Fish or foul?
Do you know what you are eating when you order the fisherman's basket at your local fish-and-chip shop? What species of fish is inside the batter and where did it come from? Were other sea creatures harmed in bringing that fish to your table?
If former restaurant critic turned food producer Matthew Evans has his way, within 12 months we could have the same level of seafood labelling in restaurants and takeaway outlets as in supermarkets and fishmongers selling fresh seafood.
Evans, the food writer and chef whose move from Sydney to raise pigs and live a more sustainable life in Tasmania has been documented in his Gourmet Farmer series, said Australians loved seafood and his new series examined the impact of our addiction on prawns, sharks and Australia's most popular fish, salmon.
"We are all much better people in our heads than we are when we are standing at the aisle looking at the prices," Evans said by phone from Tasmania.
"What we discovered early on was that there's lot of imported seafood and some of that seafood - and I don't know if it is the majority, I didn't travel the world and go to every fish farm and fishery - is produced in a manner that would not pass muster in Australia and would horrify Australia and luckily we managed to capture that on film."
In the first episode, Evans visits a farm in Thailand where antibiotics and sunblock are pumped into ponds that can turn out full-size white shrimp in three months, while Australian-farmed tiger prawns can be harvested only once a year.
The Thai prawns are fed on protein derived from "trash fish" - basically any type of fish caught from bottom trawling no matter their size or species.
With 70 per cent of our seafood sourced from overseas, Evans thinks consumers need to know where it comes from and how it was farmed so they can make informed decisions about whether they are contributing to environmental damage.
"The reality is we don't produce enough seafood here, we don't," he said.
"What I hope is that when people make a choice about their seafood they can make an informed choice that hopefully has a lesser impact on the environment.
"I was a restaurant critic in Sydney for a number of years so I got to eat all sorts of stuff.
"This documentary has made me realise why some things tasted different, why some things were different, there are different levels of quality and different levels of freshness, different species.
"You go to the fish-and- chip shop and you think 'That's cheap for the flathead' and now I know why, it's not flathead it's stickfish and it has come from a long way away and it is a lot cheaper to buy for the takeaway but it's not as good in the eating.
"So from a gastronomic point of view as well as a sustainability view I guess I have been drawn to local."
Earlier this month, Greenpeace and the Australian Marine Conservation Society launched the Label My Fish campaign, demanding Australian laws match the European Union standards that require the origin, species and method used to catch or farm be declared on seafood labels. Celebrity chefs, including Quay's Peter Gilmore and MoVida's Frank Camorra, support the move.
During the first episode Evans rallies industry support for a Senate committee to examine seafood labelling; an inquiry started in August and which is due to report in December.
"I'd like to think we were a major factor in getting that up and running, we were lucky enough with the on-air dates we managed to film a bit of that and squeeze it into the show even though the majority of it was shot last year."
One fish that gets the thumbs up in the series is Jim Mendolia's Fremantle sardines.
"You are kind of just five minutes off Freo, you are pulling in three tonnes of sardines and cooking them the next day for a bunch of punters some of whom have never tried sardines before, what a great sustainable fish," Evans enthused, saying the bi-catch caught in the nets was not even enough for the crew's breakfast.
"So you compare that to some fishing and some ways of catching stuff and it was a beautiful example of sustainable, well- managed fisheries and getting a premium price for it.
"Jim is very good at selling stuff for the right price to make sure his business is sustainable as well as the ocean."
Despite battling seasickness throughout filming of the three-part series, Evans returned to the waters off Tasmania for his next series, Gourmet Farmer Afloat, which will air on SBS next year.
