Now that’s not really close to Massachusetts. I wonder why a place that has so much of its own local fish would serve a lot of snapper. Or maybe I’m just confused. Hmmm… The mystery of the elusive pure bred red snapper continues.
At this point, I think using Latin names would be much more preferred, there’s just way too much crossover.
1 Like
LOL, wtf does any of this even mean?
Good idea.
that’s the part I hate about these articles. I understand the unwillingness to identify the sushi establishments but you’re not making anyone more aware of the problem. Everyone knows it is out there, now start calling the offenders out, that’s the only way they’re going to stop doing it. They’ll most likely pass the puck to the distributor but then we can have some real talk about it. My guess is they’re going to places that are more likely to mislable or mis-name fish to make a study that’s going to shock and awe people, as usual.
Correct, but a lot of the trading that’s gone over the years is purely out of familiarity and ease of use. Never was it used to intentionally mislead diners/end users. Now it’s gone a bit off the deep end and they need to do something to clean it up. The problem is, they’ve been using the name for decades, so it’ll take a little while.
i come from an old-school “long term relationship with the itamae matters” approach to sushi, and i would expect a properly trained itamae to discern the difference before i was even served mislabeled fish, but i can see how folks driven by $ could allow that to happen.
1 Like
It means, our seas are becoming so contaminated and overfished. Hence, the obvious problem of mislabeling and deception. We are starting to eat more farm-raised seafood, which has its own problems of contamination and escaping fish. Data on the damage of escapees to aquaculture is not complete. Anyway, I say it jokingly. But it’s not too far out to think that 100’s of years from now we won’t want or be able to eat fish. People might think of the few left as these strange and exotic creatures who live under the sea. There are things that humans did years ago that was normal, but would be repulsive now. So I think of school kids learning that humans once ate fish. It’s just something I do to amuse myself.
2 Likes
Ah, I see. Aquaculture is leaps and bounds better than what it used to be even in the last 10-15years, and the good farming practices are positioning themselves as being here for a long time to come and rightfully so. The problem is, the same issues we have with overfishing in certain areas of our globe are also usually the same areas we have big offenders of not using proper practices to farm raise seafood. Good news is, huge strides have been made and will continue to be made for seafood to be a long term sustainable item on our restaurant and kitchen tables. The big unknown and question is, is it too late? Maybe, maybe not.
3 Likes
Yeah… I agree. I actually don’t mind farm-raised. If it’s a farm with good standards. I think they’re the future and probably safer than the ocean at this point. It’s just identifying the good farms. Have you ever tried to navigate the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch guide? 
Then there’s that thing of being the irritating diner who asks a million questions before ordering a piece of fish. I’m like f-it. I’ll just eat what I want, but not that much of it.
I feel you. Luckily, being in and around the industry I usually don’t have to ask too many questions, in fact, the wife prefers I don’t. When I am genuinely curious though, it usually turns into more questions and cringing unless I’m at a respectable sushi spot, usually.
1 Like
Exactly. Very funny.
Yes… I got the feeling there were a few on this thread who either work in or know the industry.
It works fine for me. What don’t you like about it?
1 Like
Really?
Red Snapper and Tilapia seem incredibly different from when I have had both…
I use the app mostly. It’s a little clunky.
MBA is really informative, if you’re sitting at home and want to look something up. But trying to navigate it at the spur of the moment, like in a restaurant, it goes something like this: Yes you can eat this type of shrimp, only if it’s from this part of the ocean, except not in this state, and it has to be trawled like this, unless it is in this state, because there are turtles.
Oh forget it. I’m eating it. Or… Oh forget it. I’m not eating it.
2 Likes
I can’t resist – I think this person has the answer:
1 Like
YES
Because “mislabeled fish” is pretty meaningless unless we start selling fish using only scientific names.
You know how many fish are called “seabass,” from utterly distinct genera? Or “snapper?”
“Mislabeling fish” is more of a spectral phenomenon than a binary “mislabeled” or “properly labeled.” Especially when you’re shipping fish from all over the world where there often isn’t a common name in English.
That’s because the common names for fish are pretty sloppy. We’re pretty loose with what’s a “perch” or a “bass” or whatever. Common names also change from place to place – go to the mid-Atlantic states, and “rockfish” is striped bass. Come to CA, and rockfish are our predominant groundfish, a generally smallish, firm, white fleshed fish in the sebastes genus that’s commonly marketed (and indeed, commonly called by fishermen) “snapper.” But it’s not a snapper… But what we’d call true snapper, in the Lutjanus genus, is what they call snapper in the US. Go to NZ, or Japan, and their snapper (or “tai”) are mostly porgies or breams, not lutjanids.
Get my point? There is no “official” common name for most fish. And fish are marketed by common name. So what constitutes a misnomer? On the worse end of the spectrum are things like marketing a cheap, undesirable fish as an expensive, desirable one, like calling tilapia “snapper.” But then there are “mislabelings” that are far more legitimate, like calling japanese bream “snapper.”
These studies make it out like we’re being ripped off or something, but the bottom line is if the fish is fresh and tasty and of comparable quality and kind to what it’s being labeled as, it’s fine.
4 Likes
Nobody has to “panic” because red snapper and vermillion rockfish are both very tasty, firm fleshed, mildly flavored, flaky white fish.
He’s correct that true lutjanids (the true snapper genus) are VERY rare in California waters (as in, I’ve heard of 3 caught in my lifetime)
They don’t really start showing up until about 3/4 of the way down the Baja California peninsula, and throughout the sea of cortez and all the way south to the subtropic/temperate south american coast.
There is a pacific red snapper that looks rather similar to the GOM/Atlantic “American Red Snapper” that would be properly called “Pacific Red Snapper” — Lutjanus peru.
So is it mislabeling to call either one of these “red snapper” without distinguishing whether it was the “American” one from the Atlantic side or the “Pacific” one? That’s my whole point here – what’s mislabeled or not can often be a rather arbitrary line-drawing exercise.
4 Likes
There’s no ambiguity or confusion to excuse selling olive flounder as halibut or bigeye tuna as yellowfin tuna.
I disagree. California Halibut isn’t really a halibut – it’s a flounder. But NOBODY calls it “California flounder.” We all call it “halibut.”
Why is it OK to sell one flounder as halibut but not OK for another? Are we going to say every CA halibut ever sold was mislabeled?
And bigeye tuna vs YFT are pretty hard to tell apart. Even fresh and alive, many fishermen mistake them. But especially when the heads and fins are cut off and the fish is a frozen popsicle covered in white ice… and they taste so similar that they’re virtually indistinguishable. So that one too I take no issue with.
I never said mislabeling doesn’t happen, but I’m saying any study that purports to count mislabeling or determine a frequency at which it happens is definitely questionable, and it’s not very important (as your examples show) whether the fish could be called mislabeled, but rather it’s about how egregious any mislabeling is.
4 Likes