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| Buying Good Fish How a Home Cook Can Find Fish as Good as That Served by By Emily Kaiser
Fish—the whole world seems to want it. but local fish markets and chefs say that providing fresh fish to customers is increasingly difficult. Says Leif Klasson, owner of Arlington’s Swedish Fish, which has been importing fish for 20 years: “There’s just not enough good fish coming out of the ocean.” Not only is there a shortage of fish in the sea, there’s little guarantee that what does come out will arrive here in good condition. To meet the growing demand, fish are imported from all over the world, and their journey from the sea to your table can be perilous. A fish can travel thousands of miles and remain in pristine condition as long as it is handled well. A fish should be taken out of the water gently, without bruising, and then held on ice to keep it cold but not frozen. It should get to port within a few days and then be shipped quickly by air or truck to a broker or auction. From the broker the fish will travel by land or air to a distributorship and then to a store or restaurant. Chefs and retailers who want good seafood depend on distributors to coordinate this journey. The best distributors act as travel agents, arranging the quickest connections to bring in the freshest fish. As demand for fresh fish has grown, expectations of quality also have risen. Since the sushi craze began in the early 1980s, says Max Devens, seafood buyer for Sutton Place Gourmet, “everybody’s standards have risen. Everybody’s shopping for that top 10 percent now.” Kazuhiro Okochi, owner of Kaz Sushi Bistro, has been ordering fish in DC for 14 years—first as executive chef at Sushi-Ko and now at his own restaurant. He says, “People are more aware of the quality, the freshness of seafood.” But the search for quality, he adds, has not gotten any easier. DC is served by distributors that bring fish here from all over the world. Very little comes directly from fishermen. Most arrive from brokers at BWI or airports in New York, Boston, and Miami and are then trucked into Washington, either to the wholesale market in Jessup, Maryland, or to other processing centers. Because fish travel such distances, distributors try to make sure the fish is well-packaged. “What’s most important is to keep the fish cold,” says Dan Kauffman, a seafood-business specialist at Virginia Tech. Fresh fish must be held on ice to stay at about 28 degrees Fahrenheit; the salt in their flesh should prevent freezing. The ice must be held in good styrofoam boxes. Boxes and ice are not always available, especially in poorer countries. Some distributors try to make sure their suppliers have adequate shipping materials. Some distributors repackage fish when they receive it, either in ports such as Miami or Boston or at processing centers here. Even a well-packaged fish can suffer if its trip is too long. So the quality of fresh fish rests on the reliability of the shipping networks. “Part of wholesaling is knowing the refrigerated trucking network on the East Coast,” says Greg Casten, owner of Profish. “It’s logistics—that’s what fresh fish is all about,” says Klasson of Swedish Fish. Fish awaiting pickup or delivery can sit at docks or airport tarmacs while its ice melts and its flesh begins to deteriorate. Klasson says that he imports fish only from countries that have direct flights to DC and that have short, good roads from their coasts to their airports. He ships from Norway and Peru but not from Chile or Scotland. The Santiago airport, he feels, is too far away from the coast, and there are no direct flights from Glasgow to DC. Other suppliers disagree, using Chilean and Scottish salmon because of its reasonable cost, good quality, and availability. They feel that fish that travels farther can still be good. “I can show you a fish that’s ten days out of the water that looks better than one just caught yesterday—it’s all in how it’s been iced,” one distributor argues. Salmon, a staple on restaurant menus and at retail fish counters, provides a good example of the scope of the market. Salmon is now farmed in Chile, Australia, Norway, England, Iceland, Canada, and the United States. (The name “Atlantic Salmon“ describes the species, not the fish’s origin. Atlantic Salmon can now come from the Pacific.) Large-scale suppliers such as Profish, Legal Sea Foods, and Giant Food get the salmon from wherever it is available. If they cannot get it from their preferred country, they must reach out to another source. Chilean salmon is often the cheapest. It is trucked from farms on the Pacific coast to the Santiago airport and flown to Miami or New York, where it is picked up by a refrigerated truck and delivered to distributors in DC. The trip takes a day and a half to two days. Norwegian salmon arrives more quickly. It is usually flown directly from Oslo to DC. It is of a higher quality but is also more expensive and not as regularly available. Supplies of salmon, tilapia, catfish, and trout are relatively stable because they are farmed. But many of the fish we eat—tuna, halibut, monkfish, flounder, and snapper, to name a few—are wild, and many chefs prefer the wild variety of even the frequently farmed fish because the think that the