"A Seafood Snob Ponders the Future of Fish"

[Doryman]

NY Times cooking columnist Mark Bittman discusses wild and farmed fish and the prospects for the future.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/weekinreview/16bittman.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail0=y&_r=1&emc=tnt

Warren

[rogerbum]

I've gotta agree with the author. I'll never eat farmed salmon again. I've had it a few times and would rather eat tofu than farmed salmon (of course, I'd MUCH rather eat the coho I catch myself). While I'm definitely not a vegetarian, I have to agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense to turn several pounds of fish meal into one pound of farmed fish that doesn't taste so good. Ditto for turning pounds of edible crops into many fewer pounds of pork, chicken or beef.

As part of my healthy diet changes, this year I started eating a lot more fruits and vegetables and a lot less meat. I still LOVE meat and fish and don't intend to go all vegan, but I think it's a good idea for both health and environmental reasons to limit the intake of all farmed meats and fish.

[localboy]

Looks like the world has too many people on it .

[marvin4239]

The only salmon I have ever eaten was wild from Lake Michigan so I doubt I could tell the difference. In our part of the country the commercial shrimpers are in a constant battle with imported and farm raised shrimp. Taste wise the farm raised are terrible but most people don't know the difference. Problem is for the commercial guys the farm raised are so cheap it's hard to compete giving the restrictions on the commercial shrimpers and the high cost of fuel and maintaining their equipment. I don't think there is really a big shortage of wild shrimp but the process for harvesting them especially inshore devastates the sea bottom and the by catch is a real problem. While I was in NC recently visiting some old boyhood friend’s one friend had recently developed a new type of shallow water shrimp trap. Unlike shrimping in the PNW I'm talking about shrimping in just several feet of water. He has his trap design approved by the State of NC. The traps are about three by three feet and have a series of doors to allow by catch to escape. I went out with him one night to set it up and when we returned the next morning it had 65 pounds of shrimp in it without a sign of by catch. No damage to the bottom and very little fuel used. I don't know if this will ever catch on but if so it could change the shrimping industry in the south east. The technique certainly is a lot friendlier to the environment and other species.

[ffheap]

This guy is right on it. I have eaten both farm raised and wild salmon. To tell you the truth, I like the taste of farm raised over wild, but the farm raised has almost no food value. The wild is much better for you.

Mostly we eat the wild salmon.

Fred

[wailedcentipede]

some of the stuff I'm reading NAFTA also plays a roll on government response ... at the moment fish farms are playing a roll on the devestation of our wild salmon ... if you go in and shut them down the taxpayers than become responsible for their lost profit for the next twenty years .. wc

[rogerbum]

[JamesTXSD]

A frequently seen bumper sticker in our area (the shrimping capital of the US)...

"Friends don't let friends eat imported shrimp"

[rogerbum]

Out here we also see "Friends don't let friends eat farmed salmon".

[CAVU]

Roger,
I agree with you-wild salmon beats the farmed salmon taste-wise by a wide margin. However I would prefer wild chinook to coho or sockeye. A troll caught chinook, quickly dispatched, bled, quickly chilled, and eaten the same day or next day-is as good as it gets! You can't buy that kind of quality and I doubt you could find it in any restaurant.

[Westfield 11]

I was told by a long time Alaskan Capt. that the University of Alaska did a number of tests and found that, like beef, salmon benefits from aging. In this case they learned that 3 days in the fridge was best for flavor and texture. IIRC it was something to do with enzymes....anyway this old timer, who told us about this wouldn't eat fresh caught salmon and had the cook save him a cut in the fridge to be eaten a few days later.

[thataway]

Put my vote for wild fish every time--including any species of salmon. Our local fish market flies in wild Pacific Salmon on certain days, and Marie always goes to get this.

What I see as another problem, is that many restraunts claim to have fish such as Gouper--and often they turn out to be some farm raised fish from another country. We try and check--and usually one can tell the difference.

We are fortunate to have an excellent fish market, whose owner also owns a fleet of boats--and we get a number of fresh fish in Pensacola. In fact it is on the "must visit" for the tourists we show around. Many of our friends buy fish, freeze it and take it home on the plane.

[CAVU]

Westfield,
I have also read that same info before. I have eaten salmon that was "aged" for 3-4 days in the fridge and it is just fine. However if you put your fish in a bag and check it three days later you will find a lot of liquid in the bag. That moisture came out of the fish and for my taste isn't quite as good a texture as it has when fresher. Of course the biggest sin as far as I am concerned is overcooking it. Even three day old salmon can be excellent if not overcooked. In my experience halibut is even more critical than salmon. It will lose a great deal of water in three days-probably twice as much by weight as salmon.