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Barton Seaver head shot - Epicurious

Barton Seaver

Cookbook Author

Barton Seaver is one of the world’s leading sustainable seafood experts and educators. Before leaving the restaurant industry to pursue his interests in sustainable food systems, he was an award-winning chef leading top seafood restaurants in Washington, DC. He became an Explorer for the National Geographic Society and has held various roles at Harvard University, through which he facilitates international conversations on sustainability and the role of food in resource management and public health. He has written seven seafood-centric books, including For Cod and Country, Two If By Sea, American Seafood, and The Joy of Seafood. Seaver has contributed to Coastal Living, The Coastal Table, Cooking Light, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Fine Cooking, Fortune, Martha Stewart’s Whole Living, The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Saveur, The Washington Post, among many others. He has appeared on 60 Minutes, CNN, NPR, 20/20 and the TED stage. Seaver hosted In Search of Food on the Ovation Network and Eat: The History of Food on National Geographic TV. He built and leads Seafood Literary, an online training program teaching seafood-specific culinary education for all levels of cooks. He lives in costal Maine with his wife and sons.

Recipes & Menus

Gigante Beans With Seaweed Salmoriglio

Salmoriglio is a Mediterranean sauce with herbs, garlic, and olive oil. In this version, kelp is used as the base of the sauce.
Recipes & Menus

Salmon Cakes 
With Arugula Salad

Recipes & Menus

Orange-Scented Bluefish

Bluefish is remarkably delicious and versatile. It is wonderful on the grill, its fatty richness complemented by the flavor of wood smoke. That richness ("oiliness" to the minds of some) causes many people to shun bluefish and other similar ocean brethren. All I can say is, oh well, more for me. Here orange zest provides an acidic tang that helps to balance the flavors, and the slow, low heat of the smoldering wood cooks the fish without drying it out.
Recipes & Menus

Chunky Almond Oil

This is one of my pantry staples; you'll find it in many of the recipes throughout this book. It makes for a super-easy sauce on its own, or you can mix it with lemon juice or vinegar to create a great dressing in less than a minute. Whenever almonds are on sale at the local store, I grab a few bags and make big batches, freezing some for future use. Each time you use this oil, make sure to grab an even proportion of oil to almonds so that you don't end up with a lopsided ratio.
Recipes & Menus

Grilled Lacinato Kale

This is simply one of my favorite dishes, and it has a legendary place in the history of my marriage. My wife was not a fan of the vegetable—or of any vegetable. Fan might not be the right word. It's not that she just didn't like them; she actively campaigned against them, prosecuting them, all guilty as charged, although on scant evidence. It was this simple dish that got her to at least begin to consider laying down her sword. The crisp texture, the smoky, charred burn, the transparency of the whole process got her to let her guard down. And now it is a staple. So you might say that this recipe is a gateway vegetable. Other kale varieties are fine for this, but lacinato is the only variety that crisps rather than wilts, allowing you to get great texture very quickly. This is wonderful with a little Chunky Almond Oil drizzled over the top.
Recipes & Menus

Ember-Roasted Squash Hummus

I first tried this dish when I was looking for an interesting vegan option to put on my menus. While my restaurants were certainly vegetarian/vegan friendly, the focus of the menu was anything but. I wanted to present some options that were more than the usual, but I kept coming back to hummus, because it is so delicious. So I tried a few different ways to make it, and this one was a winner. Any type of thick-skinned autumn squash will do in this recipe. My favorites are kabocha, butternut, Hubbard, and regular old pumpkin. I prefer to serve this with baguette slices, but it's also good with toasted pita bread triangles or carrot and celery sticks.
Recipes & Menus

Fish Brine

Fish deserve some salty foreplay just as much as pork and poultry. Every type of seafood is different in terms of density of the flesh, so different brine times are needed for different fish.