A week or so ago, The Boston Globe did a searing exposé of the nasty little habit some local restaurants have fallen into when it comes to labeling the fish they serve. Some very big names have been embroiled in Fishgate.
Skipjack’s was caught palming off something called escolar as white tuna. Bad enough that escolar is cheaper and not as good as white tuna; eating it can actually make people sick. Not blowfish sick (as in dead), but sick enough that Japan doesn’t allow it to be served. (Escolar sometimes goes by the nickname ex-lax. Which you won’t be seeing on any menus real soon.) Chau Chow was serving up “nutritionally inferior” (and cheaper) catfish as flounder. And David Ortiz’ now closed Big Papi’s restaurant was one of many that served fake red snapper.
Even Bertucci’s – one of my stand-bys – was palming hake off as cod.
None of these restaurants stands alone:
Recent studies indicate that between 20 percent and 70 percent or more of snapper, cod, grouper, and wild salmon are mislabeled at restaurants and stores.
Some of the restaurants were innocent of any direct malfeasance. They’d been duped by their distributors. Which may have been duped by their wholesalers. Which may have been duped by the fishermen. Fish renaming can occur anywhere along the food supply chain. One place thought they were serving fresh fish because it came from the distributor thawed. Others couldn’t tell the difference between one white fish fillet and the other.
Once you fillet a fish, it can be very difficult to tell what it is, if not impossible,’’ said John Sackton, publisher of Seafoodnews.com, an online industry newsletter based in Lexington. “Even the best chefs can have difficulty.’’
The Globe used DNA testing to figure out what was what.
Of course, some of the restaurants may have been witting not-so-dupish dupes – much to the annoyance and anger of local fishermen:
“Mislabeling fish is at a ridiculous level,’’ said Eric Hesse, a Cape Cod commercial fisherman. “The dealers and restaurants have a vested interest in keeping the illusion going. Every time they can say they are selling fresh local fish and get away with selling [Pacific] frozen, they don’t have to buy from us. It kills us.’’
I haven’t had it in years, but one of my favorite fish used to be scrod. (Is it even on menus anymore? I don’t think I’ve seen it in a dog’s age. Make that a dog-fish’ age.) There is not, actually, a fish called scrod. Scrod was cod. Or haddock. Or pollock. Or whatever flaky white fish was around. But everyone pretty much knew that, when you ordered scrod, you got whatever.
Fish mislabeling, when the restaurants do it knowingly, is intended to keep costs down and prices high, and works under the apparently well-founded assumption that – wink-wink, nudge-nudge – diners won’t know the difference.
A couple of the restaurants caught in The Globe article net used the “every body’s doing it, doing it, doing it” excuse, and noted that it was the “industry standard” to mislabel fish. (Remind me to stay out of Skipjack’s.)
Some restaurants are changing their ways (or their menus or their distributors). Bertucci’s has put some new processes in place to keep it on the up and up. One restaurant has revised its menu to say “ocean perch” instead of “red snapper.” The chef-owner admitted that he started using perch when red snapper got scarce and pricey.
“The flavor is pretty good,’’ [restaurateur Nobel Garcia] said. “I have never received any complaints about it in the last couple of years.’’
Much of the problem stems from our reliance on imported fish, which, given overfishing of fishing grounds, like the ones off of the New England coast, has grown radically over the last several decades. Today, we import 86 percent of the fish we eat, with a lot of steps along the way for mistakes to be made and for fraud to occur. And, by the way, most of our fish comes frozen. So a lot of what you see on menus as “fresh day boat” fish was in reality more likely to be “fresh many weeks ago fish.”
But sometimes you do get real fresh day boat fish, mostly when you go to a fish market that’s in a town on the ocean that has or is near a harbor with honest to goodness fishing boats in it. There’s nothing like it. Delish!
One of the freshest and best fish dinners I ever had was in Ireland, at a small restaurant (located in the family B&B) in Cong, County Mayo. My husband and I were spending a couple of nights at the posh, stuffy, and pretentious Ashford Castle. After one night of posh, stuffy, and pretentious dining, we wandered into town to see how we’re fare there. We stuck our heads into this one little restaurant, and while we were talking with the proprietor, her husband walked in with his waders on, and a brace of salmon slung over his shoulder. A few hours later, we supped on fresh salmon. Yummy yum yum. Too bad most salmon these days comes from fish farms (and gets mislabeled as “wild.”)
My favorite item in The Globe article involved Ming Tsai,
…celebrity chef and owner of Blue Ginger, said he understands the economic and environmental costs of mislabeling. But he said he used the name butterfish instead of sablefish simply because it sounds better.
“Butterfish rolls off the tongue,’’ said Tsai, who added that he thought the FDA allowed its use to describe sablefish in Massachusetts. It does not.
I admit, butterfish does sound awfully tasty. Far better than sable fish.Which sounds sort of furry, kind of rodent-y –not properties you’d want to associate with a fish.
But it sure does make Ming Tsai sound weasel-ly, doesn’t it?
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