Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/26/woman-realizes-her-fish-dinner.html
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Wish one could reach through the internet and strangle those people, and their bots.
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Mmmmm goldfish…
Whatever she was squeezing I hope that she took it back.
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Old, freezerburned fish. I have forgotten cod in the freezer for a few years and it turns out like this.
The solution (assuming you want to go ahead and eat it) is to bread it and fry it.
(That is generally the proscribed treatment for any piece of fish you think might taste funky.)
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This looks like freezer burn. White fish has very fragile meat, so ice crystals can shred the crap out of it and make it look (and behave) like that. You can still eat it and i definitely wouldn’t wipe any counters with it…
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This. And it was also probably all frozen together after it was bought from the market where it was also probably pre frozen and thawed for sale.
Which is why the general rule is. But fish and cook straight away. Never re freeze. And if you choose to purchase frozen seafood get IQF.
The only option for what she had was to make fish cakes out of it. That would have been perfectly acceptable.
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Wait, so fish is wet? Or is it bad if fish is wet?
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Another good solution! I did this last summer, where I’d found some filets from a Buffalo (carp-like fish) in the freezer from the previous summer. Ran it through a meat grinder, and mixed in with some tilapia, breadcrumbs and chopped scallions. My roommate doesn’t even like fish, and I caught him sneaking into the fish cakes a couple times. To further cover any funky taste, mix mayo with fresh squeezed lemon juice, add chopped dill or parsley or green onion to the sauce.
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You can also make fish taco out of it. The texture isn’t noticeable when stuffed inside a shell with beans, tomato, onion, pepper, and whatever else you like and if you’re judicious with your spicing the flavor can still come through.
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If that is real fish that has been frozen and defrosted a few times, to the point where it behaves like that, what possible nutritional value could it have at this point? Why find a way to use it, if it’s literally no better for you than eating a sponge?
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Not being pedantic, more curious - is it proscribed, or the usual solution?
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Actually. If there are off flavors that are from freezing or otherwise (assuming it’s not sour) then soak the fish in milk for about 20-30 min. It will leech out those flavors.
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It’s also behaving an awful lot like under soaked salt cod.
Probably roughly the same. But the chances of genuine spoilage of some kind are pretty high. And why the fuck would you want to eat fish that low quality?
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It’s still fish. It didn’t turn into a towel literally – just the texture is off. The nutrients don’t magically disappear. My only concern would be with possible multiple freezing/thawing cycles there might be a high bacterial load.
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This is what I have trouble understanding about fisher-persons especially if they fish for large fish like halibut. They catch these fish that they can’t eat and they freeze the rest. They go to all that trouble to eat inferior fish. Frozen fish isn’t good.
What would that unfathomably rich “comedian” say?
Something like; “What gives?”
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Just because the protein structures are now all out of whack and it behaves that way. It doesn’t mean that A) it’s lost it’s nutritional components and B) that it can’t still be made into something tasty.
The secondary question I have is for you directly…do you ONLY consume food for nutritional value alone? So you’ve never eaten something bad for you or otherwise low on being beneficial because it just tastes good?
I certainly eat for sustenance. But also I like to eat things I enjoy. And yes occasionally that means something like a Doritos that bring zero nutrition to the table yet is a satisfying snack every so often.
Edit: @MaiqTheLiar frozen fish is not good? I think that depends on how it was frozen. Most supermarket fish comes frozen. IQF seafood that gets frozen right at sea is just as good as fresh (in most cases). Some seafood absolutely is terrible if frozen. But that is usually different types of mollusks or crustaceans. The overwhelming majority of fleshy fish sold to the public is perfectly fine frozen in this manner.
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The reason you never re-freeze fish is because your freezer sucks. Fishing boats have blast chillers that freeze the fish almost instantly so the ice crystals stay small, this way the texture is maintained. They also never thaw the fish until it goes out for you to buy.
Your freezer is only a few degrees below freezing so it takes a long time for the fish to freeze, creating large ice crystals that shred the meat and then desiccate, leaving it floppy and lame. Worse, the freezer on your refrigerator has a defrost cycle that regularly allows the fish to warm back up and refreeze, further destroying the meat.
The lesson is to eat the fish on the day you bought it or maybe the day after. Don’t try to keep it in the house.
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Fish you catch yourself and freeze are generally fine. Especially if you get to it in short order. There’s very little change in quality. And given how quickly fish degrades when fresh it’s often the best option if you aren’t eating it immediately.
Also nearly every piece of fish you buy has been frozen, either to keep it stable on the boat. Or to kill parasites. Even if you live (as I do) within spitting distance of commercial fishing boats. Even at the fish market. And especially at the fancy sushi place, all “sushi grade” means is it’s been frozen in a specific way intended to kill parasites. And the fancier sushi guys will not serve certain fish (especially tuna) if it hasn’t been frozen long enough. It’s somewhat analogous to aging in meat, tenderizes things a bit and develops flavors.
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As others here have stated, freezer-burn. Allotropism means that a substance can exist in more than one form/have different physical properties. Usually it’s only applied to elements, and much more narrowly, but it can be broadly applied to all sorts of substances, like fish for instance. Once you puncture all the cell walls with ice crystals, it’s basically a cytoplasm sponge. The muscle tissue loses its turgidity and you get this phenomenon.
I kind of wish more people were familiar with allotropism as a concept, because it’s useful in lots of material contexts, as well as ideological ones.
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What we see here is something that is either not going to have any taste (best case scenario) or really bad freezer burn taste, plus possibly dangerous bacteria from the cycle of defrosting and refreezing. In addition, nutritional values DO deplete over time. So, this is an item of very questionable quality, possibly even dangerous to consume…at that point, it’s time to throw it out. Why throw good money after bad using fresh ingredients to try to make something that seems edible?
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