Fresh Coast Fish

Linking Alaska and the Midwest: Sitka Salmon

Marsh Skeele was born to two commercial fishermen. His mom was pregnant with him when she was halibut fishing off of the coast of Alaska.

“As soon as I was able-bodied age, 11 or 12,” says Marsh. “I was on the boat the whole summer with my dad. I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Eventually he began to seek/sought an alternative to commercial fishing.

“You put all this work in to have a beautiful fish and then it’s a commodity,” says Marsh. “I wanted to share that beautiful piece of fish with somebody and have them be excited about it.”

He co-founded Sitka Salmon Shares with UW-Madison graduate Nic Mink. Their goal is to connect small-scale fishermen with Midwesterners. It was a natural fit for Sitka Salmon Shares to start in Madison — a strong food community that cares about supporting the right kind of fishing and agriculture — before expanding to other cities.

They offer monthly subscriptions, or shares, of frozen fish. Don’t let the name fool you — Sitka Salmon Shares dishes out way more than salmon. The 2021 catch included Alaska king salmon, sockeye salmon, coho salmon, keta salmon, lingcod, black rockfish, sablefish (black cod), Pacific cod, yelloweye, rockfish, bairdi crab, Dungeness crab, albacore tuna, and halibut. All of their fish is wild- caught in Alaska, except for the albacore tuna — which comes from off the coast of Washington and Oregon. The fish isIt’s then frozen to maintain its freshness and transported throughout the country.

“What we’re looking for in our sourcing is minimal impact on the environment,” says Skeel. “So making sure we’re not taking all of the fish in the harvest and that what is harvested isn’t detrimental to the environment as well.”

Sitka strives to be transparent about their sourcing. They built a rubric of seafood sustainability to rate all of the different factors that go into a seafood choice. It includes where the fish is harvested, the gear used, how much bycatch there is, the type of fish, if the fish is endangered, and the socioeconomic impact of fishing the species.

“It’s better to support a bunch of domestic fishermen,” Marsh says, “than a multinational company that consolidated a bunch of fishing rights.”

One-time boxes or monthly subscriptions are available. Newly added winter subscriptions start January 2022. SitkaSalmonShares.com.

A Local Fish Market: Berke & Benham

Coral wallpaper hangs on the back wall of a shop on Monroe Street. Handwritten signs denote seafood types and origins.

Jim Berke is the owner and founder of Berke & Benham, a new fish market located next to Brasserie V on Monroe Street. He and wife Kate Spring wanted an old-fashioned name; Berke is his last name and Benham is the maiden name of Kate’s grandmother.

“We were trying to honor both families as well as have an old-school fish house feel,” Jim says.

Jim grew up in a family business and wanted to offer that legacy to the next generation. Memories of fishing with friends and family as a child, coupled with a desire to get out of a sales marketing career in Chicago led him to pursue working with fish full-time.

“I still remember the first time I went fishing with my dad and my younger brother,” he says. “It was a little pond down the street from my house near where I grew up in the northwestern suburbs of Illinois. It’s a bonding moment between parents, and a child or friends. It really stuck with me.”

Jim started delivering fish to many of Chicago’s great hotels, restaurants and country clubs while working for Wabash Seafood. The experience of working with chefs and seeing a variety of preparations helps him educate Berke & Benham customers about home cooking possibilities.

“I find that consumers are starving for information about how they can really highlight the fish,” Jim says. “(Sharing new recipes) really sparks some ideas about what they can do with seafood instead of taking salmon and throwing it on the grill with some olive oil and thinking that’s good enough.”

During the pandemic, Jim and Kate moved from Chicago to a farm in Mount Vernon. Jim’s new role as a full-time fishmonger allows him to dig into sustainable sourcing.

“I love fish, seafood, and our waterways,” Jim says. “I’m interested in how they affect us, how we affect them, and how we can always do better.”

Jim wants people to try different varieties of fish, including invasive species, and to consider how they are caught.

“On the Great Lakes, the Asian carp are a huge issue for us,” he says. “Most people have heard about them. They’re excellent smoked, so it’s a matter of having people go fishing for them and creating an economy around it. Eating those fish is a way to control their population.”

In addition to eating invasive species, building a market for lesser-known fish is key to minimizing waste in our food system.

“There’s still a fair amount of bycatch in the world,” Jim says. “So I ask my suppliers, ‘What’s happening to that bycatch? Is it just being tossed overboard as total waste or is it being saved and offered up as ‘alternative’ fish?’”

Customers relish in the variety of fresh- and saltwater fish offered at Berke & Benham. Wild-caught fish from the coasts and Great Lakes, and farmed fish from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Canada are for sale.

“Many people think that you can’t get fresh saltwater fish in the Midwest very easily,” Jim says. “That might have been true 20 to 30 years ago when logistics and refrigeration were different. Nowadays, I can get fish from Maine that were out of the water for a day and a half delivered to me directly.”

Most customers cook the fish they buy the same day. Jim hopes to offer wine, beer and Wisconsin-made dried goods in the future so customers can make one stop after work to create a delicious meal.

“I hope that people feel like they can ask questions and get them answered honestly with good information,”Jim says.

Bering Bounty

Wisconsin fisherman Mark McKeown founded Bering Bounty in 2008. Fish are wild-caught from the Bering Sea, then processed and frozen in Alaska. Species include sockeye, coho, king, pink and keta salmon, cod, sole and halibut.

“I have had the immense privilege of crewing and skippering all along the grand Aleutians. Having fished out of Dutch Harbor for many seasons, I have a few hair-raising stories from the ‘cradle of storms’, the Bering Sea,” says Mark. “But perhaps the most important story is that of sustainability, as the thought of the loss of these epic fish is truly terrifying.”

The Conscious Carnivore on University Avenue sells Bering Bounty's king salmon. Business manager Bartlett Durand refers to it as the go-to for salmon lovers.

"We're all about local foods in Wisconsin," says Bartlett. "If there's a way to do ocean fish as a Wisconsin product, if you will, he's doing it. I'm crazy about where Captain Mark fishes, how he fishes, the product he's getting out of it, and the stories about how he treats his crew."

Find their wild fish at Conscious Carnivore and at restaurants and markets throughout southwest Wisconsin. Individuals can also get fish delivered directly to their home, year-round and free of charge with no long-term sign-up.

beringbounty.com @beringbounty

Eat Wisconsin Fish

The Eat Wisconsin Fish project links consumers to Wisconsin fish producers and markets. Their list of commercial fishers and farms that raise fish using aquaponics or ponds includes species available and contact information. The project is sponsored by the Wisconsin Sea Grant at UW-Madison, which fosters the “wise use, conservation and sustainable development of Great Lakes and coastal resources.”