Invasive species go to the plate for the sake of sustainability in the kitchen

If you can’t handle them, eat them. It may seem strange, but fighting invasive species through the dish has become a sustainable trend in gastronomy. From the US to Europe, many are the chefs who argue that creating eating habits around them can avoid the imbalance that many cause in natural habitats.

In London, the restaurant Silo, owned by chef Douglas McMaster, started a series of dinners around these species, such as the japonica fallopia (a plant of Japanese origin that has become a pest in the UK), Pacific oysters, fallow deer (a deer cousin) and even squirrels.

At each dinner an “invading” ingredient is served. “This puts pressure on our supply chain and helps combat key ecosystem issues,” says McMaster. Silo is a restaurant that advocates zero-waste cuisine and more sustainable eating habits.

The menus also include jellyfish, an ingredient recently explored by another chef in Denmark. At his cult Alchemist restaurant in Copenhagen, Rasmus Munk created a ceviche with raw and then lightly marinated jellyfish, served with coriander, fish sauce, green chillies, gyokuro tea and roasted turbot broth.

“In this dish we combine it with another invasive species, the rugosa rose, a non-native plant that is taking over the Danish coast”, explains Munk. According to him, cooking with these ingredients is a way of mitigating the problems they pose to the habitat where they reach an unwanted prevalence.

In Brazil, the most recent discussion involves the lionfish, a predator that has already begun to be seen on the coasts of the Northeast. The species has already colonized the Caribbean, the southern United States and Mexico.

In December 2020, the first lionfish was identified in Fernando de Noronha (PE). So far, more than 65 animals have been sighted, of which 40 of them were captured for studies by ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation).

As a new species, neither predators nor their victims know about it, which increases the risk of environmental imbalance — not to mention the fact that it is venomous and can pose a public health problem.

Recently, a fisherman was the first identified victim in Brazil, having been hospitalized with heart attacks after being stung by a lionfish.

One of ICMBio’s biologists’ bets is to make lionfish a delicacy in restaurants in the Northeast. “We know that gastronomy is a great ally to control its growing population”, says Ricardo Araújo, a researcher at the institution.

For this, he asked for the help of his colleague Paulo Bertuol, who works for the Marine Park of Bonaire, an island in the southeastern Caribbean. Bertuol was in Noronha at the end of 2021 to talk to restaurant and inn owners about the cultivation of fish meat, light and delicate in flavor.

On the Caribbean island, the use of fish in cooking was contingent even before fish appeared. “We help to create a local demand, also showing the population that it is a delicious fish, which must be eaten and enjoyed”, he says.

According to the anticipated strategy, the demand for fish has always been greater than the amount of fish caught, which helps to keep them in the seas.

“This also helped to increase the price of fish. Today, chefs pay around US$ 15 (R$ 76) per kilo of lionfish. On the island, the fillet costs US$ 50 (R$ 255) per kilo , far above many other fish”, he explains.

The adoption in dishes – from sushi to grilled – can also help more fishermen to commit to catching the animal, having an excellent financial return for this, generating a biological benefit that only researchers could not achieve on their own.

“We still don’t have animals to generate a substantial gastronomic demand, but, by all indications, we will get there”, believes Araújo. For better or worse, he says that “fishermen, cooks and consumers can be allies in this challenge” that begins and ends at the table.