Gazpacho with grilled Gulf shrimp salad is
on the menu at 3030 Ocean Restaurant.
“Louisiana is suffering from a serious
perception problem regarding its seafood,
despite the fact that the fish we harvest is
consistently being proven to be safe by several
federal and state testing agencies,” says Ewell
Smith, executive director of the Louisiana
Seafood Promotion & Marketing Board.
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE . . .
OR LACK THEREOF
The message that 100% of Gulf seafood is
thoroughly tested and safe for consumption
remains a difficult one to convey, despite
published op-ed letters reinforcing that
message from the higher-ups at NOAA and
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition,
or a formal letter to President Obama penned
by 30 members of Congress urging him to
disclose more information on the federal
government’s seafood safety work.
Christine Patrick, NOAA spokesperson,
points to the government website that
keeps testing information transparent
in the hopes of bolstering consumer
confidence in the work being
conducted. The site, www.noaa.gov/
deepwaterhorizon/data/seafood_safety.
html, openly shares what species were
tested, where the fish were caught and
how they were tested. But that level of
testing and transparency has not been
enough to convince Charles Wade
Schwerd, chef/owner of Arrowhead Grill in
Arrowhead, Ariz.
an opinion. We want to believe the
government has no other agenda but
food safety, but the government has been
wrong before, and it wouldn’t be the first
time they weren’t forthcoming of the
testing and what the results are. If you’re
not 100% positive, then don’t eat it. That’s
where I am at.”
decision to eliminate the product due
to the response of our clients,” he says.
“Regardless of how we informed them,
their initial reaction was always negative.
I want to support and do what we can for
the businesses located on the Gulf Coast,
but the press, which affects our clients’
opinions, was too influential.”
“About three weeks after the spill, we
transitioned away from shrimp from the
Gulf and went to a tiger farm-raised
product,” says Schwerd. “It’s about
For Bernie Laskowski, executive chef at
Park Grill at Millennium Park in Chicago,
customer perception drove Gulf seafood
off the menu. “We had to make a business
ON THE MENU
While Laskowski and Schwerd have
chosen to source seafood elsewhere,
many chefs are taking the opposite
