Following up on my post of yesterday on mislabeling of seafood, I have a small offering of seafood trivia. You may be aware that “Chilean sea bass” is not in fact a sea bass but rather an unrelated fish that rejoices in the euphonious name “Patagonian toothfish.”  (This was in fact Taco’s first comment to me on the subject.)  But did you know that America’s favorite piscine cause celebre isn’t the only fish that’s been renamed to make it acceptable to consumers?  The fish you know as orange roughy, for example, used to be known as “slimehead.”  Makes you want a fillet, doesn’t it?   The fish now sold as spotted sunfish once introduced itself to fishermen as stumpknocker.  Torbay sole used to be known as witch.  (I’m not at all sure I don’t like witch better, actually.)   Spiny dogfish is now sold as “rock salmon.” Peekytoe crab (adorable name!), a fashionable item on menus these days, used to be called rock crab, and were at one time discarded as trash crabs.

Why have all these species been renamed?  Well, the marketing aspect is obvious — there’s no way the commercial fishing industry could have created a viable market for a fish that they had to call “slimehead.”  I’m open-minded about what I eat, but even I would be reluctant to buy myself a nice piece of slimehead. The slightly less obvious reason, however, is the increasing demand for seafood and the inability of the existing fisheries to keep up with it.  As more and more people start eating seafood (and especially as fisheries crash through overfishing), it becomes more and more important from a commercial standpoint to exploit previously marginal species.  Who knows what we’ll be eating next?

Food for thought.  So to speak.

Are you SURE I'm a red snapper?

Like most foodies, I LOVE seafood.  What’s not to love?  But I recently read a great article in Conservation (which is, incidentally, a terrific magazine), entitled “Impostor Fish” that suggests that we should all wonder what we’re really eating when we order a pricey plate of fish. The problem?  Mislabeling of fish.  Fish are mislabeled as they come in the ports, and mislabeled as they’re sold to the consumers, so that while you may be told you’re buying wild salmon, you may really be buying farmed salmon, and if you buy red snapper?  Heaven only knows what you’re getting.

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