Love Your CSA? Try This

CSAs are awesome. (Not sure what a CSA is? Check out our primer here.) And if you ever wished your CSA included more protein — specifically sustainable fish that you can feel really good about eating — then we have the perfect idea for you: a Community Supported Fishery (CSF)!

I honestly didn’t know about this whole concept until Sitka Salmon Shares sent me a box to try, and, well, it was love at first open.

Filled with wild-caught fish from Southeast Alaska (harvested using hook-and-line methods to minimize negative ecological impact) that’s blast-frozen (to -50 degrees F at peak freshness) and delivered straight to your door, it’s ridiculously good fish. I live in Kansas City, and let’s just say it’s hard to get fish this good and this fresh in town.

Before the grill.

After the grill.

Plus, while you do get lots of delicious, delicious salmon, you can also get other types of fish in your box. Basically, you enroll at three- to nine-month intervals, and then you get a specific selection of the species that the CSF harvests. This year, that includes wild Alaskan king salmon, sockeye salmon, coho salmon, keta salmon, lingcod, black bass, black cod, Pacific cod, yelloweye, rockfish, spot prawns, Dungeness crab, albacore tuna, and halibut. You can pay your share in full at the beginning of the season or spread out your payments through monthly installments. Prices range from $18 to $28 per pound, depending on the species you choose and the quantity you buy. So, it’s really customizable.

You can also feel really, really good about eating it. With 100 percent traceability from boat to doorstep, Sitka Salmon Shares is owned by a collective of small-scale family fishermen, all of whom retain 20 to 30 percent more of the retail value of their harvest than they would from selling to more traditional outlets. One percent of the company’s revenue is also donated back to the wild.

And did I say this fish is really, really high quality? Like, YOU CAN DO NO BETTER. The box comes with recipes and suggestions, but, in our taste tests, all we needed was a little salt and pepper or maybe some lemon pepper — and it was next level.

So flaky, so fresh, and so amazingly fishy — without being fishy tasting. (You know what we mean? You know what we mean). Just glorious!

Ever heard of a CSF before? Have you joined one? It was totally new for me, but I’m so glad I know about it and that I got to try Sitka Salmon. It might have — okay, it definitely — ruined buying most grocery store fish for me. Ha! –Jenn