Restaurant-goers no doubt will be shocked to learn that fish are sometimes mislabeled on menus. According to an expose in the Boston Globe,The rampant mislabeling of fish that consumers buy can be largely traced to this: the lack of anything like the regulations imposed on meat suppliers.OK, call me a bomb-throwing anarchist, but I'd probably trace the problem to several other factors before I called in the regulators. First, fish are known by a bewildering variety of names, so it's hardly fraud to call escolar "white tuna" if that's a common euphemism. Second, the average patron would scream and run out of the room if the fish showed up on his plate still looking like a fish. Eek! Eyes! Fins! So most of us are used to seeing our fish show up filleted and anonymous, barely identifiable as fish any more, let alone a specific species. Whose fault is that? Third, not that many palettes can distinguish one roughly similar fish from another by taste and texture. My husband can; I can't. I may need an educated palette more than I need a regulator.
So this isn't a problem I'm eager to see Congress solve. I'll all for rating agencies of the Michelin variety who are willing to award stars to restaurants who practice truth in fish, but I'm really not interested in seeing federal regulators show up to harass my local restaurateurs. If the fish isn't carrying dangerous pathogens and I can't tell the difference by eating it, then I feel I ought to be left to the task of frequenting the restaurants that do the best job of winning my confidence regarding the source of their food.
18 comments:
To my base and peasant's palette, fish within broad limits generally all taste alike--their primary purpose is to carry the sauces, creams, and breadings, which have all the flavor, to my mouth. What care I for the species I'm eating, or whether its true species matches what I'm paying for, so long as the flavor I'm experiencing is laudable?
And on that question of what I'm paying for, this is a small factor for me: cheap SOB that I am, I'm not paying much anyway.
On the matter of the safety of the food, a friend tells me a (possibly apocryphal) story of some sushi he was eating crawling off his plate. His attitude was not, "where are the inspectors?" but "if anything wants to live that badly, let it go."
Hmm--no need for regulators in here from my perspective, either. But that may be because I'm just too dumb to understand my Betters' advice.
Eric Hines
It might be fun to require restaurants to put the species scientific name on the back of the menu...
Nowadays, I rarely indulge in trading shekels for prepared meals even as I fondly recall the excellent fish houses I've frequented in the past. One of my favorites had to be a crab house on the Delmarva Peninsula where friends would meet, don the plastic ponchos, and address the meal with wooden mallets and lots of beer.
But to the point, "this isn't a problem I'm eager to see Congress solve."
Amen, and pass the fish gravy. Even if I did not personally prefer to see the whole fish, and process the meal, or enjoy the works of Walkin' Boss, or trusted friends, I would still argue against allowing yet another Federal camel's nose of regulation into what has become the woefully overrun by dromedaries tent. Particularly given the track record --dare I open that can of worms-- of the FDA, the DEA, the EPA, the SEC, the FEC, the DOE or DOE, E-I-E-I-O...
Commentary that produces a smile is most welcome Mr. Hines, so I think I'll hoist a jar of tartar in your virtual direction this evening. Salute, from one frugal fish eater to another.
I'm generally satisfied as long as the meal is correctly identified as fish, so that I can avoid it in preference to something that once knew hooves. Failing that, I'll take fowl over fish, although my wife made something that was edible enough out of some sort of fish today -- add enough onions and red pepper, garlic and sauce, and I suppose it can serve.
I do like AVI's suggestion, though. It would spur the fish-farm industry, if only so that new breeds of fish could be developed with more marketable names: Oncorhynchus Delicia, "Pleasure Trout."
"in preference to something that once knew hooves. "
Hmmm... That reminds me that is's past time to put up the seasonal lights in the back of the hovel.
Hah! Just so.
...past time to put up the seasonal lights....
Pikers. My wife got out our 6" plastic tree and put it on our mantel last night.
Our neighborhood has long since received from the city a permanent bad taste waiver for its garish seasonal lighting. DFW starts publishing NOTAMs this time of year warning flyers about the bright area below their approach routes before they turn for the runways.
Eric Hines
I can tell the different kinds of fish in sashimi, at least to the "dark meat, yellow meat, white meat, pink meat, octopus, eel, fish eggs" level. And there's shark (which shall never darken my doorstep again), salmon, tuna, and "white fish." Oh, and trout, which comes skin on and is best eaten just this side of still flopping, preferably at a small restaurant along the mid or upper Danube or Yellowstone Rivers.
The block I live on is rather staid when it comes to decorating. Most of the residents are in their 70s and 80s, and falling off the roof is rather more serious than it used to be. However, three blocks over the homeowner watched the video of "Wizards in Winter" and thought, "meh. Pikers." We don't need a NOTAM because all the air-tour guys use this place to mark the start of a looooooong right base to final, runway 17, Little Plane Airport.
LittleRed1
bthun! I was just wondering a few days ago where you've been.
Grim: "my wife made something that was edible enough out of some sort of fish today" -- I hope you expressed your appreciation in different words at the table! You're lucky the fish didn't land in your lap.
I really appreciate a Christmas display that can be detected from orbit, but I never do one myself. The tree is it. Still, I enjoy driving around to witness the wretched excess of others.
...best eaten just this side of still flopping...along the mid or upper Danube....
And they come pre-seasoned, too.
The only fish I really like is salmon, fresh from the sea. Maybe because the last time I went sea-fishing for salmon, I spent the whole 4 hours (fortunately, it was a touristy thing) chumming for the bas*rds, and now I'm having some revenge.
Eric Hines
I am perhaps fortunate in that the wife does not usually read what I write here; but we've been married long enough that I think I can safely say she would only have laughed, and taken it as a high compliment that I thought any sort of fish was edible. :)
Though I did have some fish tacos over the summer, now that I think of it, that were made with this rather delicious mango salsa. Of course, you could have left out the fish and it would have been at least as good.
Fish blindness. A sad malady.
Howdy Tex!
I've been maintaining silence about the decks for many reasons. Sulking over the state of the Union being pretty high on the list --as mammy and pappy said, if you can't say anything nice-- along with trying to, or being unable to avoid staying as busy as I can manage these days with one thing or another. In addition top the usual unexpected particulate matter to land on my shoes, we buried a very old mare last fall and had to take a young fellow over to UGA for surgery just last month. Ka-ching!
Even with being busy and trying to behave, I must admit that it is exceedingly difficult not to say something in response to such a magnificent setup as the phrase "pleasure trout" which Grim offered up a few hours ago. Particularly when one considers the most ethical Congress since the 111th is Hell-bent on Omni-busing our way to ruin even as we speak. Plus, even with Barney Frank retiring, the thoughts of Federal regulation of such commodities as "pleasure trout" is no less disturbing.
Nope, I think I'd better stick with the old names for what I throw on the grill and adhere to balancing the four major food groups in my diet... Animal, mineral, vegetable, and beer. =;^}
Animal, mineral, vegetable, and beer.
Vegetable isn't food. It's what food eats.
Eric Hines
Living fairly far inland, the only time I ate much fish was my years in Japan. Consequently, I only know most fish by their Japanese names. American fish menus are a mystery.
Except rainbow trout, which I catch myself and grill ASAP, usually right there by the river.
Pre-flavored trout is why I specified mid to upper Yellowstone and Danube. Especially now, since I wouldn't be surprised to find a few Russian dissidents in the Danube along with the odd industrial spill downstream of Vienna.
And yes, I know what fish do in water. (The punchline to my father's joke about why he's drinking beer.)
LittleRed1
This nonsense all started when some entrepreneur figured he could find a market for a trawler full of "Chilean sea bass" more readily than for one full of Patagonian toothfish...
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