flavor is superior. Another problem with the supply of fresh fish is the fad factor. Redfish was plentiful until chef Paul Prudhomme’s blackened redfish became a fad and the redfish was fished almost to extinction. The popularity of Chesapeake Bay rockfish also threatened its survival until a moratorium on rockfish fishing allowed it to recover. The Chilean sea bass is also threatened by overfishing, prompting an association of prominent chefs to declare that they will not use it until it is allowed to recover. As Dan Kauffman notes, “Seafood is the last hunted product. It’s different from the hog in the lot.” Suppliers of every other protein we eat, from beans to beef, can regulate quality. They also know how much they have on hand. Fish distributors, though, cannot know in advance how much fish will be coming out of the water on a given day. Some days the water may be too rough to fish or the fish are just not where the fishermen hoped they’d be. Large retail chains that have to print ads in advance for specials on fish will ask fishermen to hunt for a certain product—to “fish for an ad,” as Giant’s seafood buyer puts it. But if the weather does not allow a successful catch, stores have to issue rain checks. Sometimes too much of a good fish can come in and sit around unsold. “There’s the old saw in the business,” says Kauffman: “Sell it or smell it! You have to move fish very quickly and rapidly. You can hang beef for a month, but you can’t do that with seafood.” Why can’t restaurants and retailers order their fish directly from fishermen? “Chefs sometimes have a mania for what they think of as dealing direct,” says Kauffman, “but it’s not always the best way to get fish.” Besides coordinating the seafood odyssey, distributors provide other services. They can absorb the many grades of quality of seafood by matching the quality and size of the fish to the buyer. They also order seafood in the volumes necessary to keep costs down. Though it is harder to obtain, fish must be priced close to the prices of other meats to remain a staple. With most fish, the more direct its path from water to customer, the more expensive it is. If fresh fish reaches our markets by such an indirect route, how fresh is it? The FDA, which regulates the seafood industry, does not define “fresh” for fish the same way it does for poultry and other meats. Nor is there a strict line between fresh and frozen. Fresh fish often get partially frozen if they are brought out of the water into air that’s below freezing or held un-iced in a refrigerated truck too long. The best retailers and chefs know what frozen flesh looks like and will refuse it. But some will sell frozen fish as fresh. When asked how much of its fish was frozen, the Safeway corporate seafood group responded, “In order to maintain the freshest quality with the global procurement of seafood today, the industry has developed a ‘flash frozen’ process to maintain optimum quality and freshness.” In other words, all its “fresh” fish is thawed. Ruth Welch, a former press officer at the FDA, says that the agency’s main guideline for fish labeling is that it be “truthful and not misleading.” A supermarket that advertised previously frozen fish as fresh would be “of concern to the agency” but would be unlikely to be prosecuted. The FDA “prioritizes based on danger to public health,” Welch explains. Old or thawed fish may not be as delicious, but it’s still nutritious. With the complexity of a fish’s journey, freshness is hard to define. What indicator is best: How many days it has been out of the water? How many hands it has passed through? At what temperature it has been held? None of these criteria, suppliers argue, determines conclusively the quality of the fish. To be assured of a fish’s freshness, one supplier says, “trust is key.” “Seafood is all about relationships,” says Joe Stofer, main seafood buyer for Whole Foods. “It’s an interaction business,” says Casten of Profish. Distributors, brokers, and retailers all rely on personal connections to get the best available fish. Okochi describes this relationship: “When I get something I know is not good, well, I don’t yell—I’m not a yelling person—but I call right away, and I make it very clear to them that I am not happy. I have to do this a lot.” Chefs teach their distributors what they want, and good distributors do the same with their brokers. Distributors are known to give their freshest fish to the chefs they favor and lesser product to ones who do not seem to notice or care. Chefs who prize good fish work hard to establish strong connections to their suppliers, and they often avoid newcomers. Internet companies that allowed chefs to order fish directly from boats and farms online failed in large part because they lacked this necessary human contact. HOW TO BUY THE BEST FISHHow can the shopper find the best fish? No one likes to come home from the market and unpack a carefully selected filet only to find that it smells and falls apart at the touch. Even the most experienced fish chef can pick out a loser. There are professional tricks to deal with the disappointment. The heavy seasonings popular on fish—herb-crusted halibut or blackened catfish, for example—may mask a less than pristine flavor. But even if plenty of salt and pepper and