The fishing industry is an exciting industry to get involved in.
This is the advice that Data Collector at the Fisheries Division, Theresa Moore sent out to the youth as she spoke with The Barbados Advocate yesterday on the sidelines of the Annual Fish Dish Competition at the Fisheries Division.
“There are quite a few opportunities within the fishing industry. I mean most people look at it and see it as being a dirty job, but you can be a fisherman, you can be a fish processor. You can add value to your fish. So it is quite an exciting area to get into.”
One aspect that they aimed to promote during the competition is the use of indigenous fish.
“We are promoting the use of local fish and so it is local fish that is appearing (in the dishes) and we try to get children to see that fish is a healthy alternative and we are trying to make fish as exciting as possible so that people can see that yes, fish can be exciting,” it was noted.
Therefore, the participating schools had the option of choosing which local fish they wanted to work with, whether it be flying fish, dolphin, tuna or shark. Some of the schools in previous years have worked with fish as wide and varied as pot fish and created unique dishes like fish wines and fish chutneys.
While noting that the calibre of the dishes presented annually are of a high quality and this year was no exception, one of the things that she would have liked to see was more schools coming on board to support the fish dish competition, since fish is an important source of protein and healthy oils.
She stated that correspondences were sent out to all of the secondary schools across the island, both the public and private schools. Some of these schools expressed an interest, but only five schools eventually registered to take part and only three of these schools actually submitted dishes, she said. These schools were St. Leonard’s Boy’s School, St. Ursula’s School and the St. Winifred’s School.
The three judges for the competition were Lionel Roberts of Lionel Sauces and Dressings; Michael Moore, an Executive Chef and Francilla Haynes who works through the National Independence Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA).
Each school was asked to bring at least three dishes. Schools can bring more dishes if they so desire, but the judges would only be judging three of them, she stated.
She said that it was this Competition which targets secondary school students, is just one of the activities that forms a part of their Fishermen Week of activities. Fishermen Week is centred around the 29th of June which is the patron day of St. Peter. It is a Caribbean wide celebration.
