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GLASGOW – Inver restaurant one point at the longest point sea ​​loch in Scotland. From her windows she can see the ruins of a restaurant. 15th century castle and the rolling hills of the Highlands, but the ripping star is not the landscape. Chief’s beef halibut head Pam Brunton It grills over wood and is finished with melted homemade ‘nduja and a dash of grilled green onions.

NS small halibut those butchers were raised in sea-fed corrals Gigha Island, the island belonging to a nearby community of farmed halibut that has become the darling of people who care deeply about where their fish and shellfish come from.

Miss Brunton, who could it be? alice juicesScottish niece running turn it over with partner Rob Latimer. The tiny restaurant and inn is about 70 miles from Glasgow, where heads of state including President Biden, thousands of diplomats and a host of environmental activists such as Greta Thunberg gathered for COP26 in November. United Nations global climate conference.

Ms. Brunton’s halibut heads may not seem like much of a hedge against the devastating effects of fossil fuel and methane gas emissions, but here a group of cooks and restaurateurs say putting sustainable Scottish seafood on the plate is at least one tangible (and delicious). ) move towards a better planet. The shift is away from fin and shellfish whose populations are threatened by climate change or harvesting practices.

“This is all part of a gradual change,” Ms Burton said in an interview before attending a panel on food waste. New York Times Climate Center, Coincided with COP26. “Inver Restaurant will not change anything during its lifetime, but we hope that we are helping the current trend in that direction, not in that direction. We are changing the flow.”

man get upset Ethical Shellfish Company, On the Isle of Mull, he looks at his work the same way. He brings hand-harvested Scottish scallops, string-raised mussels, and creel-caught crab and celery to urban cooks in England.

In 2010 Mr. Grieve started king scallops for diving in the waters of western Scotland. Their prey—with six-inch-wide shells and orange roe crescents attached to their muscles—went to restaurants whose chefs didn’t want to sell them using scallops scalded from the ocean floor. reduce their population and destroys marine habitats.

We are trying to collect the apples in the garden without crushing the flowers,” he said.

As the coronavirus pandemic hit, restaurants in England closed. Mr. Grieve and other divers on other boats have gone from collecting about 10,000 scallops a week to zero. The fisherman had to sell his boats. To earn money, he began helping other divers sell their catch to whatever market he could find.

A promising Sunday, to his delight, was home cooks in Edinburgh. Although the restaurant business has bounced back, his company still ships around 50 cartons of clams to private homes, each order carefully packed with sheep’s wool for insulation.

“These customers are just one indication of the increasing number of Scottish chefs and restaurants that care about the origin of their fish,” he said.

Part of the appeal is the romance of the food from Scotland’s west coast. Scottish kings buried and the first Celtic church in Scotland was built in 563 AD.

“It’s a really compelling place for people to source their food,” he said. “In people’s minds, you bring them something from dreamland.”

However, the health of the climate and the environment is also important.

“There’s a degree of anger that comes out and that’s great,” he said. “Unfortunately, there is a never-ending tide that will never stop, and it’s called greed. All we can do is create little fun.”

Seafood is Scotland’s largest food export. about 400 thousand tons Landed in 2020. This does not include wild salmon that are no longer caught commercially anywhere in the UK. However, Scotland is the third largest producer of farm-raised Atlantic salmon. Delicate and delicate to the lobster, Langoustine is the most valuable prey; More than two-thirds of the world’s supply comes from Scottish waters.

Before the UK’s departure from the European Union or Brexit, most of the Scottish seafood went directly to markets such as Spain and France. Brexit bureaucracy It made European trade extremely difficult and Scottish and wider English markets More attractive.

But getting seafood—particularly niche products like Mr. Grieve’s scallops or Gigha halibut—is still a challenge for home cooks, he said. Rachel McCormackis a Glasgow-based food writer and publisher.

“The challenge of introducing Scotchfish in Scotland is a huge issue,” he said. Scottish fishermen are very few. “Supermarkets have control over the food supply and are not interested in Scottish fish unless it’s cheap farmed salmon.”

Two of Mrs. McCormack’s favorite Scottish juices are Gigha halibut, which she roasts with salsa verde made of capers, parsley, and coriander, and which she cooks in butter, garlic, ginger, and white wine, and then “with bread from Spain and some celery pliers.”

Visitors looking for a restaurant with plenty of Scottish seafood, Crabshakk. Architect John Macleod and his wife, Lynne Jones, opened the charming two-story restaurant on the site of what was then. deserted part of the cityIn 2009 when the economy collapsed and most of the fish in restaurants was covered in batter.

It was an instant hit and remained so popular that the couple plans to open a second outpost in West Glasgow early next year.

While drinking an espresso, Mr Macleod talked about how he constantly adjusts his menu with the climate in mind. The conversation followed a long lunch featuring scallops from the waters around the Island. North Uist, crab cakes sizzling in anchovy oil and made with chunks of Scotland’s sweet brown crab. He grew up on the Isle of Lewis, part of the Highland’s ancestral homeland. Clan MacLeod In the far corners of the Scottish west coast, where almost everyone he knows is in the fishing business.

The cod was in my bones and down to my toenails and fingernails,” she said.

He is specific about what he likes. He still serves wild halibut, as he prefers firmer meat, but will likely replace Scottish cod with hake, which is not so pressured to fish. Their chefs are dedicated to finding more uses for all parts of the fish.

“We’re not into just taking it and ‘what’s going on’,” he said about the environmental impact, “but feeding people by volume and being there with everything isn’t as easy as people might imagine. the only item on the menu is as sustainable as possible.”

But pressure is mounting, especially by a new generation of eaters who care about both what’s on the plate and how it got there.

“It’s a new day,” said 24-year-old Ruaridh Fraser, who was waiting for a table at Crabshakk. “People have fear inside them now.”