Instructions
I’m not usually one to blush, but I do have a confession to make.
I went to an adult show the other day.
It was my first time and I felt awfully embarrassed. Dressed in my waterproof trenchcoat I was coy, unsettled, and extremely ill at ease. Until the action started, that is!!!
Boy oh boy, were they going for it or what! There’s been no hotter scenes since Demi Moore got down and dirty with the clay in Ghost. I was getting pretty hot under the collar myself, I must say.
Did I mention that I was at a tuna farm? It’s probably important.
Port Lincoln on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula is the heartland of the Australian tuna industry. You’ll find Dean Lukin (the great weightlifter) and Tony Santic (owner of Makybe Diva) working the boats as the slithering masses of yellow-finned gold slide onto the decks.
There’s great money in tuna, but unfortunately it’s an industry in peril.
Taiwanese (and other) fishing fleets routinely breach their international agreements on quotas, and as such the International Fisheries Council recently was forced to cut the world catch by 30% in a desperate effort to avoid the collapse of tuna biomass.
The brightest minds in fisheries, however, are not prepared to take the gamble and have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into tuna aquaculture in an attempt to ensure production into the future. This project centres on convincing broodstock of tuna to mate in captivity and yield hatchlings sufficiently strong to be released into open water pens. The outcomes to date? They’re promising, and this could well be the year that the problem is cracked.
So that was the show, a bunch of 180kg tuna getting in on in a tank. It’s not quite jelly wrestling, but it certainly is equally exciting.
So next time you’re chowing down on a piece of delicious South Australian tuna, say a little thanks to the hardworking men and women of our seafood frontier. It’s their dedication to excellence and their genuine regard for our environment for which we should be most grateful.
As for cooking the tuna, well, it’s kind of like the show. Make it sizzling hot, and try not to let it last too long. The results will have your groaning with pleasure! Oooooh, lah, lah.
Tonno tonnato