More seafood horror stories

[Robin Garr]

I know...We could cook up a bunch of Tilapia in Bacon. When it's done, throw away the Tilapia and eat the Bacon.

It might make the bacon taste muddy, though.

Hmmmmmmmmm.....Bacon.

I know...We could cook up a bunch of Tilapia in Bacon. When it's done, throw away the Tilapia and eat the Bacon.

Steve,

I had to laugh. We eat very little tilapia, but when we do, it's in a recipe for " Proscuitto-wrapped Tilapia with Sage"- which is actually very good. We do not however throw away the fish...

Deb

I am looking back at your post and see that you did say Walleye. Most of these boats are catching lake trout,whitefish etc. Im not positive about the Walleye stocks, but I know I have seen it at the fish shacks near the docks. Here is an ad from the tribal fishers that shows Walleye listed as a fish they sell commercially http://glifwc.org/publications/LakeSupe ... Caught.pdf To me it seems possible that the fish monger might have been selling tribal caught fish.

John,

I'll see your research and raise you mine...In the year 2000 the total harvest of Walleye in the entire Great Lakes was 7'269'000 pounds (the U.S. harvested only 22'891 of this, the rest was harvested in Ontario). Of this total 97% came from Lake Erie and only 0.03% came from Lake Superior. So I kinda sorta stand by my statements that (a) there isn't a viable commercial Walleye harvest in Lake Superior and (b) the chances that some of these fish made it to a fish monger in Louisville are somewhere between slim and none.

Speaking to my comment about not revisiting this local establishment, in all honesty my decision goes much deeper than simply mislabeling the source of one specie of fish (and in retrospect I probably should have made this clear). Indeed there were multiple species which (based on my knowledge as an avid and well traveled fisherman) I strongly suspect were misrepresented, there were previously frozen fish marketed as "fresh" and the final straw was trying to pass off Indonesian farm raised shrimp as "wild caught" (I happened to see the bags these previously frozen shrimp came in).

Fair enough P man. I would like to add that the numbers you provide(without reference) are ten years old and I dont think they include tribal catch numbers. That said, even at those numbers thats over a ton of Walleye pulled from the lake. It did seem possible that a savy fish monger,who has a shop near one of the largest seafood transport hubs in the country,might have been able to snag a special product like that.
But...it sounds like you were dealing with a pretty lousy fish shop so I guess its a mute point. Like you, I go out of my way to buy(which is rare due to budget constraints) American caught seafood. It would really piss me off to find out the fish I paid for was mislabeled/misrepresented. Would you care to name the shop? If not shoot me a PM and let me know.

[Robin Garr]

It would really piss me off to find out the fish I paid for was mislabeled/misrepresented. Would you care to name the shop? If not shoot me a PM and let me know.

Yeah, I'd like to know that too ... professional reasons, y'know. Public or private as Steve's comfort level dictates.

Fair enough P man. I would like to add that the numbers you provide(without reference) are ten years old and I dont think they include tribal catch numbers.

John,

Actually I'm pretty sure those numbers did include tribal quotas. Given all the various interests in the resource it's not surprising that commercial and sport fishing fishing in the Great Lakes and other border waters is severely regulated. As a result agencies on both sides of the border meticulously monitor who's harvesting what and how, so for that reason alone I'm speculating that those numbers included all sources.

Just as an aside, in the U.S. while there is certainly a modest commercial fishing interest it is secondary to our focus on the resource from a "sporting" perspective. In Canada it is almost exactly the opposite. In Canada they divvy up their share of the resource by assigning a priority. The first priority are the "First Nation" people (what we call "Native Americans") followed closely by subsistence fishermen, non-native commercial interests and finally sport fishermen. As an avid fisherman I've been witness to a couple of U.S./Canadian "Border Wars" with Canadian commercial interests v.s. U.S. sport fishing interests being the catalyst. On Lake of the Woods (northern MN) things got particularly ugly with First Nation nets being cut and U.S. sport fishermen routinely getting jacked up by various Canadian authorities...You haven't lived until you've had 3 or 4 badge wearing, automatic rifle toting, jack booted Canadian goons board your fishing boat at 7am. Definitely gets your blood flowing.

Why does the movie "Canadian Bacon" suddenly ring a bell?

~Probably the only Michael Moore film I could stand to watch...

Fair enough P man. I would like to add that the numbers you provide(without reference) are ten years old and I dont think they include tribal catch numbers.

John,

Actually I'm pretty sure those numbers did include tribal quotas. Given all the various interests in the resource it's not surprising that commercial and sport fishing fishing in the Great Lakes and other border waters is severely regulated. As a result agencies on both sides of the border meticulously monitor who's harvesting what and how, so for that reason alone I'm speculating that those numbers included all sources.

Ok Ok...I get it. When you gonna drop the bomb on the fish shop?

Ok Ok...I get it. When you gonna drop the bomb on the fish shop?

I don't think I'm gonna go there. Maybe over beers sometime.

Tilapia..never ceases to amaze me how such a bland tasteless fish can become all the rage.all the Old Bay Seasoning in teh world cant make it worth cooking ..right up there with TOFU! Ding! Tofu stuffed Tilapia...any takers?

I love tofu! I won't eat tilapia and as much as I really like some other fish, I carry a card in my purse that my doctor gave me that tells you which fish have the highest, medium and lowest levels of mercury and which ones are overfished.