‘Flat is Back’ campaign hopes to put flounder back on people’s plates

Aperol spritzes. Dubai chocolate. Dill pickle, well, everything. Thanks to Instagram and TikTok, food trends have never been more of-the-moment, with even seemingly mundane ingredients like cottage cheese enjoying a sudden resurgence.

Why not the flounder?

The first-of-its-kind “Flat is Back” campaign, spearheaded by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, aims to build buzz around the plentiful yet underutilized flatfish called flounder, better connecting what fishermen already catch to what ends up on consumers’ plates. The hoped-for result would be a more economically and environmentally sustainable fisheries model, MassDMF Director Dan McKiernan — one he plans to replicate for all kinds of underappreciated fish.

But first, customers have to bite.

In 2023, over three-fourths of all seafood Americans consumed came from just 10 species, with shrimp, salmon, and canned tuna topping the list. In general, American diners tend to consume fewer species of fish than Europeans and Asians, McKiernan said. That can drive up demand for a few key species while leaving plenty of other fish in the sea.

Cod, for example, remains one of the most popular catches, even after its numbers have drastically declined. Flounder, on the other hand, is abundant and cheap.

“We hope that this program can help people get an appreciation for some of the other species of fish, so that seafood can be, surprisingly, fun,” McKiernan said.

Flat is beautiful

In August, MassDMF rolled out the Massachusetts Flounder Chef Council, a highly specialized team tasked with developing recipes that show off the flounder’s best angles. Chefs could choose any species of flounder that spoke to them — it just has to be flat.

The Council includes 10 chefs from across the Commonwealth, concentrated in Boston and along the coastline. Servedwell Hospitality chef Josh Riazi, the mind behind menus at The Black Whale, Candela Cucina, The National Club and more, is the sole South Coast representative.

As a flatfish, flounder spend most of their time horizontal on the ocean floor, aided by two eyes pointing up at the ocean’s surface. (When summer flounder are hatched, they have one left eye and one right eye. Over time, the right eye migrates to the left side of its head.) Summer flounder get their name because they move further inshore in the warmer months and go offshore to spawn in the fall and winter. They’re also called the “chameleons of the sea” because, aside from burying their flat bodies in the sand, they evade predators by changing colors.

Flounder filets are mild and tender, but also thin and delicate, making them easier to overcook than, say, a thick slab of salmon, Riazi said. It doesn’t help that different types of flounder can show up on menus and at fish markets as lemon sole, gray sole, Dover sole, summer flounder, winter flounder, and witch flounder, among other monikers.

When flounder does show up as an entrée, it’s often in a high-priced dish such as the French sole meunière, Riazi added, which doesn’t really make sense for the otherwise abundant, affordable fish.

“It’s a really delicious, beautiful fish that can be prepared in a way that’s great and special if you put a lot of technique into it,” Riazi said, “but it doesn’t tend to populate menus the same way that salmon or swordfish or cod do.”

At The Black Whale, Riazi serves a baked stuffed sole in the style of the traditional New England comfort food. In Riazi’s version, the thin filets get wrapped around a crab filling and baked in seafood cream sauce. The species also does well as a crudo, he said, or even grilled whole, since the fish’s flat body makes it easier to debone.

Since coming onto the menu, Riazi’s stuffed sole has punched far above its weight, Servedwell Hospitality owner Steve Silverstein said, selling consistently at a low cost to the restaurant. In fact, the dish sells so well he isn’t sure if “Flat” ever left.

“I don’t know the need for this whole campaign,” Silverstein said.

But McKiernan hopes consumers get inspired to take flounder home with them, too.

“A lot of folks, when they have a good meal in a restaurant, if they have some cooking skills themselves, that will inspire them to cook something similar,” McKiernan said. “And so that would be a great outcome … for a home chef to be brave enough or interested enough to try these things.”

Hip to be flat

Although Riazi’s stuffed sole may sell like codcakes, not every seafood consumer is dying for a bite of flatfish — yet.

Young people seem less familiar with the two-dimensional treat, McKiernan said, perhaps due to long periods when the species’ fishing quotas were low, and restaurants pivoted towards more readily available fare.

