Another season of "Seafood Throwdown" starts tomorrow at the Cape Ann Farmers Market on Harbor Loop.
The first "Seafood Throwdown" of the season will feature Team Alchemy Café & Bistro starring chef William Fogarty vs. Team Sugar Magnolias starring chef Melissa Hart. It starts at 4:30 p.m.
Hart was the winner of last year's Throwdown finale while Alchemy's Chef Oni kicked off the events in 2008.
The events are designed to let the chefs both educate and entertain visitors as they show how to work with whole, fresh, and very local seafood. Chefs get $25 and 15 minutes to shop the farmers market for ingredients, cook for an hour, and then present their entry for consideration.
This event is free and open to the public.
"Seafood Throwdown" developed from the partnership between the Cape Ann Farmers Market and the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance as a way of promoting locally caught seafood and gauging the community's interest in Community Supported Fisheries (CSF). Tailored after the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, a CSF brings freshly caught local seafood to our kitchens while providing fishermen with a better price on less catch.
"Seafood Throwdowns" led to the creation of a pilot CSF — Cape Ann Fresh Catch — this summer, with nearly 780 shareholders spanning eight communities all receiving locally caught seafood on a weekly basis. The next 12-week season of the CSF is scheduled to start Aug. 17, with contracts still available at www.namanet.org/csf/cape-ann-fresh-catch.
"The CSF has given us a chance to have conversations with people throughout the North Shore and Greater Boston about how seafood gets to our plates, the management decisions that affect our access to seafood and the fishermen who put the food on our tables," said Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association.
CSF members give the fishermen financial support in advance, and in turn the fishermen provide a weekly share of locally caught seafood to their shareholders.
The "Seafood Throwdowns" were so popular that they are now being scheduled in other parts of the region, including Ipswich Goes Green Festival and the Common Ground Fair in Maine.
"Even though we live in a fishing community," says Gloucester resident and Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance Director Niaz Dorry, "we don't necessarily understand how those headlines in the paper about fisheries management measures add up to what ends up on our plates.
"We think about where our tomato comes from, who grew it, how they grew it and how far it traveled before it ended up on our plates," Dorry added. "We need to think the same way about our seafood."
Future Seafood Throwdowns are scheduled from 4:30 to 6 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 19, and Oct. 8 at the Cape Ann Farmers Market. More dates might be added.
The Cape Ann Farmers' Market on Harbor Loop is held each Thursday from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. throughout the summer months and through Oct. 8.
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