Harrowsmith – June 2019

Harrowsmith Summer 2019 | 71

Fish Tails and Walleye Wings

Chef Jay Barnard of Freshwater Cuisine in Kenora, Ontario,

leaves no fishbone unturned when it comes to whole-fish dining.

BY CATALINA MARGULIS

I

t’s hard to believe that Canada is

one of the worst food wasters in

the world. And yet, a 2017 report

released by the Commission for

Environmental Cooperation found

that, when including all stages of

the food supply chain—from the

farm all the way through processing

and distribution to food service and

retail—396 kg (873 pounds) of food

per capita is wasted in Canada

every year.

Nose to tail—in which every part

of an animal is used—could be seen

as the restaurant industry’s answer

to making a dent in that shocking

statistic. It’s a culinary trend

that has grown in recent years,

expanding in popularity alongside

locally sourced ingredients and

farm-to-table menus. Ontario chef

Jay Barnard has his own nose-to-

tail philosophy, this time involving

freshwater fish.

“The cool thing about us is
we’re using 100 percent of the
fish,” says Barnard of his young
Kenora, Ontario, freshwater-fish-
processing business, Freshwater
Cuisine (freshwatercuisine.com),
which focuses on adding value to
underused freshwater fish, as well
as using a greater percentage of the
fish than regular processors.
Whereas the industry standard
APPLE WAGON FILMS is to fillet the fish and discard