More Fish Confusion: Great Globe Article

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First of all, great article in the Boston Globe on the pervasive mislabeling of fish.  My one criticism with the piece is the following sentence:
The Globe found escolar being sold as white tuna, super-white tuna, or albacore at merchants such as FuGaKyu in Brookline, Kowloon in Saugus, H Mart supermarket in Burlington, and Oishii Sushi Bar in Chestnut Hill.
While it is true that the FDA's Seafood List says that you can't sell escolar as white tuna, it is unfair to single out out places for selling escolar as white tuna or super white tuna when it is a pervasive industry practice.  Now, selling it as albacore tuna is more dodgy, because as I have written about before, there is a genuine sushi bar distinction between albacore and escolar.

Anyhoo, good article.

Comments

  1. WILLOBIEOctober 25, 2011 at 2:53 PM

    So, Pablo, how do I evaluate the frozen haddock or the fresh cod filets in my Midwest market? Does the blindingly white color give it away. How about the "hand breaded" cod fillet in the restaurant? Looking at BSB members reveals Outback and a couple of Lox suppliers. Red Lobster and Legal Seafoods don't seem to make the list. Neither does Durgin Park and the Union Oyster House. As long as the BSB list is, it's not very helpful with restaurants.

    ReplyDelete
  2. pescolarOctober 25, 2011 at 11:04 PM

    Willobie:

    So it depends on what you are evaluating it for. Escolar? Escolar really does taste different than cod or haddock. It has a ridiculously high percentage of fat in it. A lot of white fish are similar enough that it would be tough to tell the difference by looking at it.

    I think I am going to write some followup posts on this subject.

    ReplyDelete

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