Good Fish_ Sustainable Seafood Recipes From the Pacific Coast - Becky Selengut [8]
“Freezing fish slowly makes big ice crystals that break the connective tissue and cell walls of the fish. The fish will be mushy when it is defrosted. Think of the bottle you accidentally left in the freezer when attempting a quick chill. The same thing happens to the fish flesh when you try to freeze it at home.
“The freezers used on fishing boats and by processors are not the same as a domestic freezer, which is designed to hold frozen products, not create them. Industrial freezers use blast units and other techniques that freeze fish quickly, bringing the fish through the critical temperature zone between 32°F/0˚C and 0°F/–18˚C where cell damage can occur.”
If you don’t live near a local source of fish, there is a carbon-footprint benefit to purchasing your fish frozen. Fresh fish needs to be flown all over the world, consuming huge quantities of jet fuel in order to get to you, whereas frozen fish can be delivered via more fuel-efficient means, such as ship, rail, or truck.
FARMED VERSUS WILD
Which is better? I’d like to tell you that there is a very simple answer to this question, but the fact remains that the answer is: it depends. Half the people I talk to assume that farmed fish is bad and wild is good. The other half think we need to stop eating all wild fish to give them a break and eat only farmed fish. My goal here is to simplify the issue as much as humanly possible without glossing over some important points. That’s a hard task, but work with me through this overview.
Wild Fish
Many species of wild fish are doing quite well. Their fisheries are well managed, which means that the catch is highly regulated, preserving fish for future generations. Furthermore, the environment is not destroyed in the process of catching these fish. Pacific Coast albacore and the five species of Alaska wild salmon come to mind. Pacific Coast squid don’t seem to be threatened. Ditto for wild sardines.
What’s important to keep in mind when purchasing wild fish is how they were caught. The most environmentally sound way to catch fish is in small, focused quantities. Examples include “trolling”—also known as “ hook and line”—which is essentially the commercial version of dipping a fishing pole into the ocean; catching shrimp or crabs in a pot; and small-scale purse seining (using a net to enclose a school of fish).
Other methods are not as ocean- and fish-friendly. Two big ones I try to avoid are fish caught by dredging/trawling (which, unfortunately, sounds very similar to “trolling”) and certain kinds of long-lining. Trawling scrapes the ocean floor by dragging heavy weighted nets, which is especially bad if there is sensitive habitat there (very often the case). Trawling also produces a lot of “bycatch.” Bycatch consists of nontargeted, accidentally caught species, which are often unintentionally killed in the fishing process. Not only is this a complete waste of protein, if the bycatch includes juvenile fish killed before they can spawn, it upsets the life cycle of the species. Bycatch is bad all around, and it’s crucial that commercial fisheries limit it as much as possible.
Long-lining involves dragging lots of lines, armed with many hooks that drop down at regular intervals, often for miles on end. It is most problematic when fisheries use it to catch fish in the top part of the ocean column, because the line sits on the surface, and all sorts of unintended species get hooked (turtles, birds, etc.). After so much time on the line, many of these animals are dead when it is finally hauled in. Bycatch, therefore, is also a rampant problem with this type of fishing. Luckily, not all long-lining is