Conference turris::cooks

  Yes, any of those would be fine. Fish doesn't have the sturdy proteins
  that hold meat together, so for stews, which cook for a long time, you
  need firm-fleshed fish. Scrod and haddock are perfect. They also have
  a strong enough flavor to hold its own in a stew, where a milder fish
  would be completely overpowered.

  Some points to note about cooking fish for a long time (this may or
  may not be mentioned in the recipes): don't cook fish bones for a long
  time as this will give the dish a very bitter flavor. For stews, you'd
  either remove all the bones before cooking, or take them out as soon
  as the meat can be easily removed from them. Also, seafood like crab,
  lobster, clams, shrimp, and scallops can get very tough if cooked for
  a long time. If you're planning to add these, you may want to do it
  shortly before you plan to serve it.

 "White fish" means any fish whose flesh becomes white upon cooking.

 Most white fish is very flaky and falls apart fairly easily when cooked,
especially when cooked in a stew or chowder.

 If you buy a fish whole, (ie with the head attached), look at the eyes. They
should be clear, not cloudy. Press your finger into the flesh. If it does not
regain its shape, the fish is not fresh. Take a whiff, if it smells real fishy,
it's not fresh (however this is not the most accurate test since some fish smell
fishier than others. Bluefish is one type that smells even when still alive.)

 I suggest that you buy your fish somewhere where they are laid out in a
case rather than prewrapped (my opinion). Ask the clerk when they got the fish;
most will be eager to tell you what they know about the fish.

 For a stew, cod is very good. It is tasty, but less expensive than haddock 
and holds up relatively well.

 One type of fish that everyone should try at least once is "wolffish" (also
sometimes called 'ocean catfish.') It is an extremely ugly fish that tastes
delicious due to its diet of clams, crabs, lobster and other crustaceans. It
is much firmer than cod or haddock and works out great on the grill.

 The Doctah

  The Doc's right about wolffish. It's delicious in stews and chowders,
  and because it's so ugly, nobody will buy it, so it's cheap as can be.
  Remember the days when shark and mussels were cheap 'cause nobody
  would buy them? Watch out. That's gonna happen to wolffish once the
  word gets out. And skates (rays) too.

    Problem with fish now - the cost has gotten very high.  If you can get
    excellent fresh fish, they're probably best broiled to the exact
    moment of done-ness.   Legal Seafoods does this to perfection.  If I'm
    not given fish by friends (they sometimes catch blues) I'd personally
    rather eat at Legals.  It's not a lot more than buying them at the
    market and I'm assured good quality.  You just can't tell about
    fillets.
    
    For stews, why not use frozen fish?  I sometimes get the fish frozen in
    block about 2"x4"x8".  One homey recipe is to put it in a pyrex baking
    dish, while partially defrosted.  (Defrost in refrig or microwave). 
    Apply some fresh lemon juice directly to flesh, then season with s&P.  
    Pour in some milk to 1/2 cover fish, and top with grated cheddar and
    bread crumbs.  Cover and cook in microwave (time varies for amount and
    oven type) until fish flakes easily with a fork.  To make it crispy
    finish under the broiler.  Serve with salad and potatoes.
    
    You can use cod or sole for this one.  They freeze them on the huge
    fishing ships at sea, and this keeps the cost down.
    
    Laura
    

    I heard that "orange roughy" is known as "slimehead" in New Zealand,
    and was available in abundance, till some marketing type dreamed up the
    new name!
    
    TW
    

    Yes, and in the Atlantic, there was "hogfish", which went largely for
    catfood, until some hypemonkey renamed them "Ocean Trout". Now they
    go for $4.00 a pound.
    
    I am suspicious about all these "new" varieties of fish on the market
    these days.  Who is inventing new fish?  I swear to god I never heard
    of an orange ruffie or finian's roughie before 1984, and now they're
    everywhere, and popular to boot.  Something very odd is going on here.
    
    Paranoid as ever,
    
    Max
    

    Who is inventing new fish?  I swear to god I never heard
    of an orange ruffie or finian's roughie before 1984, and now they're
    everywhere, and popular to boot.  Something very odd is going on here.
    
not actually...just better shipping methods - faster, more able to keep things
cool.  Many varieties we see in the western USA, for instance, come from
Australia and New Zealand (different names for them there, I'd bet) and we
didn't see them before because the only canned fishes that have ever taken
off around here are the normal, garden-variety lot of tuna, salmon, sardines,
and for the truly brave, some of the really wierd stuff in cream or pickled.

These, combined with the renamed "garbage" fish that are now served rather
than thrown out, make for a bewildering variety of fish available to an
ever-increasing number of "fish eaters"....

