The report says olive flounder was substituted for halibut a third of the time. That’s imported from Japan, and someone somewhere along the line from the boat to the plate is committing fraud.
Olive Flounder isn’t necessarily coming from Japan, another mistake in the article. Olive Flounder is farmed in Korea, and many fish wholesalers are selling live, imported flounder from Korea. Olive flounder - Wikipedia I see this flounder sold live at one of the fish wholesalers I go to regularly.
Again, this is a nomenclature issue, not mislabeling. This fish is regularly referred to as “Hirame” in Japanese, which has been translated into “Halibut” here. But, it’s a flounder, not a “Halibut.” Farmed fluke from the East Coast is also regularly referred to as “Hirame” here, but, it too, is a flounder.
If all Sushi bars just used the Japanese names, there would be a lot fewer “mislabeling” issues, but the Japanese to English translations are causing many of the issues.
That was my presumption since it’s not caught around here. My point is that it was not California flounder.
It’s really impossible to judge the paper based on the press release. I’m trying to get hold of it.
The article doesn’t make a point that the “Halibut” served was California or not. The point made in the article is that the “Halibut” served, was not “Halibut.”
California Halibut would not meet this criteria either because it is in the flounder family, scientifically speaking. It’s in the same Genus as Olive Flounder - Paralicthys. So, California Halibut, if served as “Halibut”, would have likely been one of the “fraudulent” fish as well.
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I think the more important points are:
For consumers trying to avoid threatened or overfished species, sushi fraud can thwart their efforts. For diners — especially pregnant women or small children — who wish to avoid high-mercury fish, mislabeling could harm their health. And some fish are riskier than others: a common parasite found in raw olive flounder, which replaced halibut on researchers’ plates a third of the time, has caused “rampant” food poisoning in Japan, the study noted.
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i beg to differ;
while some folks might not be able to tell the difference when served as maguro, there are many who can discern the difference. but these types aren’t going to patronizing places where the chefs/preparers can’t tell the difference.
finally, yellowfin is IIRC considered the lowest grade of tuna for maguro and is priced accordingly. anyone deliberately misrepresenting bigeye as yellowfin deserves to be cheated since bigeye commands a higher price per pound.
Yeah that’s a great reference for telling them apart, I’ve seen it before, and I feel it reinforces my assertion that they’re some pretty remarkably similar looking fish.
As to the quality, at large sizes, BET have greater fat content than YFT, but at medium and small sizes they’re basically identical. And what you said makes no sense. If they mislabeled YFT as bigeye, that could be questionable, but mislabeling BET as YFT? How’s that unethical?
Last thing, your link shows how to distinguish the small fish, where even ID’ing fresh fish takes a careful eye. Large fish are easily distinguished by the greatly elongated fins of the large YFT. But the fish often arrive from the tropical west pacific, with no heads, no tails, and no fins. At that point, they’re a tuna-shaped hunk of meat covered in ice with no guts. The only way to tell them apart at that point is by the shape of the dark meat in the thin tail slice they use for grading, but it’s not a 100% accurate thing. Mistakes are probably the best explanation for BET being labeled as YFT. Can’t imagine why else they’d do that.
difficult but not indistinguishable, especially if you’ve got a whole fish to clean -the liver and bladder make it obvious, though you are in the prep stage at that point.
i was pretty sure that there was a clear reference to bigeye being mislabeled as YFT which prompted my comment. it wasn’t clear whether the mislabeling was done with intent to deceive or whether it’s just a case of negligence - either way, those selling bigeye as YFT are cheating themselves.
finally i continue to dispute the assertion that people can’t taste the difference. some can. and for those who can’t, traditionally trained sushi chefs should be able to discern the differences, of course, they’re not going to complain if they get higher quality bigeye at YFT prices.
I finally actually read the article and it is dumb
You can tell they’re just testing the fish against a single control species, even though numerous species can legitimately be called “halibut” or “red snapper,” because there’s no way every plate out of 43 would fail if they were testing against more than one species.
But the really lame part is when they find no lutjanids and no hippoglossids on the plates, they call it “fraud.”
No, that’s called “you don’t really know anything about fish.”
As to the chefs ripping themselves off, you realize not every bigeye tuna caught is a 200lb grade 1 masterpiece, right? When you get a batch of mixed G grade, 70lb bet and yft, you’re not defrauding anyone by slapping a “tuna” sticker on it and calling it good.
Maybe you’re right and some people can really tell a piece of maguro from a BET vs YFT, but you’ll notice there are japanese names for every different kind of fish but they don’t bother distinguishing much when it comes to the maguros, except the occasional hon- or shiro- prefixes. As far as distinguishing these two, I’d wager most of the formidable sushi-heads on here couldn’t tell you the Japanese name for each without looking it up… That should say something.
Actually, this is wrong. YFT is “Kihada” and BET is called “Mebachi.” Japanese actually have additional names for tunas, such as Kuromaguro, or specific names for Bluefin Tunas depending on where they’re from. Also, “Shiromaguro” is not generally used in Japan; Albacore is often called “Bincho.”
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No, you misunderstood, I didn’t mean the names don’t exist, but have you ever seen any of those words on a menu in the US? I haven’t, except for “bincho” *excuse my mistake on that one
Yes. I’ve seen Mebachi and Bincho specified in Japanese menus at several places I’ve eaten at; I often see Sushi places identify that they have Bigeye or Albacore on English menus.
Why do big- eye tuna cost more than yellowfin, and why are they considered higher-quality if most people (including, apparently, some sushi chefs) can’t tell the difference?
Big-eye often has higher fat content, a more luxurious texture and richer flavor. But the quality of each tuna is individual. Big-eye and Yellowfin are not farmed, so each tuna is different.
When Bigeye and Yellowfin tunas are smaller/younger, there is less flavor, texture, and color difference. Even though Bluefins are more highly regarded, smaller Bluefins do not have the oil content, texture, and richness of larger Bluefin. Sushi chefs may not necessarily be able to tell what species of tuna it is if the fish has been loined out.
But, larger, good quality Big-eye can be greatly superior to Yellowfin tuna as far as fat and flavor. In addition, the belly of larger specimens of Bigeye can be served as Toro. Yellowfin belly generally cannot; the sinew of Yellowfin bellies are usually too tough and chewy, even if aged.
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Boom, this guy gets it.
That is factually incorrect on certain levels, it is often traded at the same price but mostly dependent on quality of individual fish.
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