table talk / By Joseph Byrd

Sea Food Nation

The Protestant work ethic was uncomfortable with the unhurried pace of recreational fishing — at best a pastime, and a solitary one. (“Trout fishing is best carried out alone,” said Thoreau.) It was also the activity, called “playing hooky,” of boys who skipped school. (“It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study,” said Huckleberry Finn.) In agricultural lands, irrigation, and later power, caused many inland fisheries to be dammed. Any disadvantages seemed trivial compared to benefits. Americans were meat-eaters, anyway.

Even in the late 19th century, health problems associated with marketing fresh fish were considerable. It was only on the eve of the 20th century that rail distribution and reliable refrigeration meant a Denver hotel or a Kansas City steakhouse might offer salmon, just 24 hours from the sea. When, in 1889, the U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries issued its Report on The Pacific Fisheries, it announced a young industry not only capable of providing jobs for thousands of families, but with the potential “to feed the masses with cheap and wholesome food.”

Around the same time, a far less optimistic report was issued on the Atlantic commercial fishing industry, where, with the development of refrigeration and transportation technologies, there was a great rush to harvest in unimaginable quantity. Dory-and-schooner fishing practices that hadn’t changed for centuries gave way to steamers armed with purse seines and the novel bottom-dragging trawl from Europe. These boomed and busted each of the major fisheries of the time, most of the catch destined for export. The Commission on Fish deplored the industry’s short-term greed and lack of foresight in protecting the North Atlantic fisheries:

They believe, or profess to believe, that money and effort spent for food-fish increase are simply money and effort wasted. They fail to comprehend the possibility of checking the decrease and of supplementing it with such an increment as will repopulate and restore productiveness, regarding it as a chimera. They have failed to grasp the idea that such restoration would add millions to the value of the country’s resources.

This was a warning that would be repeated over the decades, generally falling on deaf ears. With most seafood exported, first to Europe, then to Asia, there was no particular concern in the U.S. There didn’t need to be. There would always be fish enough for those who wanted it bad enough to pay a premium. For the rest, well, Americans didn’t really much like fish, anyway.

Devilled Crabs

adapted from an early Richmond, Virginia manuscript

Blend together two tablespoons soft butter with three of crushed crackers. Add two tablespoons cream, a heaping tablespoon of dry mustard, yolks of four hard-cooked eggs chopped fine, a tablespoon chopped parsley, and a tablespoon walnut catsup (or Worcestershire Sauce). Add one pound flaked crabmeat and season to taste. Toss lightly, put into scallop shells, sprinkle with buttered bread crumbs, and bake in a moderate oven until brown.

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