Oregonians love local food, but finding truly local fish can be hard, even on the coast. We’re now much more aware of ethically grown meat and vegetables, but seafood remains somewhat mysterious. How does that crab get from the ocean to our table, and what’s the true cost of cheap salmon at the grocery store? This conversation with food writer Jennifer Burns Bright engages with our complex relationship with American seafood. From cultural traditions to economic and ethical challenges, from the docks to the markets, we’ll explore ways to apply our food values to the products of the sea.

*This will be part conversational roundtable and part lecture.

About the Speaker:

Jennifer Burns Bright is a food and travel writer based in Port Orford, Oregon. She moved to the coast to write about seafood after many years teaching food studies and literature at the University of Oregon, where she researched desire in twentieth-century literature, led a faculty research group in the emerging discipline of food studies, and won a national pedagogy award for a team-taught, interdisciplinary class on bread. She holds a PhD from the University of California at Irvine and a Master Food Preserver certification. As a community organizer linking local producers and consumers, Bright often speaks and teaches at events. When she's not out gathering seaweed or smoking black cod, she might be found judging culinary masterpieces or interviewing luminaries in the food world.