I wrote back in May about Alice Waters, the famous owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA, a restaurant that is an icon of local, sustainable -- even humane -- food, saying that she would want shark fin soup as her last meal on Earth.
What's the big deal? Millions of sharks are "finned" every year for this appalling soup: Finning is where fishermen, usually on factory trawlers, slice off the finds of live sharks and toss them alive back into the water. The sharks then spiral into the deep to die, unable to move. It's pretty horrible.
It seems that someone finally told Alice about this: "Not long ago I learned that every year tens of millions of sharks, their fins brutally sliced off, are thrown back into the ocean to die, and that many shark species are now seriously threatened," Waters says in a Humane Society news release. "I support Humane Society International's efforts to end this unsustainable practice, and I encourage other chefs and culinary industry leaders to do the same."
Mmm-hmmm. Waters' whole life is sustainable food and she only learned how shark fin soup is made "not long ago?" I don't buy it. But better late to the party than not at all, Alice.
Not all sharks are endangered, and if you make shark fin soup from a fish you legally caught and ate the rest of, good on you -- you used every bit. But that is rare. And sharks aren't the only fish in trouble: Here is a list of fish to avoid when you hit the fish market next. When you're there, do me a favor: Skip the shark fin.
Photo copyright 2009 Getty Images
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