  Shipping methods haven't changed all that much in the last 20 years.
  Salmon has for years been shipped from the west coast to the east. And
  shrimp from the gulf to everywhere. 

  Your second explanation is more likely the reason for the current wide
  variety: renamed "garbage" fish. The smarter folks in the retail fish
  business have realized that there's a market for anything novel,
  especially if it's offered at a high enough price, and accompanied by
  a glossy leaflet about who eats it and what they do with it (including
  a recipe or two).

  Typical example: rascasse is a garbage fish from the Mediterranean
  which you couldn't give away a few years ago. It was mainly eaten by
  people in fishing villages who couldn't afford to eat the rest of the
  stuff they caught. But since it's one of the main ingredients in
  bouillabaisse and soupe de poisson, it's been selling at a nice profit
  in the fancier fish markets of Paris. Watch for it to show up in the
  yuppie fish stores in the States (such as the Quarterdeck in Maynard).
  It'll probably be around $10/lb.

    EEEWWWWWW......I'm bummed! I thought orange roughie was
    a pretty good tasting fish until I read this note :-(
    
    Last year I moved to AZ from New England and couldn't find haddock
    or flounder in the supermarkets (and I'm not very adventurous when it
    comes to trying new fish), but someone *sweared* that orange roughy
    is the closest tasting to those fish as I'll get around here, so
    I tried it. It's a really mild white fish that I like. Is orange
    roughy really a "garbage fish" or a re-named fish ("slimehead"?)
    I NEED TO KNOW THE TRUTH!!!
    
    pat :-)

  But wait! Do you know what "garbage" fish really means? It means any
  fish that isn't eaten by tastebud-less northeasterners of English
  descent. Anything that doesn't look pretty while still alive (as if
  that mattered), or has the remotest tinge of flavor, qualifies as
  "garbage".

  Seriously, our cultural values in food are dominated by those of 17th-
  and 18th-century England, where everything was boiled to oblivion, and
  foods mild in flavor and appearance were preferred. Salt would be a
  potent seasoning in this "cuisine". Garbage fish is anything the upper
  classes didn't have to eat, and they didn't eat anything described
  above.

  These values have stuck with us, or at least with groups which didn't
  have any other cultural background. Italians have always eaten squid
  ("yech"). And the French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Poles and Greeks
  eat all manner of unmentionable creatures -- molluscs, crustaceans,
  conchs, eel, octopus, snails, urchins, sea cucumber, and even
  jellyfish (this last I still haven't gotten up the nerve to try). It's
  a credit to the colonists that they abandoned their heritage long
  enough to discover North Atlantic lobster -- something which the Irish
  were willing to lower themselves to eat, but which to this day has not
  really caught on in England (well, to be fair, it's very expensive).

  Everyone know the song which goes "cockles and mussels, alive,
  alive-o"? Cockles are, of course, scallops or clams (same word as the
  French "coquilles", as in "coquilles St. Jacques"), and the song is
  sung by a poor fishmonger woman, who sells her products in a poor
  section of London -- to the garbage people who eat garbage fish. You
  wouldn't find those filthy cockles at dinner at a lord's house.

  Garbage fish is anything not eaten by upper-class 18th-century
  England.

    Another fish which is extremely good in stew/chowder is CUSK(SP?).
    
    I had Cusk for the first time, a few years ago. We had caught a few
    fairly large Cusk... and my wifes' uncle made a fish stew which was 
    out of this world.
    
    Not all fish markets have cusk.... cause it is considered one of those
    "junk fish"..., but as long as it is called that, the price will stay
    fairly low... and I'll be able to get my fill, when ever I want. 
    
    So, take a walk on the wild side..... bye a bit of CUSK and put that in
    your stew. You will not be disappointed...
    
    (Sh.........SH, don't tell them yuppies it's good)
    
    Bob G.
    

    re.12
    Regarding cusk, my husband was deep-sea fishing this past summer and
    caught a cusk.  He was preparing to throw it back when an oriental man
    offered to buy it from him!  He said it was a delicacy in his family.
    When my husband declined the money, the man insisted in trading him a
    huge cod for it!  The deal was made, and I've been wondering ever since
    how that cusk would have tasted.
    Sarah
    

When we go fishing out of Salisbury, we usually catch cusk and cod in roughly
equal numbers (depending on the time of year).   We do them both in chowder
and filets.  They taste almost the same, not quite, but equally delicious.
The cusk has an unusual fin that goes the length of it's back (more like one
would expect of an eel).


