Savoring Seabass? Try Tasting Toothfish...

One of my fondest travel memories dates from the early 1980s at Santiago’s Mercado Central (above), where a penguin—probably a Humboldt, but perhaps a Magellanic—roamed among fishmongers who fed him scraps at a site where Texas food writer Robb Walsh found “a display of fishes and shellfish so vast and unfamiliar that I felt I was observing the marine life of another planet.”

That penguin’s no longer around—nowadays, at least, we prefer to see our penguins in the wild—but that seafood cornucopia still survives here. There are caveats, though, as the sustainability has become an issue commercial fishing has expanded in the southern seas.

One key resource is the so-called “Chilean sea bass,” with its firm but buttery flesh, which has had a high-profile presence on the international market since the 1990s. In parts of the southern oceans, this species of codfish – known to fisheries specialists by the rather less marketable name of “Patagonian toothfish” – has suffered from rampant overfishing in the waters bordering Patagonia and Antarctica. It’s worth noting that California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a Seafood Watch Program that evaluates individual species according to the environmental impact of specific fisheries, and ranks them in terms of “best,” “good,” and “avoid.”

Recently, when I visited the Falkland Islands, I found toothfish on menus in the capital of Stanley (above top) and in the lodge at outlying Bleaker Island (immediately below), where I spent two nights. Fortunately, the Aquarium ranks the Falklands toothfish in the “best” category, and Waterfront Kitchen Café owner Alex Olmedo even showed me a new toothfish cookbook, sponsored by the Coalition of Legal Toothfish Operators, on display there.

By contrast, the Aquarium ranks Chile’s own “seabass” fishery poorly in terms of management and bycatch issues, and recommends avoiding it. In a brief visit to the Mercado, I could not locate any mero—as it’s sometimes called here—though it’s possibly being sold surreptitiously.

Oddly, however, the Argentine toothfish catch goes unmentioned in Seafood Watch. In California, my home supermarket Berkeley Bowl sells “Chilean seabass (product of Argentina)” at nearly US$30 per pound (roughly US$66 per kg). I’m generally confident they follow ethical purchasing policies, but the Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Engagement Coordinator, Peter Adames, acknowledged that they have no information on the Argentine toothfish catch (and he was unaware that Berkeley Bowl sold it). He did add that “I'll check with our science team to see if there is an assessment in the works or on the horizon.”

In Insular Patagonia

When it’s winter in the north, the days get shorter, and the weather gets rougher, it’s common to dream of island getaways. For many Northern Hemisphere residents, that might involve a hop to the Caribbean, but I prefer the southernmost region of the Americas. Two of South America’s biggest islands – Chiloé and Tierra del Fuego (pictured above) – arouse my own enthusiasm but, after spending a couple nights in Santiago recently, I chose to bypass the rest of the continent to spend a week in the Falkland Islands (whose tiny capital of Stanley appears in the photo below).

Air travel can be tiring, and the five-hour time difference with California didn’t help, but I arrived in the Islands by mid-afternoon on a Saturday. Staying with friends – I spent a year in the Islands three decades ago – I later enjoyed dinner with them at Waterfront Kitchen Café, where Chilean chef Alex Olmedo oversees a notably sophisticated menu. As an appetizer, the South Georgia reindeer paté deserves a story in itself, but I also chose the chimichurri-marinated local lamb rack for my main dish.

Over the next two days, I did a variety of town activities, including a visit to the professionally transformed Historic Dockyard Museum complex (pictured above), but Tuesday and Wednesday were special – I got to fly my favorite airline, the Falkland Islands Government Air Service (FIGAS), to the offshore wildlife paradises of Sea Lion Island and Bleaker Island. I always enjoy the aerial views from their ten-seater Britten-Norman Islander aircraft, and I also enjoy the fact that there’s no oppressive airport security – no full body scans and feel free to take water on on-board - unless you count the fact that FIGAS weighs its passengers to be able to balance the load.

