'Small Boats Big Taste' is a huge success
A new documentary celebrates an amazing response to COVID -- that carries on
“Small Boats Big Taste” has a nice ring to it. It’s also one of my most satisfying accomplishments.
When COVID struck, the remarkable team at Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen's Alliance wanted two things:
Keep fishermen working on the water as the economy and markets collapsed.
Feed friends and neighbors worried about where their next meals might come from.
My idea (OK, bragging here) was to use great local fish to create chowders and stew, nutritious meals that need nothing more than a hot plate or microwave to serve (important if someone happens to be without a kitchen, for example in a motel room). “Small Boats Big Taste” became the name, a play on the Alliance’s longtime tag, “Small Boats Big Ideas.”
Local food mavens helped craft recipes heavy on fish or clams, no thickeners, no preservatives. The chowders became classic New England, milk based, the stew set in tomato broth (good for lactose intolerance), lots of veggies, piquant. 18-ounce containers seemed like a good size to send into the world, two or three cupfulls per.
Nearly two million servings have been distributed across Cape Cod and Massachusetts via food banks and pantries as well as local partners like Cape Abilities, Barnstable County, the Family Pantry of Cape Cod, Helping Our Women, with support from Cape Cod Health Care Foundation, Seaside Lemans … the list goes on. Amazing off-Cape support arrived from a family foundation run by a member of the Walton family (as in Walmart), The Greater Boston Food Bank, MIT’s Sea Grant Program, and the Massachusetts legislature’s Emergency Food Assistance Program (MEFAP).
Haddock, skate, and clams in nutritious frozen meals come from small-boat, independent, local and regional fishermen. All processing takes place in Massachusetts by family-owned companies. The chowders and stew also are created in Massachusetts, again by a family-owned business.
When Truro filmmaker and old friend Mark Birnbaum heard about this, he fired up his camera and editing equipment, tracing concept to million-dollar enterprise, creating a 26-minute documentary: “Small Boats Big Taste: How a Community Combated COVID.”
I’m prejudiced, but I think it’s great. To see for yourself, click on this link:
Our hope at the Alliance is that “Small Boats Big Taste” will continue to grow, diversify, and take a place in local groceries and fish retailers, even supermarket chains.
In the meantime, if you want to try some amazing haddock chowder, clam chowder, or fish (skate) stew, and don’t mind swinging by the Alliance’s home in Chatham (a handsome sea captain’s house) to pick up a case or two, here’s how to order:
Pick up some chowder and stew!
I guarantee you’ll like what you taste — or double your chowder back.
I also guarantee your purchase will support ongoing effort to build a healthier, sustaining community, connecting fishing fleet to food banks, docks (and loading docks) to families and kitchen tables.
And on that note, I’ll stop bragging.
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Fabulous! I had no idea this was going. For Cape residents another good thing to come to us because of Covid is the direct market of fish right off the boats. I was an early customer of The Midnight Our, out of Wychmere Harbor, for their amazing scallops. Their customer base has really grown, and it never ceases to thrill me to drive up to the boat to pick them up.