Page 44 - foodservice news - July 2018

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PRODUCE
JINGOISTIC PATRIOTISM OR XENOPHOBIC FEAR?
WITH AUSTRALIANS LOVING LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL SEAFOOD LIKE NEVER BEFORE, JOHN SUSMAN QUESTIONS THE STRENGTH AND VALIDITY OF COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LABELLING.
John Susman is the director of the seafood industry agencey Fishtales. For more views, insights and understanding of the seafood industry visit thefishtale.com.au.
Ilove going to Tel Aviv to see my mate, fishmonger, Udi Bechor. His enthusiasm and love of the seafood of his region is
inspiring and infectious. A catch-up with Udi inevitably involves spending hours in his amazing fish shop in the Sarona market area of town, followed by an eating tour of the neighbouring districts.
In Tel Aviv, food is everywhere, from restaurants and food stalls, to billboards
and souvenir shops. In fact, one of Israel’s most obvious postcards, sent by thousands of tourists every year, depicts a pita bread and falafel, topped with an Israeli flag and the caption, 'Falafel: Israel’s national snack'.
What is particularly interesting about falafel, as well as many other food items depicted as Israeli, is that they are also an integral part of the food culture of the wider Middle East, including the local Palestinian culture. While it’s difficult to assign Israeli, Arab or Palestinian origins to falafel, it does raise broader questions of ownership and authenticity. Indeed these questions can have great geo-political influence. Witness the Hummus Wars of 2009 which showed just how important this humble dip is in uniting – and dividing – countries in the Middle East.
The practice of labelling foods based
on national origins is a policy of many governments, with the goal of promoting local or national produce and protecting food items seen as part of the nation’s heritage.
Although many such measures have been promoted as supporting the agricultural sector and rural communities against unfair competition, they can be seen as part of a
growing trend of attaching national rights to food, which has been described as ‘gastro- nationalism’ and ‘culinary nationalism’.
Here in Australia, we have happily celebrated and enjoyed Champagne and French cheese, Italian truffles and Spanish ham; and of more recent times Japanese soy sauce, Thai fish sauce and Indonesian kecap manis.
‘Eat local’ has become a snappy jingo, but in world of seafood, this is generally impractical.
Over the years, we have become reliant
on seafood imports, which make up 75 per cent of all seafood consumed in Australia. There are myriad reasons why, the most obvious of which is, as the driest continent on the planet, we simply don’t have the food in the water to support the massive schools of seafood produced in other parts of the world.
New Zealand produces more hoki than all the seafood we catch and grow here in Australia.
Australian seafood is without doubt amongst the best in world. It is safe, produced to the highest environmental and social practices, with a diversity and quality which are the envy of the rest of the world. However, we just don’t produce enough to go around.
Of late there has been a campaign to make it law that all seafood sold through foodservice must be labelled on menus by country of origin.
Over the past 30 years of working in seafood marketing, I have struggled to get fishermen to invest in telling their story, letting buyers know how good they are,
how hard they work, how careful they are to produce beautiful seafood, whilst showing total commitment to the environment, their fellow fishermen and the customer.