					-jp

Re: .10

<Nit>

>
>  Everyone know the song which goes "cockles and mussels, alive,
>  alive-o"? Cockles are, of course, scallops or clams (same word as the
>  French "coquilles", as in "coquilles St. Jacques"), and the song is
>  sung by a poor fishmonger woman, who sells her products in a poor
>  section of London -- to the garbage people who eat garbage fish. You
>  wouldn't find those filthy cockles at dinner at a lord's house.
>

In the UK, cockles are not the same as scallops, but are a much smaller bivalve
mollusc which is normally boiled in the shell, then eaten on their own seasoned
with malt vinegar and pepper. They are 'raked' from the flats of river
estuaries and are normally sold by the pint by fishmongers and on market
stalls. In many places, vendors go from pub to pub selling small packets of 
cooked cockles (and mussels, whelks, etc)

Scallops, on the other hand, are regarded as a great delicacy, and are priced
accordingly. They are MUCH more expensive in the UK than here in New England.


>  sung by a poor fishmonger woman, who sells her products in a poor
>  section of London -- to the garbage people 

<mega-nit>

The first words of the song, the title of which is "Molly Malone", are:

"In Dublin's fair city"

  Oops, you're right about "Molly Malone" being in Dublin. I confused my
  traditional songs. My wife (Irish) will kill me.

  The word "cockles" is rarely used in the States anymore, especially in
  reference to molluscs (as opposed to "the cockles of my heart" -- must
  be one of the ventricles, or something), so the current English usage
  (which doesn't refer to scallops) must be more correct.

RE: .19

Yup, the overly clever gardener and his entire family got critically ill (don't
know if they actually died) of nightshade (jimson weed, to be specific)
poisoning as a result of the grafting experiment.


RE: .18

The expression "cockles of my heart" comes about due to the shape of the
cockle shell.  When viewed from the side, the shells are distinctly heart
shaped.  This also gives rise to the scientific names of the genera of cockles,
all of which are based on "cardium", Latin for "heart".

--PSW

    I guess this question should go in the Fish Questions for the Truly
    Ignorant American in England, but this will have to do. I am a
    transplanted Southerner (American) to the UK (Reading) and am
    having seafood cravings. I need some help with a couple of these:
    
    1. Anybody have any idea which type of fish over here would most
    closely resemble catfish?? I could just start trying white fish, but
    the catfish has a bit of sweetness after its fried (I use corn meal),
    so I am stumped. Any pointers?
    
    2. I can't find prawns that are not already cooked. I used to boil shrimp
    with a spice mixture including cloves, bay leaves, pepper, etc., but
    I can't find any prawns that aren't already cooked. Why is this? I
    talked to one person who said he could get some but it would be
    6 pounds for 1 pound. That's a bit expensive for me....
    
    Any advice appreciated.
    
    Elizabeth 

    Hi,
      This might be a dumb question, but I wanted to find out if there are
    any fish that are boneless.  I figure it is easier for kids to eat fish
    that is either boneless or doesn't have many bones in it.  Thanks for
    any help on this.  

    Shark

    Sardines are eaten, bones and all! (minus head!)  I like
    mine in sild oil.

    re .24
    
    What is sild oil?  Never heard of it.
    
    As for boneless fish, fish all have bones.  But you can buy *pieces* of
    fish without bones.  Steaks of large fish like swordfish or shark or
    halibut have no bones, or just a large one-piece bone in the center,
    similar to what you might see in a ham steak.  Fillets also are
    boneless, being pieces with the bones removed.
    
    

 If you buy a fillet, it shouldn't have any bones in it. You should be able to
go to any fishmarket and ask them for a boneless piece of fish, and you can
even have just about any kind of fish you want.

    Thanks so much.  I appreciate all the inputs...
    

    fishsticks, but they're fried....
    
    bb

Yes... Fishsticks!  Never had anything but in our family, until I went away to 
school!

One thing to be wary of is that SOME fillets do have bones.  Particularly salmon
and mackeral.  As I understand it, fish typically have 3 or 5 rows of bones that
extend from the spine (the spine runs the length of the fish).  One row sticks
"up" to the back, two rows stick "down" to the belly and have the guts in 
between.  On some fish there are two more rows that stick out to the sides.  
These are the fish that always have bones in the fillets, unless someone pulls
them (a time consuming chore rarely done in fish markets except by special 
request).

>One thing to be wary of is that SOME fillets do have bones.  Particularly salmon

 This is true. Salmon (and some trout) have an addition row or two of bones that
are not easily removed during the filleting process. If you ask for a piece
of the tail end of the fish, you won't have a problem with these riblets.

 

    scallops are boneless seafood....
    

    RE:  .31
    
    as are any shellfish including shrimp and lobster.
    
    Oh yeah, and what about canned tunafish? ;-)
    
    L
    

    Sild oil is the oil that canned sardines are in.....
    
