Eat Oregon Seafood

Astoria Bridge Marina, photo courtesy of Home Canning Tuna video.

This week has been a whirlwind attending Oregon State University’s Annual Extension Conference. This virtual event has included all the Zoom hiccups, like me forgetting to turn off video while using a hot cup of tea to warm my chilly nose…whoops! I wasn’t alone though, the highly-esteemed keynote speaker wasn’t able to share his screen and when he tried to fix it, ended up kicking all 450+ people off. We were able to easily get back in and I think it was the Best. Intro. Ever!

In addition to the excellent Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sessions, such as Courageous Conversations about Race and Basic Rights Oregon‘s Transgender Inclusion 101 (So informative!) and topics related to virtual programming, there were also program-specific updates. These updates share Extension work happening across the state.

photo by Buffy Rhoades

I thought I’d share one near and dear to my heart. Grandma Violette used to can fish. Specifically, salmon. Andy was an excellent salmon fisherman and often brought home very large fish from the Deschutes River. (Eating salmon steaks with dire warnings of choking on a fish bone if I wasn’t careful still haunt me.)

I started canning tuna as soon as I inherited mom’s Maid-of-Honor pressure canner. Lin, one of my canning mentors, recommended buying tuna off the dock in Garibaldi. I purchased my first tuna directly off the boat from a fisherman named George Bernard Shaw. (No relation.) He was a hoot and I was immediately hooked, so to speak.

Garibaldi Marina, Tillamook County. Image from Beach Connection.

You might not know this, but coastal economies took a huge hit due to the pandemic. Apparently, restaurants account for the majority of seafood sales. The Eat Oregon Seafood initiative was developed to help the fishing industry recover from revenue lost due to Covid. The Oregon Department of Agriculture asked OSU Extension and Oregon Sea Grant to partner with them to create a resource for people who want to learn where they can source Oregon-caught seafood.

Image from Positively Groundfish

Other #EatOregonSeafood partners include: Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, Oregon Albacore Commission, Oregon Trawl Commission, Oregon Salmon Commission, and Oregon’s Positively Groundfish.

In addition, our fearless leader, Kelly Streit, RDN, Senior Instructor partnered with Amanda Gladics, Assistant Professor of Practice at Coastal Fisheries Extension and the Oregon Sea Grant to produce this excellent video teaching folks how to safely preserve tuna. They had such a good time.

Image from Eat Oregon Seafood website. Aka, tuna cooked in oil (canned works great) w white beans and pickled vegetables.

For more information about Eat Oregon Seafood, check out this article from the Corvallis Advocate. To find Oregon seafood vendors, recipes from local chefs , (like Kathy Whims’ recipe), and to learn about sustainability and fishing practices in Oregon, go to the Eat Oregon Seafood website. Feel free to share your favorite seafood recipes and pictures using the hashtag #EatOregonSeafood on our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Until next time… keep exploring, stay curious, and be excellent to each other.

Buffy Rhoades| mom. forager. gardener. volunteer turned program assistant. a real busy beaver

Sometime soon I’ll figure out how to add icons for our YouTube channel, newsletter, Healthy Together, and our website. (Thanks for the comments!)