Mackerel: Local, sustainable and good for us

In staying true to New England waters, Steve Johnson of Rendezvous Restaurant in Central Square, Cambridge, courageously puts fish on his menu that — oh no! — has bones.

Mackerel. Grilled to a charry crispness, dripping with olive oil, delicate filets lifting off of 8 inches of spiny vertebrae, mackerel.

In Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, just about anywhere but here, a serving of fish means a pile of bones on the plate. Residents of these countries make beloved meals with sardines, anchovies, pike, mackerel and herring.

If we only learn to embrace the beauty of a fish spine, we, too, might upload healthy doses of phosphatidylserine, a phospholipid and part of the cell membrane, responsible for everything from making golfers tee-off better to improved memory to helping children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Mackerel has tons of it. In a list of phosphatidylserine sources, cow's brain is No. 1 at 713 per 100 grams, but given the risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) who wants to eat that? Mackerel is No. 2 at 480 per 100 grams. Chicken breast is 85. A potato is 1.

To eat mackerel is also promising great doses of big, rich omega 3 fatty acids. Boston mackerel — also known as Atlantic mackerel — is almost twice as high in omega 3 fatty acids as salmon and it's very low in mercury. It's the most common of the 10 species of mackerel so there's plenty of it.

In the world of gastronomy, before chefs opens their restaurant doors, they are required to state party affiliations: On the seafood section of your menu will you be saving the fish or the fishermen? Or are you an uncommitted independent only interested in keeping mild, white, boneless filets on the menu because Americans expect fish that doesn't smell, taste, or look like fish?

Johnson walks the Sustainability Walk without making a big fuss about it. He recycled a Burger King, for heaven's sake — for five years now he's been serving local foods prepared with North African and Southern French inspiration from a kitchen in Central Square that once assembled Whoppers.

The Rendezvous menu is faithful mostly to the New England coastline. By offering fish caught in local waters, Rendezvous keeps its seafood choices strictly seasonal without the environmental and financial costs of shipping, and supports local fishing industries in Portland, Gloucester, New Bedford and Point Judith, R.I. Right now what's running off the New England coastline is represented in Rendezvous by gray sole with early summer greens, capers and sage brown butter and bluefish with charmoula and cucumber salad. Scallops, squid, clams, and oysters stay reliably on the menu as they're fished locally all year.

Chef, cookbook author and National Geographic Fellow Barton Seaver describes the best way to think about sustainable fish choices: Imagine the ocean as a diving board. At the start of the diving board are phytoplankton. In the middle are filter-feeders such as oysters and clams, and then small- to medium-sized species such as mackerel, herring, and sardines. At the far end are the large species such as swordfish, salmon, and tuna. Jump hard on the far end, and you send everything else flying. Jump on the middle of the diving board, and each end jiggles a lot; you lose some but not everything. Seaver says it's important to eat from the middle of the diving board, and to step gently at the front.

One commercial fishing site I looked at described Boston mackerel as "the fish that gives us something to catch when there's not a lot else going on," perhaps a vernacular translation of what Barton Seaver is trying to say; they're a lot of mackerel, and we should learn to enjoy them. Yes, there are bones, but there's also more flavor in mackerel than a lot of other species. As mentioned, Johnson grills them to a crisp, black crust and serves them with an Asian cucumber salad, a cool balance to those grilled omega 3s.

Generally, the higher the fat content the more quickly a fish breaks down, so Johnson stresses it's important to find a source of very fresh mackerel. Mackerel run in New England in the spring and fall, so Johnson promises this cucumber salad would be delicious today with grilled bluefish fillets treated the exact same way. But save this recipe for September when the mackerel are running again, and they're fat from feeding all summer on whitebait and grass shrimp, or else think of them as even richer in phosphatidylserines and omega 3s.

Food for Thought runs weekly in the Times' Taste of the Times section and is written by Heather Atwood, an author and mother from Rockport. Questions and comments can be sent to Heather at heatheraa@aol.com. And follow her blog at gloucestertimes.com/foodforthought.

Grilled Mackerel

Serves 4

4 whole small mackerel (scaled and gutted)

4 tablespoons olive oil

Kosher salt

Prepare a moderately hot charcoal fire.

Brush the fish lightly with good olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Grill them on each side for about 4 to 5 minutes.

When properly cooked, the flesh comes easily off the bone.

Serve alongside the Vietnamese cucumber salad.

Vietnamese Cucumber Salad

1 cucumber, peeled seeded and sliced into quarter-rounds 1/4-inch thick

1 small red onion (or 2 large shallots), peeled and sliced thin lengthwise

1 cup lime juice

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons sambal oelek (chili garlic sauce)

2 tablespoons salt

1 teaspoon nuoc cham (fish sauce)

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

2 tablespoons chopped mint

Combine all of the ingredients in a medium-size bowl and toss gently. Let sit at room temperature for at least 20 minutes before serving.

• • •

Recipe courtesy of Steve Johnson, Rendezvous, Central Square, Cambridge.

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