the Ecosystem’s mission and other Scales & Tales events, go towww.eatingwiththeecosystem.org.

The Fall 2018 Schedule:

  • Wed Sept 19th Aquidneck Grower’s Market: Memorial Ave, Newport  2:00-6:00
  • Sat Sept 22nd Aquidneck Grower’s Market: Newport Vineyards, Middletown 8:30-12:30
  • Wed Sept 26th  Aquidneck Grower’s Market: Memorial Ave, Newport  2:00-6:00
  • Sat Sept 29th Aquidneck Grower’s Market: Newport Vineyards, Middletown 8:30-12:30
  • Saturday Oct 6th Mount Hope Farm Farmer’s Market, Bristol 9:00-12:30
  • Saturday Oct 13th Mount Hope Farm Farmer’s Market, Bristol 9:00-12:30
  • Saturday Oct 20th Mount Hope Farm Farmer’s Market, Bristol 9:00-12:30
  • Saturday Oct 27th Mount Hope Farm Farmer’s Market, Bristol 9:00-12:30