I made only a brief day visit to Sea Lion, a compact island with a modern lodge and easy access to wildlife sites that include three species of penguins and my personal favorite elephant seals. There are also orcas offshore, but none were around on this day. In the afternoon, I flew to nearby Bleaker, where wool ranchers Mike and Phyllis Rendell also encourage wildlife-oriented visitors to stay at their renovated Cobb’s Cottage and the newer Cassard House, which has four spacious bedrooms and full-board service. On a quick Land Rover tour around the island’s north end, we saw hundreds of Gentoo penguins and king cormorants, but also a solitary fur seal who had hauled himself ashore at a site where such sightings are infrequent (wool and wildlife appear to be compatible!).

At present, there’s only one flight weekly between Punta Arenas and the Islands – I’d have like to stay at least another few days - but, once you get back to the continent, you can tour Tierra del Fuego, Torres del Paine, and other thrillingly remote destinations. I’ve done that many times myself, but to me it’s also special to lodge on small offshore islands like Sea Lion and Bleaker, where you can explore the penguin-rich seashore and marine mammal colonies with just a handful of other guests around – and often you’re the only one of your kind.

From the Falklands: Prize-Winning Shearers, Award-Winning Services

When I lived in the Falkland Islands, in 1986-7, the economy was still a simple one. With no air connection with the South American continent, tourism was negligible (the only alternative being an expensive Royal Air Force charter from Brize Norton (Oxfordshire) that refueled at Ascension Island, a story in its own right that I’ll tell another time). By the end of my stay, the British government had only recently declared a fishing conservation zone around the Falklands, so their squid-fueled prosperity of the past quarter-century was only a matter for speculation.

What there was, was wool, the backbone of the economy for more than a century, though some things had changed since the 1982 South Atlantic War between Britain and Argentina. Land reform had resulted in smaller owner-occupied farms supplanting the mostly absentee-owned ranches that had dominated the Islands’ economy and politics beyond living memory but, in the near absence of roads even on East Falkland, the coastal freighter Monsunen still collected nearly all the wool clip. Some of these trips required week-long voyages to West Falkland, also visiting smaller offshore islands such as Saunders and Sea Lion (pictured above).

While families now ran most of the farms, they could not do it entirely on their own, especially during the spring shearing season. That meant hiring shearing gangs, flown from Stanley to the farms on FIGAS, often spending several days in what was well-paid but back-breaking labor. Working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. or so, with breakfast, lunch and smoko (tea breaks), an individual could shear upwards of 300 animals per day. It’s a young man’s job, and I have seen some old shearers who appear unable to stand up straight; as the photograph above shows, most shearing sheds now provide mechanical support that was not available then (for what it’s worth, a few women do shear, but not normally professionally).

Still, it’s a skilled occupation that often provides its practitioners a chance to travel the world – shearers are always in demand - and even compete with others. In March, several Islanders placed highly in New Zealand’s Golden Shears shearing and wool handling championships, with the team of Evan Jones and Lee Molkenbuhr placing fifth, behind New Zealand, Scotland, Wales and Australia, among 23 countries participating.

Falklands Tourism Awards

Meanwhile, according to Montevideo-based Mercopress, the Falkland Islands Tourist Board recently presented a series of awards to local operators who have contributed to industry’s increasing success. Expected to become an annual event, the awards included a “Taste of the Falklands” prize to Malvina House Hotel for its outstanding restaurant (where I dined in my most recent trip to the Islands) and a shout-out to Kay McCallum’s B&B (where I have stayed in previous visits), notorious for its garden gnomes (pictured below), for an Outstanding Contribution to Tourism.

The Best Visitor Attraction award went to Bluff Cove Lagoons which, while I cannot criticize it harshly, I do consider it misleading. I know and like Bluff Cove's owner Kevin Kilmartin – I was his guest there long before it became a tourist attraction - but I think the award owes as much to quantity as to quality, given that its penguin colonies are most easily accessible to large numbers of cruise ship visitors. Independent travelers are likelier to prefer destinations such as Sea Lion, Saunders, Carcass (pictured below) and Bleaker Islands, which provide an opportunity to enjoy the wildlife while lodging at intimate accommodations that provide greater insight into local life.

The awards are due to become an annual event, emphasizing the quality of services available even in this very small, remote market.