Fish Tales: The truth about "snapper" and other finny friends
Written by Paul Greenberg
Photo by Janna Nichols
For Summer 2007
IT'S ALWAYS A PLEASURE TO EAT A LOCAL FISH. It feels fresher, more sustainable and, somehow, more “true.” And so, up and down the Pacific Coast, as shoppers’ thoughts turn to warmer weather and lighter fare, they will be seeking out that local fish that feels right. Often, it’s the red-skinned fillets in the seafood counter that draw the eye and make the mouth water. Inevitably, those fillets will be tagged with the label “red snapper.” It's a good name and most consumers will put a couple of pounds of it in their shopping carts without asking any more questions.
But is that red snapper really red snapper? Even more importantly, what is red snapper in the first place? And most important of all, given the dire state of so many of America’s wild fish stocks, should that red snapper be eaten?
The answers, like so many of those that concern the wild ocean, are not straightforward.
First of all, let us talk of names. “Red snapper” was originally used to apply to Lutjanus campechanus, a large, bottom-dwelling animal native to the Gulf of Mexico, not the Pacific Coast. It is often called the “true red snapper” and many chefs insist that you make sure that the snapper you’re getting is campechanus and not some imposter.
But as fisheries conservation problems go, true red snapper is one of the more intractable. Not only is Lutjanus campechanus identified as overfished by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program, it is also the inadvertent target of the Gulf shrimp fishery. Because juvenile snapper often mix with shrimp populations, millions of little true red snapper are caught, killed, and dumped overboard by the shrimping industry every year. So all in all, “true” red snapper is not necessarily the “right” red snapper.
So let us then consider the “false” red snapper, known among fishermen in the Portland area as rockfish. There are more than 70 species of rockfish up and down the Pacific Coast, at least three of which are sold as red snapper, and many others that are called just plain snapper. These false snapper include the yellow-eyed rockfish (Sebastes ruberrimus, pictured above) the vermillion rockfish (Sebastes miniatus) and the canary rockfish (Sebastes pinniger). Like true red snapper, they live near the bottom, eat a variety of crustaceans and small fish, and have a similar flesh quality. They are caught throughout the Pacific Coast, are readily available all year, and reach Oregon markets with a minimum of food miles.
“Yes,” you say, “I get it. The ‘false’ red snapper is the right choice for me.”
Not so fast.
Rockfish, like true red snapper, are also complicated. Because so many species of rockfish, ranging from the very overfished (the canary) to the okay (the black), inhabit the same waters, it is difficult if not impossible for fishermen to catch only the “right” ones without killing the wrong ones.
Moreover, rockfish are long-lived and slow-growing. Many of the rockfish you see in your seafood counter are older than you and slow to reproduce. Rockfish populations have plummeted in the last twenty years and, in 2002, large swaths of rockfish grounds were closed to fishing altogether.
Today, some populations are rebuilding. And more and more hook-and-line fishing is starting to replace ecologically damaging trawling practices. But given the number of factors to take into account, I find it unlikely that your local fishmonger is going to put exactly the right red snapper caught in exactly the right way onto your plate.
So which snapper are we to choose: true or false? I would answer this question with another question that gets more to the heart of the matter: “What is the ‘red-snapper-i-ness’ that you, the consumer, are looking for in a fish?” Is it the moist, flaky texture that, as About.com’s Barbecues and Grilling expert puts it, has a “sweet, nutty flavor that lends itself very well to everything from hot chilies to subtle herbs”? Is it the red skin? If so, with apologies, I must assert that both reasons are bunk.
Over the years, celebrity chefs and seafood marketers around the world have tried to sell me on a given fish’s specific qualities. The most common adjective they use when telling me of a fish’s uniqueness is “nutty.” “Just how is that fish nutty?” I ask them. “Well, you know, like a nut,” they say. Having eaten more than my share of the boney fish that make up the Class Osteichthyes, I have yet to come across one that tastes like a nut. Mostly fish tastes like fish. Actually, most fish tastes like the sauce it’s sitting in.
And about that red color. Legal Sea Foods’ Roger Berkowitz, perhaps the most successful seafood marketer in the country, once told me “people eat with their eyes.”
If that’s the case, you could see why red skin has its selling points. But all that nice red skin generally fades to pink or white after ten minutes in the oven.
My point is that perhaps it’s time we stopped eating with our eyes, at least when it comes to the various wild fish that have come to be called red snapper. Farmed tilapia and catfish, sustainably raised, are cheaper than both Gulf red snapper and Pacific rockfish. They don’t look like much in the seafood counter, but prepared with “hot chilies or subtle herbs,” they still manage to taste like hot chilies or subtle herbs, and even, God forbid, like fish.
So the next time you find yourself at a seafood counter trying to determine whether the snapper before you is true or false, you should be ready to grill your fishmonger and not just your fish. Where was the fish caught? How was it caught? Is it Gulf red snapper or Pacific rockfish? And if it’s rockfish, exactly what species of rockfish is it?
If your salesman can’t answer these questions, then perhaps the best answer to the true or false red snapper problem is quite simply “none of the above.”
Paul Greenberg is a Food and Society Policy Fellow with the Jefferson Institute and a regular contributor on fisheries issues to the New York Times Magazine. His book on seafood and the ocean will be published by Penguin Press.
