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When he was young, Bradley Louw wanted to be a professional windsurfer and found himself chasing waves on the Cape, doing some instructing, living on the wilder side out of his minivan. Louw felt a change was needed:
“I had three choices, the military, jail or commercial fishing. I heard there was good money in commercial fishing, so I chose that. It gave me purpose.”
Warming waters and saltwater intrusions sound worthy of study by oceanographers, but not something that will affect you day to day.
Don’t be too sure.
Diamond Jim Brady once spat out an oyster served him at New York’s Delmonico’s restaurant. “That’s not a Wellfleet oyster!” exclaimed the Gilded Age gourmand.
Discriminating diners have long prized the Wellfleet oyster for the flavor that comes from the salty, plankton-rich seawater it ingests: Plump and clean, the Wellfleet oyster has a briny sweetness with an undertone of seaweed.
There has been loose talk that people shouldn’t eat lobster because harvesting the crustacean is harmful to the environment, and that the Massachusetts industry is in decline.
None of that is true.
“I want you to remember what you heard tonight about lobster being a sustainable, local fishery and you can feel good about eating it,” said Aubrey Church, policy manager at the Fishermen’s Alliance.
As we turn the corner on Thanksgiving — which boasts both turkey and seafood — and race toward Christmas, we want to remind readers that commercial fishing is a year-round enterprise. Just like the ocean is a constant, so are the Cape’s fisheries. This photo gallery of ports in the last months of the year serves as a reminder that the Cape’s Blue Economy is not seasonal.
When I was a kid, an important part of our family’s Christmas Eve routine was to head to my great uncle’s house, where we knew he was celebrating a tradition much older than us:
The feast of seven fishes.
This celebration came into being in southern Italy centuries ago. It arose because the Catholic Church created prohibitions against eating meat in advance of a feast day, Christmas in this case; the big fishy meal was part of a devout, tasty vigil celebrating the anniversary of the birth of the baby Jesus come morning.
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