To make his point, McKiernan asked me how old I was. “I’m 29,” I replied, which is still considered young in some circles.

“When was the last time you cooked flounder?” he asked.

“I don’t know if I ever have,” I said.

“I rest my case, your Honor.”

McKiernan is hopeful, however, that the kids will soon clamor for flounder.

The Division of Marine Fisheries hired the public relations firm 44 Communications to manage and track social media promotion for the “Flat is Back” campaign, since McKiernan admittedly spends more time looking at fish stock data than Instagram reels. One week from the campaign’s launch, the state agency’s social media posts about flounder received 14,000 views, an increase of nearly 700% from their average engagement.

In August’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission meeting, MassDMF seafood marketing coordinator Wendy Wills suggested putting flounder in Massachusetts public schools. Vendors in the past have put less-flashy species in school cafeteria fish sticks, Wills explained, and the deadline to apply for a state contract is coming up.

“The kids go nuts for it,” she said.

McKiernan even touted flounder’s macronutrients, noting that protein seemed to be trendy among the younger folk these days. A 100-calorie serving of flounder packs 20 grams of protein and very little saturated fat — making it more protein-rich than cottage cheese and lower-cal than beef.

Making the world flat

On Sept. 14, the Massachusetts Flounder Chef Council hosted a tasting event at Boston Fish Pier to showcase its different flounder creations, available on menus through Sept. 30.

But how can you keep the flounder party going?

One reason flounder may play second fiddle to farmed fish like Norwegian salmon and Icelandic cod is that it’s only available seasonally, Riazi said. The Black Whale chef already tries to incorporate local and seasonal ingredients in his dishes, but it requires customers to look out for these offerings on the specials menu — and be OK if it disappears in the depths of winter.

“We have local strawberries available, but only at a certain point of year,” Riazi said. “And they’re really amazing and really delicious at that point, but when you go to the grocery store, you’re just used to seeing strawberries all the time.”

Even with these caveats, just adding the word “local” to a menu item tends to help it sell better, Riazi said, and flounder is no different. Riazi and Silverstein are also always looking for more fish species to add to their menus, they said.

Other species may soon be getting the “Flat is Back” treatment. The New Bedford Port Authority received a $250,000 state grant to promote local scallops and recently put out a bid to hire a marketing firm. Silverstein said he’s heard a lot about pollock, another plentiful yet lesser known whitefish that’s already finding a home in restaurant fish and chips.

By purchasing these smaller-market fish, McKiernan said consumers help stabilize fish prices and give fishermen greater options over what they can go out and catch. It’s a small part of a larger “fish to table” movement that food advocates hope will make seafood cheaper and more accessible while still supporting smaller local fishermen.

Liz Wiley, the executive director of the food sustainability nonprofit the Marion Institute, said seafood sustainability is particularly important in New Bedford, where a majority of the nation’s seafood lands, but few residents have direct access to fishermen’s catch. (In 2023, over $13 million worth of groundfish, a category that includes flounder, haddock, halibut, and cod, landed in New Bedford.)

“We had restaurants say it’s easier for them to go to Point Judith to get access to local fish than it is to go to New Bedford Harbor,” Wiley said. “And it’s the same issue we see everywhere … it’s a global over local supply chain.”

That supply chain is fine if you want strawberries year-round, but it’s also less resilient to disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and war, Wiley said.

Some initiatives like the Community Supported Fishery, a co-op for local seafood run by the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, and the Chatham Harvesters Cooperative, attempt to bridge the gap between fishermen and consumers, but both serve more affluent areas.

Still, Wiley does see a world in which there’s a flounder on every table, a pollock, monkfish, or dogfish in every pot.

“I’m always advocating for people to use their voice,” Wiley said. “Going into your local seafood shop and asking for what is local is important, asking, when you go out to eat, if it’s local and sustainably caught. These are all things that people can really do.”

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Editor’s note: Steve Silverstein is a New Bedford Light donor and a member of its Advisory Council. The Light’s newsroom is scrupulously independent. Only the editors decide what to cover and what to publish. Founders, funders and board or advisory members have no influence over editorial content.

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This story was originally published by The New Bedford Light and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.