Nostalgia?
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We’re just jealous we didn’t realize there was money to made off people who don’t understand how cooking works. /s
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So more direct (and one with a lovely flow) headline: NYT’s Julia Carmel casts a spanner into the chicanery at the cannery.
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To determine the sandwich’s biological father.
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Packaged tuna is heavily regulated. Apparently canneries need to regularly submit lab tests of the fish, presumably before they become a sandwich, to prove it’s the labelled species. It’s something that’s been an issue in the past, but would be rare to run into today.
A lot of that is urban legend. The scallop thing for example claims that many scallops are rounds punched out of skate and ray wings. Which if you’ve ever eaten skate (delicious) is not something that would work. There have been counterfeit scallops out of china, IIRC made of konjac starch. But they’re pretty easily identifiable.
A lot of crab isn’t crab, because it’s imitation crab. And will be clearly labelled as such, and imitation crab isn’t really going to pass as the real thing.
Another classic that’s kinda fallen out of fashion is that Monkfish is often passed off as lobster. If you’ve had both, there’s no way that would work. Seems to be based on the fact that we used to knick name Monkfish “poor man’s lobster”. Because it was cheap and delicious, not because it was similar to lobster.
There’s a lot of mislabelling in the seafood market. But it’s shit like Asian Swimmer Crab getting passed off as Blue Claw Crab. Or imported fish passed off as “local”. Or Escolar, a fish that makes you violently poop, being sold as “white tuna” so people will actually buy it. Everything is a Bluepoint Oyster despite there being no edible oysters out of Blue Point since the 70’s.
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It’s illegal in Europe!
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That escolared quickly!
In all seriousness, escolar makes decent sashimi provided it’s fresh and in small portions.
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And apparently eating portions closer to the tail is one way to mitigate the effect of the wax esters. So it’s an olestra fish. I’ve learned today, and for that I thank you!
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I’m not enough of a fishspert to know if there is a plausible way to fake tuna salad using cheaper fish, but if Subway is successfully tricking millions of people, then I don’t really see the problem.
What I find bizarre is people’s readiness to believe truly deranged food claims, e.g. that McDonald’s fries don’t contain potato, which, what exactly is the cheap substitute for potatoes? Likewise with tuna – it’s not quite the cheapest foodstuff on the planet, but it’s a lot cheaper than some sci-fi moonshot to fake it with rat brains or depleted uranium.
If you want to find people’s hidden crazy, you will never have far to dig if you turn the conversation to food.
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Isn’t it normal for marinated, cooked and processed tissue to not contain living DNA anymore?
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I recall in the early 80s that Trader Joe’s was selling a fish called Pilchard as a tuna alternative – tuna prices had gone through the roof for some reason. If it’s equivalent and cheaper to produce, I could see that being used by chains, or substituted by unscrupulous wholesalers.
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So there is no story here and we all should move along?
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The writer is a moron. She didn’t bother with any control tests. It’s bad science, and even worse journalism.
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Very finny.
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