    (don't know what it actually is, tho')

    There are no bones in shark, period.  They have no skeleton.
    
    I've seen some cooking shows where the cook runs his/her fingers down a
    filet feeling for bones and then pulls them out with needle-nosed
    pliers.

    re .34
    
    Really -- sounds fishy to me.  If they have no skeleton, then what are
    their teeth lodged into if not a skull?  

�    Really -- sounds fishy to me.  If they have no skeleton, then what are
�    their teeth lodged into if not a skull?  
    
    Cartilage most likely.  Biologically and evolutionarily speaking, sharks
    are quite primitive.

    So a shark is really a huge muscle with teeth -- pretty scary.  
    
    -e

     Obviously, you folk have never seen "Jaws" or visited fishing towns
which have people who display the massive jawbones and teeth from the big
sharks they catch.

                                    Greg

    even the 'jawbones' of a shark are cartilage.

    Ever see a shark skull attached to those jawbones? 

 >>   There are no bones in shark, period.  They have no skeleton.
    

	Actually, that's not entirely true, according to the American
	Heritage's definition.  It's not that they have "no skeleton".
	They have a cartilaginous skeleton.

	El, you ain't crazy.
	Di

last I heard, the only bones in a shark were the jaw bones.  all else is 
cartilage.  The only remains you find of sharks is their jaws - nothing else
'lasts'.

    Well, this was so fascinating to me that I looked it up in the
    Encyclopedia Britannica when I got home.  Turns out that sharks do not
    have "true bone" but they have calcified cartilage.  There are two
    subdivisions of the "fish" family -- bony fishes and cartilagenous
    fishes.  Although it was once thought that the cartilagenous fishes
    were more primitive than the others, this has more recently been found 
    to be false.  As a group, they used to have "true" bones, but have
    regressed to cartilage.  All ofthese fishes, however, are vertebrates. 
    In fact, the EB mentions that sharks are often dissected by students as
    an introduction to vertebrate anatomy.
    
    So, that leaves a corresponding question -- what is true bone?  I
    should have looked this up, but got so fascinated reading about all
    kinds of fishes that I forgot to.  I'd have to guess it has something to
    do with having a blood supply.  But the real question here is whether
    or not these "non-bones" will annoy the eater of shark meat!
    
    -ellie  

    I also heard that sharks do not have a urinary track and eating too
    much could cause ureic sp? poisoning (say 3 a day).
    
    Bob

RE: .44

I think you heard wrong.  All fish excrete ammonia, not urea, and I think that 
they do so through their skins.  There's no need for a urinary tract when you 
spend your entire life floating in water.

--PSW

    re .45
    
    Sorry, but I've read that the shark stores a relatively high level of
    urea in its blood stream to "balance" its osmotic pressure with that of
    sea water. This was covered in our Comparative Anatomy and Physiology
    course. I have no reason to doubt this information.
    
    Now, whether or not such urea levels are found in the edible tissues to
    a point that could cause problems to the eater -- I have no
    information.

That may well be.  That would explain why many species of shark develop an 
ammonia sort of taste in their meet almost instantaneously once they're killed.

--PSW

RE: .-1

I'll have to post a note on some of the unsavory aspects of mammalian biology, 
too, and then you can stop eating meat as well.

--PSW

>>    Now, whether or not such urea levels are found in the edible tissues to
>>    a point that could cause problems to the eater -- I have no
>>    information.

Other than taste, there doesn't seem to be a problem.  I received some 
'fresh' shark steaks and prepared on a grill.  When I bit into my tasty
looking morsel, I got a clear nose and mouthful of ammonia!  Ruined me
for LIFE wrt eating shark.  I called the store where I purchased and they
told me that all shark meat contains ammonia (urea) and to temper the
taste, the meat is soaked for some period of time in a salt water solution
to flush out the ammonia.  Apparently, they missed on this one.  They
did refund the cost.

-Nicki

�I called the store where I purchased and they
�told me that all shark meat contains ammonia (urea) and to temper the
�taste, the meat is soaked for some period of time in a salt water solution
�to flush out the ammonia.
    
    From what I've heard and read, the ammonia smell is a good indicator
    that the shark is not fresh -- in fact it has gone bad.  I'm glad to
    see they refunded your money even if they gave you a questionable
    reason for the problem.
    
    Before the counterperson wraps it up, ask to take a whiff.  If you
    smell ammonia, don't buy it.

    How do you eat a kipper...
    
    with a knife and fork? so you look part way civilised.
    
    
    Joking apart, the only way I can see one avoiding eating a fair number
    of those ever so fine bones that appear to permeate every cubic 
    millimetre of Herring, is to use ones fingers.
    
    Angus