What’s Up with Bass?
By Stuart Altman

I recently had a conversation with a vendor on the eastern shore of Maryland to ask about the Wild Striped Bass that we’ve been receiving. I was concerned that there was so much Striped Bass coming in last month; more than we’ve seen at this point of the year than ever before. Also, the fish are larger than what we typically see, and there are a TON of female fish with very large roe sacs. This concerned me as it related to the future of the fishery.

This is what I learned: There are more Striped Bass in Chesapeake Bay than there were when the first settlers came to Jamestown 400 years ago. Small boats are making one set and coming in with 200 to 300 pounds a day. Because they are protected by government regulations, the Striped Bass are growing like weeds. This is the reason there are no Sea Trout, Lobster or Soft Crabs in the Chesapeake Bay like there used to be. In New Jersey, where you’re not allowed to commercially fish Striped Bass at all, these other species have disappeared entirely.  The vendor told me that a friend of his was on his boat in January, 12 miles off the coast of Ocean City MD, and his Fish Finder went black. There was a school of Stripers 15 miles long. He had never seen anything like that in his 30 years of fishing.

He confirmed that fish are running very large, and he has seen some weighing 50 to 60 pounds. He also continues to be concerned about Striped Bass eating a lot of the other species in the Bay. He was fishing the other day and caught an eight to nine pound Striper that had 15 blue crabs in its belly INTACT! Striped Bass are predators and will eat whatever they can get their hands (fins!) on. He speculates that we could fish year-round for 5 years and it wouldn’t affect any of the conservation efforts.

When I asked him about the females and their large roe sacs he said that, as of March 25^th, the state of Virginia no longer allows any fish over 28 inches to be caught. This is done to protect the spawning class of female Bass.  This type of restriction typically leads to a significant glut of fish starting in the middle of March. Once the fish move inshore from protected waters to where fishermen can catch them boats all rush to use up their size-specific tags before the March 25^th deadline.

Fresh Fish

Octopus - An Emerging Seafood Item
by Ruth Levy

Octopus (singular), Octopuses (plural), Octopi (plural) are all part of the Mollusk family and the sub category known as Cephalopods.  These interesting creatures are found all over the world and are just now starting to join more mainstream menus as a delicious seafood item.  Very well known to Mediterranean and Asian cuisines, octopus can be prepared in a number of ways.

Edible octopi come from a number of different origins around the world.  Spanish/Portuguese and/or North African octopus is considered by many to be the best octopus to eat.  The flesh cooks up very white, is flavorful and the cooked meat recovery is very high. These are sized by the kilo and have been known to go up to 4kg and higher.  It is also the most expensive.  Other African countries produce octopus although they are not considered as premium as the North African octopus.

Larger octopuses produced in temperate/tropical areas are most common from Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  Philippine octopus has the lowest cooked meat recovery and Indonesia the highest and the animal can be over 8#.  Mexico and Chile also produce edible octopuses although not typically as large as the Asian.  The Chilean octopus is darker in flesh color and the average size is typically 1-2 and 2-4# each.

‘Baby’ octopus is a misnomer.   Baby octopi are not juvenile octopuses but rather mature animals, small in size.  They are sized by count/kg and are found in temperate/tropical waters off of India and Asia (Thailand, Vietnam & China).

Octopus is a flavorful seafood item with an unusual presentation due to the shape of the animal.  Unless cooked and served intact (like the ‘baby’ octopus), octopuses are typically cooked boiled or stewed and cut up when used as a recipe ingredient:  paella, seafood salad etc.   However, ‘barbecued’ octopus in Australia, marinated octopus ceviche in Mexico and Italian octopus marinara are common octopus only dishes.

Octopus adds value and variation to the menu and is an emerging seafood item.  It appears the octopus trend is following what happened years ago to its cephalopod cousin, calamari, and one is starting to see more octopus offered on food service menus across the country.

Cephalopods

Fishmongers: A Fractious Bunch
By Richard Stavis

Fishmongers are a secretive bunch, who primarily do not work well in groups.  Why is this the case?  It probably has to do with the sheer diversity of products, harvest methods, and regions of production, all of which limit consolidation in the industry and create small groups of marketers who are working at cross purposes. 

This isolated approach is the opposite of what we see with most major protein food groups, where the heavy hitter producers hang together.  For example, in the milk industry suppliers contributed hard earned money to pay for the famously successful “Got Milk?” campaign. While merchants might fight about whether Garelick Farms is better than Hood, they all work together and collectively reap the benefits.  Want a couple more examples?  Do any of you remember when James Garner said “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner”?  Maybe you’ve heard of “the incredible, edible egg” or been tempted to eat “the other white meat”?  These promotional campaigns are all great examples of companies putting aside their differences to promote their industry as a whole.