a good squeeze of lemon might hide the damage, it is more gratifying to cook with truly fresh fish. If buying whole fish, look for vivid red gills and shiny skin or undamaged scales. A whole fish should look freshly caught, not as though it has been abused. Not too long ago, a fishmonger would cut fillets or steaks from a whole fish while the customer waited, but they are generally precut these days. I avoid pre-packaged fish—it’s impossible to judge its condition accurately. A good filet should hold together well, appear slick and smooth, and smell of the ocean. Because customers aren’t allowed to touch fish before they buy it, I ask to smell it first: If it’s too fishy, I turn it town. If it appears frayed, I try to avoid it, though cooking often will help it look better. It’s best to buy fish the day you plan to cook it. In the 40-degree temperature of the average home refrigerator, fresh fish deteriorates fairly quickly. If you must keep it, try to keep it on ice the way fish stores do—maybe on a bed of ice cubes in the vegetable drawer or well-wrapped between a couple of ice packs. If all else fails and you get home with something less than lovely, it can’t hurt to follow Okochi’s example: Go back and in a kindly manner tell the fishmonger you are disappointed. If he’s worth his salt he’ll give you something better in exchange. Ultimately, finding fresh fish may come down to something quite familiar to Washingtonians: the practice of good politics. THE BEST FISH MARKETSWhich fishmongers are best? Many fish buyers will tell you that retailers simply cannot get the same quality fish as the best restaurants because the retailers need too much. Most restaurants deal with tens of pounds of fish a week; most retailers, thousands of pounds. With their larger volumes, even the best retailers have to accept more lower-grade fish than the best restaurants. There simply isn’t time to check all the fish that comes in. A few basic things to look for in a good fish counter: The space should be clean and well cared for, like the fish. The fish should be on ice or stone; metal and plastic lend fish their flavors. The best fish-display cases are enclosed to limit air circulation and keep the fish from dehydrating. This is especially important for filets, which are fragile. The best fish counters do their fileting on the spot. Perhaps most important, the staff should helpful, informed, and stable—forming relationships with people on the move is difficult. Sadly, as one fish buyer admits, it’s hard to find and keep good fish people. A good fishmonger is an artist; if he has a good product, he’ll go home smelling not of fish but of the ocean. The maxim that “seafood is all about relationships” is valuable advice for the home cook. Find a fishmonger you trust, and make sure he or she knows you. If he knows you care, he won’t give you substandard fish. Your fish dealer will have formed a network of relationships that means he gets good product, and he’ll pass that product on to his customers. Washington-area shoppers are lucky to have a number of places with reliably good seafood. River Falls Seafood Company in Potomac (10124 River Rd.; 301-765-8001) is the Saks Fifth Avenue of our fish stores: a boutique that commands outstanding seafood and charges a premium for it. Owner Jeff Grolig, the former seafood buyer at Sutton Place Gourmet, goes to the wholesale market in Jessup two or three days a week with a short shopping list and takes advantage of his friendships with brokers to pick out some of the best fish available. His counters are a standard for visual appeal and hygiene, and the staff is very helpful. Sutton Place Gourmet (locations in DC, Maryland, and Virginia) credits Grolig with building its seafood-buying program. The company has grown considerably since he left: It now includes Balducci’s in New York and the Hay Day Markets in Connecticut, Virginia, and New York, for a total of 12 stores on the East Coast. Sutton Place cannot be quite as selective because of its larger volume, but it comes close and does not charge as much. Current buyer Max Devens has an office at Jessup where he, too, uses his connections to find the best available for his stores. Much fish is bought whole and fileted at the stores. Most fish-counter staffers at Sutton Place deal with fish exclusively. Several of the area’s best seafood stores are retail operations owned by the wholesale companies that supply most of the area’s best restaurants. When you buy from these stores, you are able to skip one step in the distribution process and may get fresher fish as a result. Swedish Fish (3461 Washington Blvd., Arlington; 703-527-7100) and M. Slavin & Sons (2710 S. Glebe Rd., Arlington; 703-486-0400), two suppliers favored by some the area’s finest chefs, have retail stores adjacent to their processing centers. The very good Cannon stores in Georgetown (1065 31st St., NW: 202-337-8366) and Great Falls (762A Walker Rd.; 703-759-4950) are retail branches of its wholesale operation. Dean & DeLuca does not have its own fish buyer—it uses restaurant suppliers for its fish counter in Georgetown (3276 M St., NW; 202-342-2500). Its selection is often smaller than that of other seafood stores, but the quality is high. For the dedicated, some restaurant suppliers who