A voyage around the north sea in search of Sustainable fish, food and traditions

This is the story of a culinary quest through three unique regions of Europe—Scandinavia, known for its fierce seafaring history, through the Low Countries, where great river deltas shape earth and sea, and onto the indominable spirit of the United Kingdom.

Linked by the waters they all share, these regions have something else in common: waning fisheries and fading traditions. With an appetite for sustainable fish and personal stories, photographer Joseph Puglisi and sustainable food blogger Jennifer Schleber, take an Odyssean voyage around the North Sea to preserve fish and culture.

Expeditions with sturdy fishers, meals with generous grandmas and tales from local legends combine to draw a textured mosaic of the various customs surrounding the northern coast of Europe. Visiting kitchens from Norway to Belgium, stacks of smoking fishing from Sweden to Scotland, and fish mongers from Holland to Denmark, the two bring forth folk wisdom subsuming into the past, fish disappearing from the waters, and time-honored recipes at risk of extinction.

Filled with unexcepted encounters and shared meals in charming sand-bathed villages, Preserving the North Sea aims to be more than a travelogue or cookbook. Blending striking photography and food, it becomes something wholly original, a biography of the sea itself: people, recipes and spirit.