We had the opportunity to do the same to promote seafood, but we blew it.

The National Seafood Marketing Council was established on December 7, 1989 under the Fish and Seafood Promotion Act of 1986 (16 U.S.C. 4001 et seq.) to help the seafood industry promote the consumption of domestically harvested seafood. The Council was meant to act as an independently managed group representative of the seafood industry and funded by an industry wide assessment made at point of harvest or point of import.  The Federal Government even primed the program with money; some of it paid for national televisions ads.  The ads featured the national “Spokesfish”, a “Sturgeon General” who extolled the benefits of the wide variety of flavorful and healthy seafood.  So what happened?  The industry took the government money but voted against a mandatory assessment at the first receiver level when the money ran out.  The council was eventually disbanded.

What are the chances of getting a council together now?  Virtually nil.  We’re unlikely to see federal seed money to start this off again.  Additionally, the industry is so diverse that it’s doubtful that we could get enough of the major players together to make anything happen.  This is a real shame.  Our products are often under attack by well funded special interest groups that put out a stream of negative information about seafood, frequently focused on health and sustainability.  Is the information true?  Some of it is factually true, but it’s often given out of context or without a counterbalance.  For example, mercury is an issue in some seafood, but not all.  Consumers don’t understand how mercury affects their health.  As a result many adopt a “zero tolerance” approach and avoid species that contain mercury or even worse, all fish.  The benefits of eating seafood regularly outweigh the potential negative effects of the occasional consumption of seafood with mercury.  Similarly, the plethora of organizations promoting sustainability in seafood to the general public give a confusing mass of information that is often contradictory.  Some over generalize (looking at species instead of fisheries) and steer customers to a narrow band of a few species of seafood, suggesting that those are the only fish that may be eaten. Why do they do this?  In some instances product doesn’t meet their narrow definition of the word “sustainable” because of environmental effects rather than endangered fisheries.  In other instances the fishery just simply isn’t big enough to get on a top ten list.  The end result is still that customers are not comfortable eating sustainably harvested fish because of a lack of information.

What can we do?  Get the facts and communicate them as much as we can.  Offer our customers true, useful information.  Make responsible decisions about seafood by knowing enough about what we’re buying and selling to justify our actions.  Band together where possible, either along location, species sold, or with wider industry based organizations.  We are stronger together than apart!

General State of Seafood

What’s In a Name? The True Langoustine (aka Scampi)

By Robert Landy

What is Scampi? There’s shrimp scampi, which is shrimp cooked in garlic butter, but that’s not scampi. Scampi is a type of lobster and is one of the world’s finest delicacies. There are, however, other species frequently referred to as scampi. For example, in the Midwest region of the US freshwater shrimp (Macrobrachium Rosenbergii) are referred to as scampi. So again, what exactly is scampi?

Is scampi a crawfish? Is scampi a crayfish? No, scampi are small clawed lobsters that unfortunately look a little bit like a crawfish. But they definitely shouldn’t be confused with the freshwater crawfish, which is primarily from the Gulf of Mexico and China. Crayfish is another name used for spiny lobster, and if that’s not confusing enough, in the southern US crawfish is called crayfish!

Tray of Crawfish

Is scampi a langostino? No, the Spanish word for shrimp is langostino, so we know it’s not that! A langostino is a squat lobster caught in Chile (Cervimunida Johni) and on the Pacific coast of Central America (Pleuroncodes Planipes).  These are very small lobsters that are sold mainly as cooked IQF meat.

Langostino Meat

So what are we talking about here? To start with, the French name for scampi is Langoustine, and so a scampi lobster is the true Langoustine.  It’s commercially caught in the North East Atlantic and in the North Sea. The Latin name for this species is Nephrops Norvegicus. There are also commercial quantities caught off of New Zealand and the Latin name for this subspecies is Metanephrops Challengeri. There are small quantities of scampi caught elsewhere, but the numbers are so few these are usually consumed locally. Most of the true Langoustines are sold head on, however Iceland and Ireland mainly process headless tails.

Tray of Scampi (Nephrops Norvegicus)

What do we call these buggers? These little lobsters are commonly called Scampi, Danish Scampi, Norway Lobster, Dainty Tails, Lobster Dainty, Dublin Bay Prawns, or, for you French buffs, Langoustines. Regardless of what you call them, they are truly one of the finest eating specialties from the ocean. Scampi have an amazing delicately sweet flavor and are served in the fanciest of restaurants.

New Zealand Scampi (Metanephrops Challengeri)

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