operate out of the wholesale market at 7901 Oceano Avenue in Jessup are also open to the public, if the public is willing to get there by 5 or 6 in the morning and doesn’t mind scaling and gutting its own purchases. Louis Foehrkolb (units 14, 20, 22, and 24; 410-799-4260) and J.J. McDonnell (units 26, 28, 30, and 32; 410-799-4000) are among the suppliers who set out, amidst pallets of fish bound for restaurants and retailers, boxes of whole fish for sale to individuals. Just keep an eye out for fast-moving forklifts speeding by. For more information on the Jessup market, see www.mfca.state.md.us. You can go where chefs go when they are off work. Many line cooks choose the convenience and lower cost of the Fresh Fields and Whole Foods stores. The filets are usually not the restaurant quality you can find at M. Slavin or Sutton Place, but they are good. Washington chefs sing the praises of several Asian markets because they’re cheap, the quality is good, and you can handle the fish themselves. The Korean Corner in Silver Spring (12207 Veirs Mill Rd.; 301-933-2000), Lotte Oriental Supermarket in Rockville (11790 Parklawn Dr.; 301-881-3355), and Han Ah Reum Asian Supermarket in both Wheaton (12015 Georgia Ave.; 301-942-5071) and Falls Church (8103 Lee Hwy.; 703-573-6300) sell whole fish for very low prices. The fish are laid out in bins of ice, where customers are welcome to handle them to test for freshness. The staff at Korean Corner will scale and gut fish for you; at Lotte and Han Ah Reum you are on your own. The Maine Avenue seafood market is probably the area’s most picturesque place to buy fish. Though you can occasionally find great fish at great prices, the overall quality is low. I don’t recommend it. THE QUEST FOR FRESH CODOn a Tuesday morning I conducted an informal test of local fish markets. I chose six stores that I thought might provide a cross-section of area fish sellers—Fresh Fields on River Road, M. Slavin & Sons on Glebe Road, Dean & DeLuca and Cannon Seafood, both in Georgetown, Jessie Taylor Seafood at the seafood market on DC’s Maine Avenue, and Giant Food in Arlington. At each I bought a quarter pound of cod, except at Dean & DeLuca, which had only halibut. For comparison I bought a quarter pound of halibut at Cannon. I decided on cod because it is my favorite fish—and a source of constant frustration. Once called the king of fishes, it is now so overfished that much of what is available now is juvenile. Cod is fragile and travels poorly. The best filets are large ones from the head end of a full-grown fish, smooth and unbruised, and they are hard to find. I more often find smaller tail pieces, usually beat up. From appearance alone, it was hard to tell which would be the best. The cod from Giant, Jessie Taylor, and Cannon were thinner than the pieces from Slavin and Fresh Fields. They also smelled older. Both pieces of halibut looked equally good—thick and well colored. When I got them home I was surprised to feel ice crystals in the flesh of the Cannon halibut, but none of the other fish showed signs of freezing. I cooked them all at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for six minutes, except for the Slavin cod, which I cooked for ten minutes because it was larger. After cooking, the pieces from Giant, Jessie Taylor, and Cannon all had frayed, felt stiff to the touch, and leaked water—signs of fish that is old or previously frozen. The Fresh Fields and Slavin’s fish held together nicely and leaked no water. The first three all tasted old, but the latter two had the sweetness and pleasant taste of fresh cod. As for the halibut, the Cannon piece was chewy and dry, the Dean & DeLuca soft and plump. I returned to the three places where I had been disappointed to explain my findings and see what their reactions would be. At each place I described what I had found and asked whether the fish might have been frozen. The manager at Jessie Taylor was pleasant and apologetic and offered to return my money or give me another piece of fish. He could not explain the texture, insisting that everything there is fresh. At Cannon the counterperson explained that the halibut had indeed been frozen at its surface, probably from being caught in cold air near Newfoundland; after cutting into it and finding an unfrozen inner core, the staff had decided it was still a good fish. He speculated that the same had happened with the cod and offered to give me something else in exchange. At Giant the counterperson politely explained that cod always falls apart when you cook it. He did not offer to give me a refund or exchange. Any of these fish markets could have had bad luck that Tuesday. Cod is a troublesome fish, and it often gets abused en route from the ocean. If your supplier slips up, let them know. “The key to buying good fish, whether you’re retail, restaurant, or broker, is having a good relationship with your fishmonger,” says Sutton Place Gourmet’s Max Devens. “Really, you’re building a friendship. As your friend, I’m not going to let you down when you come to me and ask what’s for dinner.” Emily Kaiser, a Washington food writer, is a former restaurant line cook. |
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© 2001 - 2008 Emily Kaiser |
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