{"id":7306,"date":"2017-12-01T13:46:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T18:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=7306"},"modified":"2024-08-20T13:51:05","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T17:51:05","slug":"developing-recipes-nourishing-the-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/developing-recipes-nourishing-the-community\/","title":{"rendered":"DEVELOPING RECIPES, NOURISHING THE COMMUNITY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s in a blackened-fish taco? For most of us, it is simply fish, seasoning, salsa and tortillas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Evan Ferguson and her high-school students, their tacos start with an underappreciated fish: cape shark. Then, their special recipe stirs in a desire for fresh, local seafood in the school cafeteria, mixed with the sweat and hard work of a fishing community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are asking a lot from a humble taco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ferguson, the marketing and foods teacher at Cape Hatteras Secondary School<\/a>, and her students have developed an entr\u00e9e that incorporates cape shark, the seasonings available in a school cafeteria and the appetites of high schoolers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are really becoming aware that they need to start making healthy choices, and they also want to make choices that have a positive effect on their community,\u201d Ferguson says of her students. \u201cBy introducing fresh, local fish and local seafood back into our cafeteria menu, that would help to support our local economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cape
Students at Cape Hatteras Secondary School are developing recipes and learning about cape shark. Photo by Evan Ferguson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cape shark, also known as spiny dogfish, typically are abundant in North Carolina waters in the winter. Once caught, they are trucked to a processing plant in New England, then shipped to Europe. The shark becomes the fish that goes with chips, a beloved pairing served throughout the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

North Carolina fishermen get pennies per pound for the cape shark they catch. However, some people, including Ferguson, wonder if the fishermen might earn more if the shark were processed in state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To do that, there would have to be local consumer demand. As a start, Ferguson is looking at the school cafeteria, with help from the N.C. Community Collaborative Research Grant Program<\/a>. Jointly funded by North Carolina Sea Grant<\/a> and the William R. Kenan Jr. Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science<\/a> at NC State University, the program draws upon the expertise of scientists and the knowledge of community members to focus on topics vital to the state\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this case, Ferguson and her students \u2014 some of whom are part-time commercial fishermen themselves \u2014 are the local experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the class had to overcome their initial wariness of eating shark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo other school would have shark as a meal,\u201d acknowledges Karlene Ballance, one of Ferguson\u2019s students. \u201cI was definitely kind of weird about it at first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fisherman\u2019s daughter took the plunge anyway. It wasn\u2019t so bad, she reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo matter what it looks like or what you think it will taste like, just try it,\u201d the high-school sophomore advises. \u201cYou need to be open to trying new things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, the students had to build a recipe from ingredients already available in the school cafeteria. They wanted their dish to be cost-effective, using what already was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had to use our imagination to work with what we had,\u201d says sophomore Maya Damitio. They found, among other things, 8-inch tortillas and the spices to make a blackened seasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students collaborated on many iterations of the recipe, tackling questions such as how much seasoning to add, what to include in their salsa, and whether to heat the fish straight from its frozen state or thaw it first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes you just have to use what you have and make it work,\u201d Ballance agrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This semester, Ferguson and her students are holding tasting panels to gauge people\u2019s reactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students are carefully screening potential participants. \u201cThey have to like fish. They have to like tacos. They have to like fish tacos,\u201d Ferguson says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the team will hold a tasting panel for students from Conetoe Family Life Center<\/a> in Edgecombe County, partners in this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January, Ferguson and her students still were waiting for the cape shark to show up. They want to use fresh, locally caught product, after having initially developed their taco using frozen shark from other U.S. sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I like about this project is that the students are leading it,\u201d says Barry Nash, one of several advisors on this project and Sea Grant seafood technology and marketing specialist. \u201cThey conducted the initial product development. They are recruiting people for the sensory panel. They are learning how to evaluate new ingredients for the school, and what it takes to test them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another part of this project is moving full STEAM ahead, rolling in science, technology, engineering, art and math.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biology students will dissect cape shark. Ferguson\u2019s students will use social media and websites to communicate the project to the public. Art students will create tape sculptures of cape shark to hang throughout the school. Math students will evaluate the cape shark population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to do it in unison so that it will create a buzz within the school,\u201d Ferguson explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel that once this project starts going somewhere, it\u2019s going to be cool to say that we were part of it,\u201d Damitio adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Ferguson, so much can come out of this small project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing this for the students and their health, but we\u2019re also doing it for the community at large, and to keep traditions alive, as far as fishing families,\u201d Ferguson notes. \u201cI really hope that we can use this information to open up conversation about how can we get real food back into our cafeteria.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was published in the <\/em>Winter 2017<\/em><\/a> issue of <\/em>Coastwatch.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For contact information and reprint requests, visit <\/em>ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/contact\/<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s in a blackened-fish taco? For most of us, it is simply fish, seasoning, salsa and tortillas. For Evan Ferguson and her high-school students, their tacos start with an underappreciated fish: cape shark. Then, their special recipe stirs in a desire for fresh, local seafood in the school cafeteria, mixed with the sweat and hard work of a fishing community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":7357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ncst_custom_author":"E-Ching Lee","ncst_show_custom_author":true,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"backgroundColor\":\"custombg_one\",\"displayCategoryID\":668,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[668,597,601,595,756],"tags":[],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[1472,1468],"class_list":["post-7306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-668","category-blue-economy","category-education","category-seafood","category-winter-2017"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":668,"name":"2017","slug":"2017","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":669,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":56,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDEVELOPING RECIPES, NOURISHING THE COMMUNITY - Coastwatch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What\u2019s in a blackened-fish taco? 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