Pakeha New Zealanders are notoriously diffident when it comes to exploring some of the wilder tastes from the sea, but no-one demurred when executive chef Michael Coughlin served unusual delicacies such as kina and seaweed in the elegant surroundings of Pier 24 last week.
As an event in the science festival, it was seasoned with talks by Prof Mike Barker of the marine science department about the sustainability of the species he was using, which also included farmed mussels (sustainable) and salmon (not so sustainable as it is fed fishmeal).
There are many unknowns about each species, such as how many there are, how fast they replace themselves, even how fast they grow and how many are taken by recreational fishers, he said.
Species such as paua also attract poachers taking undersized fish, and kina fisheries in the north were depleted.
Forest and Bird put out a Best Fish Guide (www.bestfishguide.org.nz) listing wild seafood species from most sustainable to most endangered to help consumers make good choices.
Sally Carson, who runs edible seaweed workshops at the Portobello aquarium, explained how seaweeds were regarded as both food and medicine in Asian cultures, and how to harvest and dry them.
You can also buy dried seaweed such as kombu (bladder kelp), nori (karengo) and wakame (undaria) from Asian grocery shops.
Coughlin demonstrated how to clean and prepare paua, kina, cockles and seaweed.
He cooked a simple curry of mussels and cockles with dried kombu and rice cakes; paua, cooked slowly for 12 hours, with spring onion and karengo salad; tartlets of chilli scrambled eggs topped with kina, crisp bacon and breadcrumbs; and soy and honey cured salmon with bean and wakame salad.
