Seafood Made Simple: Barton Seaver’s Mission to Get America Cooking Fish

-Barton Seaver, Seafood Evangelist

Silver-tongued and handsome as the devil, chef-author-activist Barton Seaver just might be America’s most articulate seafood evangelist. After a decade of championing sustainable seafood, he is on a crusade to give people “permission” to fall in love with seafood. And knowing Barton, that permission will be granted.

For years, Barton Seaver has been all about sustainable seafood. Carefully sourced, sustainably caught and raised. Certified and categorized. Studied and secured. He’s been a good steward of our oceans and a staunch protector of the well-being of the fishing industry. But recently, his focus has evolved to becoming broader and simpler: encouraging all of us to cook and eat more seafood. Creating go-to seafood dishes that make dinner a snap and seafood “an easy what’s for dinner” option instead of a category of proteins best left to professional chefs.

Barton emphasizes that his goal as a chef and author today is simple: to give people permission to love seafood. He aims to counteract the confusing and often negative messaging surrounding sustainable seafood choices. He’s no less a champion of sustainability than he has ever been, but he wants us all to lighten up, to think of seafood––fresh or frozen, farmed or wild-caught–– as an easy everyday alternative to chicken or beef. I think of his current push as an excellent example of the perfect not being the enemy of the good. That, while important, many of our collective efforts towards tracing and certifying fish and fishermen have spooked too many home cooks away from learning to cook and happily serve seafood at home. “I just want everyone to think of seafood as their go-to dinner.”

Seaver grew up in an international neighborhood in Washington, D.C. and absorbed early the joy and pride that his multinational neighbors had for their native foods. He was hooked early on food and cooking to create community. Becoming a chef was a natural direction to take. Right out of culinary school, he launched several successful restaurants based in D.C. (A first job was with Chef José Andres!) Seaver, always someone with a deep social conscience, dove deeply into the issues of sustainable seafood, rapidly becoming a renowned seafood chef and acknowledged activist. His 2010 TED Talk went viral (Sustainable Seafood: Let’s Get Smart.) He became a Fellow at the Blue Ocean Institute, linking the environmental community with real-life, delicious applications of an eco-friendly ethic, and ever since then, he has been working with large corporations, hospitals, universities, and consumers, nudging all towards a more responsible and sustainable sourcing ethic.

Along the way, Seaver has been a prolific cookbook writer (13 books and counting) and became a National Geographic Explorer—traveling the world to study fisheries and seafood. After a fascinating tenure at the Harvard Institute for Health and the Global Environment, Seaver and his family moved to the coast of Maine to raise their two young sons. They live a block from an active fishing harbor.

Over time, his perspective has become more nuanced. “So much of the work around sustainable seafood for decades has been about exonerating various products within a guilty-before-proven-innocent category. Sustainability was a worthy place to start. But the time has come for us to use seafood to address larger issues,” he says. “While there is yet much to fix in our seafood system, it’s now time to use seafood to fix people. And to figure out how to use seafood to feed the next population explosion.”

Seaver clearly cares about the quality of the seafood we eat, but he is less focused on the certifications and caveats that make the simple act of buying seafood a fraught decision. “Today, so much has gone right. There are many creative and powerful new advances in our stewardship of the seafood system.”

Barton strongly advocates for frozen seafood, highlighting its often-superior freshness compared to “fresh” fish due to advancements in freezing technology near the point of capture. (“Often fresher than the ‘fresh fish’ in the supermarket case,” he says.) He hails the other benefits of frozen seafood, including reduced waste, convenience, and price stability for both consumers and fishermen. “It’s a win for public health,” he says.

He also sees innovation sparking today’s aquaculture producers as they develop fish feed derived from algae and sugar cane to reduce environmental impact, and he eagerly describes strategies for better ways to reduce food waste and create new jobs in aquaculture. “Seafood can become the missing link in the circular economy,” he says. “There is a movement to engage in workforce development and getting people coming from more backgrounds involved in the sustainable revolution—back to their rightful places, on the water.”

In early fall 2025, with co-author and fellow chef (and longtime activist) Andrew Zimmern, Barton Seaver will be debuting a new cookbook commissioned by the nonprofit Fed by Blue. It’s called Hope in the Water, The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Seafood Recipes for a Sustainable Future. It will be stocked with detailed information about how to identify great quality seafood, select items for a well-stocked pantry, and a thorough overview of seafood preparation and cooking techniques. Rest assured, seafood will be your new “what’s for dinner.”

Barton Seaver is also an excellent teacher whose recipes make fish for dinner a snap. Here’s a new technique for a simple dinner of Slow Roasted Salmon—also a great way to prepare any flaky pink or white fish. And for a special treat, serve it with a compound seaweed butter.

As a special time-saving tip, this technique works well with frozen, pre-portioned fish—just be careful to add a few minutes to the cooking time and check for “flakiness”!

By Louisa Kasdon is the cofounder and president of the Food Voice and the founder of Let’s Talk About Food an advocacy and engagement organization. She’s a longtime journalist with over 600 published articles focusing on food, health, and lifestyle.