Denver is kind of a different beast than a lot of land locked and inland places though. It’s been a major hub for the shipping of seafood inland pretty much as long as that’s been possible. IIRC one of the country’s largest lobster pounds is at your airport, and Denver was a major destination for oysters from both the east and west coasts pretty much since the railroads connected the two.
So you’re sort of a stop or two up the supply chain from most places. Seafood goes directly to Denver from the coasts, then out to places surrounding.
I used to live in Philly, and despite the fact that Philly is just an hour or two from the ocean, and real close to an awful lot of awesome, active fisheries. I had a hell of a time getting decent fish. Fresh or previously frozen. Even specialized, expensive seafood restaurants just had subpar fish. Totally edible and not gross, but just disappointing or off.
The difference is that at that time Philly seemed to have a pretty sad connection to the distribution system. Things didn’t go direct to Philly, it was a couple steps removed.
A lot of frozen fish still degrades in certain ways, with time. So there can be a huge difference between something like a flounder fillet frozen a few days ago, a few weeks ago, and a few months ago. Philly was just a little to far down that time line, fresh fish was often days old. Frozen weeks or months. Shellfish weeks out of the water instead of days. You could get better stuff, but you paid for the privilege.
Seems to have improved these days though. Last I was there the seafood was great and you didn’t need to search for it.
I’m on the alert list for when the tuna and halibut boats come in. All of it is frozen at sea because if it weren’t the cargo would be a health hazard when it got back to shore.
We have a lot of pole caught day boats here, sort of small boats that come in with at most 2 to 3 fish. Big fish like tuna come in live or chilled but not Frozen.
Now that doesn’t mean you can buy it. You will be out bit by a Japanese buyer. And the fish are flash frozen pretty much as soon as it hits the dock. Almost none of our fresh tuna makes it to the domestic market. Rarely it gets bought up by a big restaurant group somewhere in the US and served at the sort of place that has stars from a tire company.
Less of an issue with other big fish, like sword and mahi. Still frozen on the dock but you have a chance of actually encountering it. You’re basically gonna have to go fishing if you want that sort of thing fresh.
Nah the big boats and fleet operations do it the way you describe. We just have a weird fishery. For one it’s the over fished collapsing Atlantic fishery that’s in the news, so the big boat and fleet operations kind of can’t fish tuna here anymore. Big boats fish off in international waters, and they got extremely limited ports they can bring fish in. Sword fish is starting to be limited too.
So most of the tuna boats here are really small pole caught operations. Literally recreational fishing boat style hulls, small crews, pole fishing just like anyone else. A lot of them operate as charters on the side, cause a paying charter will cover gas, bait and shit. Basic idea is they’ll hook you up on 2 fish, 1 gets sold on their commercial license to cover your fee. And you take 1 home. Then the deck hands will catch a couple for the boats quota. Basically bring in at most 5 fish on any given boat, mostly just 1-3. And they fish with or without a charter.
It’s very targeted and considered sustainable even with the population problems. But with the lack of fish, especially big desirable ones. There’s increasingly little chance they’ll get you a tuna on a charter these days. And the sell a fish to cover the buy in thing is becoming a thing of the past. Most of their charter trips target big mackeral, mahi and other more populous/sustainable fish. And if you get Tuna or sword it’s just kind of a bonus.
Not only freezer burned, but probably soaked to heck in tripolyphosphates, like most poorer quality frozen seafood. Edit…ah , i see you already said that further down the thread. I live down in Baja in the winter, and it’s great to be able to get scallops that haven’t been phosphated all to heck. I bet most people have no idea what a scallop is supposed to taste like.
Not quite right. Any fish that has been frozen for more than a few weeks (which is basically any frozen fish) will have been frozen enough to kill parasites. Sushi grade means (or is supposed to mean) that it is of sufficient quality to eat raw. This usually means IQF/FAS fish that has been vacuum wrapped rather than bulk frozen fillets.
There is no standard. Most products labeled as such will follow USDA guidelines for eliminating parasites to justify the label.
And that is all you can say for certain about anything labeled “sushi-grade”. Basically if a place markets something as safe to eat raw, and it isn’t. They’re in trouble. And that’s about as far as it goes.
Sure. There is no regulation and I suppose an unscrupulous dealer could slap a “sushi grade” label on any piece of frozen fish they wanted (anything that’s frozen for more than a week is considered parasite free, which is pretty much any frozen fish that is marketed). But what it usually means is that it’s a higher quality fish that’s been treated well. If you see fish labelled “sushi” or “sashimi” grade, it’s generally a better quality (and also more expensive) than fish that isn’t.
You haven’t seen all that news about mislabeling in the seafood business?
A respectable fish monger might be pulling aside higher quality cuts of fish and labeling that way. And a good one will certainly help you find a piece of fish that’s appropriate however its labeled.
But in my experience the stuff you run into labeled sushi or sashimi grade just out in the world tops out at the level used by the all you can eat roll place down by the mall. Decent sushi restaurants get their fish from specialty suppliers and a different supply chain than most fish markets. There are some fish markets that are part of that supply chain, or buy through it. But your supermarket, however good is not one of them.
And hey these guys are/were one of the major players in the highest end of that sushi supply chain (domestically, the highest quality fish almost always goes right to Japan, and the best sushi restaurants typically import it right back in to the US). And one of the largest purveyors of local and sustainable fish in the North East.
All I’m saying is that just because its says “sushi grade” doesn’t mean its such a nice piece of fish that you shouldn’t cook it. Or really that there’s anything special about it.
Also you need to damn sure know and trust your fish monger. Cause even they don’t always know what they’re selling. Supply chain is fucked.
