"raw fish" news and stories

I don't eat sushi, so I'll have to take the Chicago Sun-Times' word on this.

Seems that Chicago-area restaurants that serve red snapper aren't really serving red snapper at all, they're serving cheap substitutes! And it wasn't an isolated case. In fact, samples were bought from fourteen different restaurants in the city, and none of them were actually red snapper. They found this out by doing DNA tests.

Coming this fall: CSI: Sushi.

The FDA calls it fraud and they are investigating.

At a recent sushi dinner at Sasabune in Los Angeles, I passed my "butterfish" on to a dining companion because I had recently read a few Internet items regarding the fish.

A few years ago, there was a USDA warning about escolar, saying that many restaurants were mis-labeling it as "seabass." The mis-labeling wasn't so much the problem as was the GI problem that the fish caused in people when it was undercooked. Some of the fatty acids in escolar are indigestible by humans, and when they reach the colon, cause cramping and eerie, orange, oily diarrhea. Because the site where I read the information also mentioned "butterfish" alongside escolar, I was wary because not five or six days before, I had eaten butterfish sushi (raw, and not at Sasabune) and had similar GI problems for five days.

[via: Eating LA]

We've been making our way around the sushi bar here at slashfood, and preparation for Valentine's Day simply begs for a study in bivalves - clams, scallops, and those ever-so-aphrodisiac-al oysters.

"Gai" is a general Japanese term that refer to most of the clams. I very rarely see the kind of smaller clams that we put into chowders or batter and fry on a sushi menu. However, mirugai and hokkigai are regular offerings. Oysters are called "kaki."

Tired of tuna yet? I'm not. I could eat maguro and toro every day for a month. Okay, then I might need a little break because that's a lot of raw tuna, but I'd get back right on it, especially if you throw seared ahi into the mix and...shiro maguro.

"Shiro" translates into "white" in English. It's also called bincho maguro, but let's just focus on one thing at a time here. Shiro maguro is tuna, just like those ruby red tunas you see in the case, but the flesh is much much lighter, ranging from a pale peach to almost ivory white, thus the name "shiro."

Shiro maguro is one of my sister's favorite fish for sushi and she and I both get a little crazy when we see it on the menu or in the glass case. In sushi bars, it is often served as a specialty. Sometimes it is seared (like ahi), placed in its own special little dish, garnished with own special little sauce, and garnished with its own special chives. Now here's the thing. Shiro maguro is...albacore tuna. That's albacore tuna, as in the same stuff that Starkist slings in pull top cans at the supermarket!

An order of shiro maguro is $8. Eight dollars of albacore tuna could make tuna salad sandwiches for Mrs. Stanton's entire third grade class. For a week.

Eh. But you can't dip a tuna salad sandwich in soy sauce.

You're probably familiar with it as yellowtail, and if you're already sushi-savvy, you call it "hamachi," but the family to which this rich, velvety fish belongs is jack, a family that includes a few other fish that you definitely want to try if they're available.

Hamachi, Japanese amberjack, comes from a young fish. The flesh ranges in color from a pale ivory to a barely-there pink, and when it's fresh, is soft, smooth, and sometimes can be as rich as butter.

Another type of jack that is becoming increasingly popular (at least in these parts) is kanpachi, just called amberjack in English. My first taste of kanpachi was on a recent visit to Mori Sushi in West Los Angeles. It was similar in color to hamachi, a little firmer in texture (like the difference between maguro and toro in the tuna family), and absolutely delicious.

Lesser known of the jack family are aji and shima-aji. Aji is called horse mackerel in English, and shima-aji is the striped version of it. Both are lighter (not as rich and fatty) as hamachi and kanpachi, but a great addition to your meal if they're available.