Chef Chris Cosentino holds a fresh-caught giant Humboldt
squid.
Chris Cosentino
and Manfred Wrembel stand on the rocking stern of the Huli
Cat, a 53-foot fishing charter. Cosentino is back after a week away
from his San Francisco restaurant, Incanto, filming the second
season of his now canceled reality show, Chefs vs. City.
He’s jet-lagged and squirrelly, and his bleached-blond faux-hawk,
normally moussed to attention, has gone limp.
Wrembel, his
sous-chef, briefs Cosentino on what has been happening at their
restaurant, Incanto, while he was gone. “Last night was the chicken
livers,” Wrembel reports, between drags on a Marlboro. “They came
out really good.”
The chefs are headed out to the open ocean on a hunt for the
giant Humboldt squid. Ten years ago, the beasts were confined to
Mexico’s west coast, but ocean waters warmed by climate change are
believed to have lured them north. Here, off the Northern
California coast, the Humboldt have found a whole ocean largely
fished out of predators like bluefin tuna and salmon.
Humboldt spawn quickly and eat voraciously. By some estimates,
there are now tens of millions of them in the northern Pacific, all
intent on devouring some of the fishing industry’s smaller
traditional catch, like hake and anchovies. It’s a big problem that
moves up the food chain and could impact greater varieties of
seafood.
“Squid is now the dominant species in the Pacific,” Cosentino
says. “The waters have changed.”
To him, assigning blame — to global warming or unsustainable
fishing practices — seems beside the point.
“The question is,” Cosentino says of the big squid, “what do we
do to stop them?” He thinks the answer is obvious: “We eat
them!”
Cosentino strips rotator blades from a giant Humboldt squid's
tentacles.
Cosentino serves giant Humboldt squid as a confit at his San
Francisco restaurant, Incanto.
