June 1, 2006 Issue

A recent article in the Fort Walton Beach newspaper focused on the problem of deception in the seafood industry. A seafood dealer had been arrested by federal agents for selling millions of pounds of mislabeled fish. What the dealer offered as fresh grouper turned out to be fresh water, farm-raised catfish from Vietnam. Frozen.

The writer of the article interviewed me on the subject of honesty in seafood because we have had a wholesale seafood market for almost 25 years. He asked me how could the consumer be sure he was getting what he thought he was getting when purchasing seafood.

The best way to keep from being taken advantage of in the purchasing of seafood is to use common sense. The Vietnamese “Grouper” was selling for $2.90 a pound for filets. Our market pays commercial fishermen more than that for head-on fish. By the time the fish is cleaned we have $8 a pound in the grouper filets. Our fish comes from the Gulf of Mexico; theirs doesn’t.

I was asked how a person dining out could be comfortable in knowing the fish advertised on a restaurant menu would be the fish prepared by the kitchen and brought to the table.

In some instances it is difficult to know. Most people can tell the difference in yellow fin tuna and swordfish and triggerfish. But can they tell the difference in locally caught amberjack and mahi from Venezuela? It is particularly hard to discern the difference when the fish is double battered, fried and covered with tartar sauce and coleslaw on a sandwich.

Twenty years ago an emergency room doctor mentioned to me the increasing number of patients the hospital kept getting after the patients dined at a popular area restaurant. I downplayed the news because of people’s tendency to incorrectly associate a 24-hour stomach virus with food poisoning from the last meal they had. Yet sure enough a week later the restaurant was checked by the FDA and found to have thousands of pounds of frozen amberjack that was, or should have been, inedible. The fish had been imported from Africa and had so much nitrate powdered on the fish it literally “burned to the touch.” The fish was donated to the prison system. The authorities refused to serve the fish to the prisoners, however the fish was allowed to be fed to the hogs at the prison farm, but only after being boiled.

How can a person best avoid a situation like this? Common sense could help. If you want fresh seafood go to a restaurant as close to where the commercial boats unload their catch as possible. This still won’t guarantee you are going to get fresh caught fish, but it will help. Also, the farther you get from the source of seafood, the less likely you are to find fresh fish. Seafood is air freighted around the world now, but my suggestion would be that if you are in Chicago or Kansas City, eat a cow or a pig. While technically a filet of fish could have been caught in Chile and boxed and freighted to Miami and then to Chicago and could have done all this without ever having been frozen; I’m going to let you eat that piece of mahi. I’ll have the ribeye.

Stay away from chain or corporate restaurants. Red Lobster is not the place to go for fresh gulf seafood. Bonefish Grill, owned by Outback Steak, is named after a fish that isn’t even edible. Landry’s and Joe’s Crab Shack are just upscale versions of Captain D’s.

Eat what is local. We get calls all the time from people requesting snow crabs or king crab legs or Dungeness crabs. We don’t grow those in the Gulf of Mexico. They come from the Pacific Ocean, and they are a great tasting product. But you need to eat them a little closer to where they come from. We have blue crabs here and that’s what we serve.

Don’t look for bargains with seafood. You generally get what you pay for. If a fried grouper sandwich costs less than $9 I don’t want it. A place that offers all you-can-eat boiled shrimp, or crab legs, or whatever for $10 doesn’t have to worry about me eating anything.

Fresh gulf seafood is a bargain at any price. I have watched the small commercial fleet in our area for 30 years. The regulations and requirements and inspections these people endure are ridiculous. Wandering through the bureaucratic mess fishermen must deal with requires a double major in law and biology. In addition to having one of the most dangerous professions they also have one of the most frustrating. Against all laws of economics, fishermen must struggle to make ends meet. Unlike the supply of cattle and pigs and poultry, seafood is not a stable commodity. In all other aspects of commerce, if you have a product in great demand but short supply, you have the recipe for success. Not so with seafood.

Next time you see a commercial fisherman; take a long look. They are as endangered as any of the species they seek. And if you appreciate fresh seafood, eat at a local, independently owned restaurant. And be prepared to pay for it.

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