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FOR ALL OCCASIONS NEW NC SEA GRANT PROMOTION INVOLVES A LEESVILLE GRADUATE, AND TASTY SEAFOOD RECIPES
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orth Carolina Sea Grant has a new series of downloadable seafood posters – designed by Leesville Road High graduate and NC Sea Grant intern Hayden Stephens – for retailers to showcase kitchen-tested recipes from Mariner’s Menu, the program’s popular seafood recipe and resources website. The 13 mini-posters also feature vivid photos by Vanda Lewis, plus information on where to find more seafood recipes. “We (are) sharing the poster links with seafood markets to highlight ways consumers can enjoy the flavors and seasonality of our fish and shellfish,” said Barry Nash, Sea Grant’s seafood specialist. The timing is appropriate as more folks are eating at home, and are seeking out North Carolina seafood. Indeed, a recent Sea Grant survey, led by Nash, found that recipes are the most important among six options to improve the seafood cooking experiences at home. The posters also highlight a partnership with the “Got to Be NC Seafood” campaign of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which funded seafood purchases for Sea Grant’s Lewis to test more recipes and photograph the results. “We hope these new recipe posters will encourage consumers to purchase a more diversified palette of N.C. seafood species and also show the ease of preparation of delicious seafood dishes,”
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said John M. Aydlett, the department’s seafood marketing specialist. Sea Grant shared the first posters at the Seafood Jubilee, hosted by Locals Seafood in Raleigh last winter – just before restrictions were initiated to limit the spread of COVID-19. “The timing gave Hayden a perspective on how the seafood supply chain quickly changed as restaurants closed or limited sales to pickup and delivery. That meant the role of seafood markets became critical to consumers and to the fishing communities,” adds Katie Mosher, Sea Grant’s communications director. For Stephens, working on the project as the pandemic unfolded took on extra urgency. “Our goal quickly became educating consumers enough that they felt confident supporting seafood markets and fishing communities through these uncertain times,” she said. North Carolina Sea Grant offers more than 200 kitchen-tested recipes – using North Carolina commercial fisheries species – through the resource book Mariner’s Menu: 30 Years of Fresh Seafood Ideas, distributed by the University of North Carolina Press, as well as online at marinersmenu.org, which caters to seafood retailers, their customers and all home cooks. The recipes were developed by former Sea Grant
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NC Sea Grant seafood recipe mini-posters designed by intern Hayden Stephens
Fall 2020
