Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood

Dividing his sensibilities between Epicureanism and ethics, Taras Grescoe set out on a nine-month worldwide search for a delicious—and humane—plate of seafood. What he discovered shocked him. From North American Red Lobsters to fish farms and research centers in China, Bottomfeeder takes readers on an illuminating tour through the $55-billion-dollar-a-year seafood industry. Grescoe examines how out-of-control pollution, unregulated fishing practices, and climate change affect what ends up on our plate. More than a screed against a multibillion-dollar industry, however, this is also a balanced and practical guide to eating, as Grescoe explains to readers which fish are best for our environment, our seas, and our bodies.

“Bottomfeeder highlights the diversity, complexity, and fragility of our oceans. Its an important reminder that we all have to take better care of our oceans if we want seafood in our future.”—David Suzuki, co-founder, David Suzuki Foundation

“If you're a seafood lover, pick up this guide to which fish are the best for our bodies and which are best for the environment.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Research that brings muckraking books such as Fast Food Nation to mind.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“A stunning exposé of human folly with fishing around the globe.”—The Guardian (UK)

“Grescoe's tale hits all the right notes. It's an entree you'll remember.”—Fortune Small Business

“It's a big mess and Grescoe charts it with muscular prose and a well-stamped passport . . . Fired by a foodie's passion for the animals whose disappearance he mourns.”—The Observer (UK)

“Grescoe takes us on an international tour of controversial cuisines—shark fin soup in China, whale sashimi in Japan, monkfish tail in New York City—meanwhile offering an overview of the corrupt practices that have put the oceans (and our health) in danger. The portrait he paints is grim: oceanic dead zones that, because of pollution and overfishing, can no longer support organic life; salmon farms polluted by pesticides and disease; ruthless bottom trawlers with nets that can destroy entire ecosystems. A warning is not a death sentence, however. The book empowers consumers to ask the right questions—if the halibut is from the Atlantic or Pacific, for instance, and whether the lobster pasta is actually made from monkfish, which is endangered. And asking these questions will make it possible to enjoy seafood for years to come.”—Salon

“From pollutants to piracy, preservatives to Patagonian toothfish, Grescoe surveys the state of our collective waterways in Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, which combines some literal seabed muckraking with a fascinating travelogue . . . [An] aquatic The Omnivore's Dilemma.”—Gothamist

“Fascinating . . . will inform many about the dire state of the oceans, expose the dreadful environmental consequences of badly managed aquaculture, and prompt us to make better seafood choices . . . With clear, compelling writing, Grescoe covers a vast array of topics ranging from ecology (e.g. how overfishing affects ecosystems), cooking and eating (a trip to a Japanese restaurant that serves whale meat), economics (the business of black-market cod), and history.”—Ethicurean

“In this whirlwind, worldwide tour of fisheries, Grescoe whiplashes readers from ecological devastation to edible ecstasy and back again. In disturbing detail, he depicts the turbid and murky Chesapeake Bay, where, with overharvested oysters too few to do their filtering job, fish are infested with the cell from hell, a micro-organism that eats their flesh and exposes their guts. He describes how Indian shrimp farms treated with pesticides, antibiotics and diesel oil are destroying protective mangroves, ecosystems and villages, and portrays the fate of sharks—a collapsing fishery—finned for the Chinese delicacy shark-fin soup: living sharks have their pectoral and dorsal fins cut from their bodies with heated metal blades . . . The sharks are kicked back into the ocean, alive and bleeding; it can take them days to die. But these horrific scenes are interspersed with delectable meals of succulent Portuguese sardines with fat-jeweled juices or a luscious breakfast of bluefin tuna sashimi, cool and moist . . . halfway between a demi-sel Breton butter and an unctuous steak tartare; the latter is a dish that, due to the fish's endangered status, Grescoe decides he won't enjoy again. The book ends on a cautiously optimistic note: scientists know what steps are needed to save the fisheries and the ocean; we just need the political will to follow through. Grescoe provides a helpful list of which fish to eat: no, never, depends, sometimes and absolutely, always.”—Publishers Weekly