While the main course in the twitterverse these past days has most certainly been a sous vide serving of smoked cheddar and municipal gravy at the home of Toronto's Mayor Ford, simmering below was a heated course of seal carpacio and frozen fish. Not to be lost in a sea of crack pipes, senate scandals and a blue screen of death on Obamacare websites, the most influential chefs in America took to the social media to rattle them sabres over those adorable little shark baits, the seals.
The saga began with a collection of well intentioned but short sighted chefs, lending their names to a Chefs For Seals campaign aimed at the Seal Hunt in Canada. Picture Kony 2012, but with shaved truffle. Problem was, instead of attacking the Seal Hunt, Chefs For Seals was taking aim at the Canadian Fishing industry. Eerily reminiscent of imprecise stat sheet of the American Drone attacks in Yemen. This little self righteous soap box also seemed not at all concerned with separating the commercial seal hunt from the Inuit and the way they survive and feed themselves living in the frozen desert they call home. Finally, the campaign also chose that most cowardly and ineffective of attacks, the boycott. Who needs DOING SOMETHING for a cause, when we can pat ourselves on the back for doing nothing? Action is so difficult when you are busy launching your new cookbook. The opposite though...what a great way to callously take food from the tables of complete strangers whilst giving a happy ending to your own special feeling of moral authority.
Anthony Bourdain was quick to apply his brand of common sense to all the seal pup hyperbole. He went to great length to point out that the seal hunt was a more complex issue than the simplistic campaign would have you believe. The Inuit literally depend on this hunt for their lives. Hard to sell the plight of those who live in the Tundra without knowing the comfort of a Canada Goose jacket against the optics of baby seals being clubbed to death by a commercial hunt. Canadian Chefs such as Michael Smith, Todd Perrin and others joined the response by pointing out that taking food off the tables of Canadian FISHERMEN has very little to do with the indiscretions of sealers. This wouldn't be so different from boycotting USDA Beef in response to the murder of innocent Muslims in American drone attacks.
A few chefs even managed to listen, asking to be removed from the Chefs For Seals campaign on the grounds that the issue was more complex than they first thought. Others, though drew their lines in the sand of the cowardly and misinformed. Cathal Armstrong, from that hub of progressive thinking, Virginia, insisted that their cause was just, and that until every baby seal has received reparations for the centuries of abuse, there was certainly no Canadian Cod to be served in his cotton-picking restaurant.
And so here we are, the line it is drawn, the curse it is cast. #SupportCanadianSeafood is now trending. But rather than fanning the flamewar by calling for the boycott of the restaurants of these misinformed and self-righteous Chefs For Seals, I'd rather see a response more fitting of the activist, rather than the coward. Don't boycott Mario Batali. Go to his restaurants, bring 6 friends, and DEMAND Canadian seafood. When they deny you this, simply shrug it off, order some tap water and a small french fries for the table, and spend 90 minutes in their valuable real estate spending no more than $10. Boycotts are for cowards. How did all them Olympic boycotts fare back in the day? I promise you more was changed by Jesse Owens embracing Hitler's finest than anything that was achieved during Cold War boycotts (medal landslides notwithstanding). Bars on Church Street not serving Stoli wont make a lick of difference next to gays and straight folk alike going to Sochi and getting all rainbows and hand-holding in the face of Senor Putin. Maybe I'm just a punk rock romantic, but for my money, action takes the cake over inaction, any day. Lets show the Chefs For Seals that it kind of sucks when you cant feed your family because someone you have never met has decided to wage an ideological war. Take their tables and spend NO MONEY. DO SOMETHING. SUPPORT CANADIAN SEAFOOD. OCCUPY THE SELF RIGHTEOUS!
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