Saveur 2018 Vol. 2

NORTH AMERICA 1 GROTON, CONNECTICUT Kelp farming off the coast, p. 17 2 JAMES ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA Shrimp baiting with chef Chris Stewart, p. 30 3 MAINE Cooking whole cod, p. 42 4 NEW YORK CITY Exploring the dried seafood of Chinatown, p. 48 5 MENDOCINO Battling a plague of sea urchins, p. 52 6 SAN FRANCISCO Inside chef and angler Joshua Skenes’ kitchen at Saison, p. 72 7 NEW SUFFOLK, NEW YORK Starting an oyster farm, p. 84 8 HONOLULU Behind the local fish market 9 OAHU Celebrating plate lunch SOUTH AMERICA 10 VALDIVIA, CHILE Foraging for coastal sea strawberries, p. 20 11 NEVIS Homemade pepper sauce with island flair, p. 24 12 LIMA, PERU A master class in ceviche, p. 38 13 SALVADOR, BRAZIL Celebrating a sea goddess, p. 96 14 PATAGONIA, CHILE The ultimate crab dip EUROPE 15 ARBROATH, SCOTLAND The art of haddock…

THERE’S A REASON I LOOK SO HAPPY filleting fish while wearing a silk blouse. saveur’s test kitchen has long been a second home for me, and there have been some thrilling changes coming out of here of late. It’s from this lucky place that I’ve headed up our food editorial for the past two years, honing stories and recipes with reporters, traveling to meet cooks and learn about regional cuisines, and tasting and testing every dish in each issue (a job I recommend). I’ve loved this magazine for far longer than that, though, and many of you have, too. That’s why, in my new role as executive editor, I’ve been working like crazy with our incredible team to bring you the best possible version of saveur. We’ve concentrated on four seasonal…

I grew up in France, splitting my time between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic sides, so the sea has always been important to me. On weekends, my family would gather to go fishing and scuba diving, and we’d bring back gigantic octopus, loup de mer (a more refined cousin of the striped bass), and small fish like rainbow-colored girelles for soup. On France’s western coast, we’d walk to the lakes and fill our knapsacks with trout and frogs, then eat them with tender dandelions. Ever since this exposure as a young child, I knew my life, in whatever form it would take, would be devoted to the wondrous creatures of the sea. Since 1994, I have been the chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin, a primarily seafood restaurant in New York…

BREN SMITH IS STRIKINGLY HUMBLE for a man I’ve often heard referred to as the savior of our food system. Wearing a rubber jumpsuit and sipping weak coffee from a Styrofoam cup, he moves around his dinged-up boat instinctually. Smith is a former industrial fisherman turned kelp farmer and educator, and we’re headed out today to visit the farm of one of his mentees. As we glide between a handful of bobbing buoys off the shore of Groton, Connecticut, there’s no sign yet of the great marvel of ocean sustainability I’ve come to visit. The entire farm is below us, hidden beneath the waves. “Our food system is changing radically due to climate change,” Smith says. “It’ll get pushed out to sea within the next 30 years,” he adds without a…

FORAGING FOR NATIVE PLANTS has been a practice of Chile’s indigenous people for centuries. As part Mapuche, one of Chile’s native groups, I try to bring those same influences to the menu at Boragó, my restaurant in Santiago. Some of the most interesting specimens are found along the country’s 2,600 miles of coastline. More than a decade ago, I went foraging along the shore outside Val divia with a Mapuche man named Don Pascual, a prominent leader in the community. As we walked, he pointed at a plant carpeting the rocks and told me, “You have to taste this one.” Sea strawberries are a groundcovering succulent with a gushy center. Peeled, they smell and taste exactly like soft, juicy strawberries—but with the brininess of seaweed. They opened my mind to the…

The cliffside village of Auchmithie, on Scotland’s northeast coast, once sat above a bustling commercial harbor; its stone cottages were home to hundreds of fisherfolk. The women of the town were renowned for their strength. They carried the men down to the boats on their backs so they could begin their journey with dry feet. It was the women too who preserved the haddock the men returned with, creating what would become known as the Arbroath smokie, named for a larger town a few miles down the coast. The smoking technique they used continues to be practiced by about a dozen producers today, including Iain R. Spink, a fifth-generation maker. He hangs pairs of salted fish over a low fire in the bottom half of a whisky barrel, then covers them…