Jackson Landers holds a snakehead fish, an edible species invading the Potomac (Photo: Helenah Swedburg)
What if the greatest tool in combatting environmental degradation was the fork? Aliens are on the attack all across America—but they’re not the kind for which science fiction lovers have a taste. Invasive species, also known as aliens, are non-native animals and plants that can cause harm to an ecosystem into which they’re introduced.
Jackson Landers—a Charlottesville-based journalist, teacher, and author of Eating Aliens: One Man's Adventures Hunting Invasive Animal Species— offers an intriguing alternative approach to minimizing the environmental damage of invasive species: He views them as a source of food. Landers provides an overview of the ecological and economic impact of several invasive species and how they can be transformed into legitimate (and flavorful) ingredients.
Landers evaluates impact on a species by species basis and incorporates bravely creative methods in attempts to minimize the effect of invasive species on an ecosystem. For example, hear about his adventures in conservation cuisine as he tackles crayfish in Virginia, spiny iguana in Florida and snakeheads and starlings in the Washington, D.C. area.
Landers is joined in conversation by chef and cookbook author John Shields, host of two television series on the food of the Chesapeake Bay. Shields, whose restaurant Gertrude’s at the Baltimore Museum of Art spotlights Chesapeake cuisine, provides a food professional’s perspective on the region’s invasive species, and offers his take on a taste of an invasive species in our local area.
Smithsonian Connections
What’s on the menu when restaurants include invasive plant and animal species among their ingredients? Inventive items including dandelion-sage cocktails, Thai-style fried lionfish, invasive white perch tacos, Asian carp burgers, dandelion beure blanc, and sauces with the zing of alliaria (invasive garlic mustard). Smithsonian.com reports on the national culinary trend.
