[1] In the Concord Monitor today:

It’s that time of the year when our chickens start producing eggs with orange yolks. That’s because our chickens love the tiny bright coral-colored shells of Pandalus borealis - a.k.a. northern pink or Maine shrimp - as much as we love the tender, sweet flesh inside them. The best things about these tiny crustaceans (besides their great flavor), is that they’re just about the only shrimp you can buy that are harvested both sustainably and locally.

Though you might find the larger shrimp imported from Asia appealing, keep in mind that shrimp farming in places like Vietnam has wiped out huge swaths of traditional rice paddies, as well as fragile wild ecosystems like mangrove swamps. Too, these shrimp have to travel thousands of miles and many days to reach U.S. markets and are likely to have been frozen.

Northern shrimp, on the other hand, are, for the most part, harvested with trawlers that have been redesigned in recent years so they don’t do as much harm to the fish stocks as the old-style trawlers did. And because they’re caught off the New England coast, the fresh shrimp can reach local markets quickly.

[2] read the full article >