The Hot Dog of the Sea
Americans do love a good sandwich, especially when it’s free of skin, bones or “weird bits.” It’s time to get creative with what we already have, like the surimi (above).
Seafood can be one of the most efficient proteins to feed the world, and we’re going to need a whole lot more of it. Part of the answer is right in front of us. PJ Stoops has some ideas, and we could be acting on them today.
Humans the world over rely on fish, and there are more humans all the time. We’ve learned how to farm fish well enough that we as a species now produce more farmed seafood than wild — but we’ve only managed to commercially cultivate a few species out of thousands. Meanwhile, we’ve gotten so good at catching wild fish that we could wipe out most known fish stocks with just a little bit of effort. These factors (along with a host of others) should be evidence enough that, whether we like to acknowledge it or not, an existential and unavoidable shift is taking place within the seafood industry.
Of all the known wild fisheries on the planet, approximately 52% are “fully exploited” — meaning that they are fished at sustainable capacity. This is good for the fisheries, but it does not suggest much room for growth. Another 25% are either “over-exploited,” “depleted,” or “recovering from depletion.” While as a whole this is not a completely discouraging picture, it does not leave much room for growth, meaning that there’s no way wild fisheries can possibly grow enough to provide the seafood protein demands of more than seven billion of humans (and growing). Even the best-managed stocks have limits, and there are a dwindling number of untapped wild fisheries. We could continue to fish deeper and deeper, but it should be clear that that is not a way forward. And of course the looming consequences of global warming may render discussions of the sustainability (or even management) of some wild fisheries moot.
Farmed seafood holds massive promise, and seems much more resilient to the effects of global warming, but the whole global industry needs to experience incredible growth in the next decade just to keep up with projected demand (roughly 30% just to account for population growth, and assuming that per capita consumption remains about the same).
With responsible regulations, management, and growth strategies (along with a robust response to global warming), the combination of wild and farmed seafood could easily deliver most of the world’s protein needs – but not if everyone eats only one or a few parts of the animals we farm and catch.
If you throw a carp in front of 100 American chefs or retail fish customers, less than ten would know immediately what to do with it, and most wouldn’t want to try.
The Limits of Fish Collars
Where else do we turn for marketable and tasty seafood protein? Well, we could increase our consumption of fish like tilapia and carp (the most heavily cultivated fish on the planet). But if you throw a carp in front of 100 American chefs or retail fish customers, less than ten would know immediately what to do with it, and most wouldn’t want to try.
So, we find something that isn’t worth much on its own, and we turn it into a marketable product. At the distributor or chef level, this tends to mean things like total yield, use of offcuts, offal, etc; and while this territory is important (I have myself written about and preached it for years, including recently on this blog), there is a limit to its impact. For example, while every chef worth their salt will promote the good sense and gustatory advantages of using the collar of the fish, and while every decent chef acknowledges that the collars do indeed have market value, probably over 90% of all fish collars are still discarded in the US fish industry (my estimate, based on seeing too many collars in the trash at too many places). Also, the collar is a relatively small part of the fish, so even when it is used, the rest of the carcass generally goes in the trash (foodie instagram accounts notwithstanding, the fish head is still a rare visitor to most restaurant menus). So any impact is limited to the efforts of individuals chefs, and these chefs and their restaurants are typically out of reach for the majority of Americans - whether for reasons of geography, money, or time. Moreoever, full utilization of individual fish is generally too labor and skill intensive to be practical except on a large scale, and will therefore most likely be limited to the high-end niches of the foodservice and retail sectors .
After all, the yardstick for measuring changes in the seafood industry is the retail fish counter. But while a fish collar and a chicken wing are actually the same kind of structure (it becomes a fin the former, a wing in the latter), fish collars are not yet recognized as an analagous food item.
We need to be looking for and promoting products that an average shopper in a decent grocery store would recognize as tasty, easily prepared food.
Lessons from on Land
We need to apply to the seafood industry lessons from the modern meat industry, which, after all would not exist without the hundreds of applications that allow the processors to use every last bit of the animal - from hot dogs to chicken nuggets to ground beef chubs to a galaxy of derivatives beyond.
So again, the question: what is the hot dog of the sea? Well, it turns out we don’t have to look too hard, because all of the work has already been done for us.
Fish Dogs, Krabby Patties, and Surimi the likes of which even God has never seen
First, let’s look at fish mince, AKA fish paste - ground or chopped fish meat. Why is ground land meat so ubiquitous, while ground fish meat essentially non-existent outside of Asian markets? Think of everything we do with ground beef and ground pork, then think of what we could do with ground fish. And think beyond the salmon patties and shrimp burgers that have been around for decades - think of more highly processed products, cured and smoked (and maybe visit that Asian market to get a glimpse of the galaxy of possibilities). Think fish dogs.
Beyond using fish mince in a direct form (that fish dog), there are a host of applications. Developed in its modern form in the mid-60s in Japan, surimi is made mostly from fish mince, with some other ingredients to give it the necessary texture and characteristics (the other ingredients are hardly nefarious — wheat, eggs, seasonings, etc). While surimi was originally produced using “trash fish” (unmarketable bycatch), manufacturers today unfortunately rely on targeted fish like Alaskan Pollock and Blue Whiting today. While we in the US know it mostly in the form of the aforementioned imitation crab (or “krab”), surimi in Japan is used to produce a host of “imitation” products, from shellfish to lobster to eel. In other words, it is a highly versatile product. And while it is not glamorous, it is certainly a respectable sounding foodstuff. After all, what is in a hot dog?
The main argument for surimi, vis-a-vis sustainability and rational use of resources, goes like this: the market already exists, the necessity already exists, the raw materials already exist, and every bit of technology necessary for production already exists as well. All of the hard work is done.
If you are of a certain age in this country, you probably ate a lot of imitation crab (also called surimi) when you were younger, and you might have eaten that before you ate actual crab. Whether you admit it or not, you probably enjoyed it. Somewhere along the way, though, this utterly utilitarian product fell out of vogue. Today, though enjoyed by considerable chunks of the US population (just last night we had surimi remoulade sandwiches), I cannot think of a single reputable restaurant — from casual to white tablecloth — that would even consider using surimi. This is, in my opinion, a damn shame and a lost opportunity.
The case for surimi
The main argument for surimi, vis-a-vis sustainability and rational use of resources, goes like this: the market already exists, the necessity already exists, the raw materials already exist, and every bit of technology necessary for production already exists as well. All of the hard work is done.
As mentioned above, along with growing rational wild and farmed fisheries, we should be looking to processors and fishers and the inevitable byproducts of their trades. On the fishing side, some fisheries (specifically those using trawls) will unavoidably have some amount of bycatch, which will consist of various white fish, small pelagic fish, and invertebrates; while on the processors’ side, there are the vast numbers of carcasses, every single one with at least some meat on it.
How easily can we process and eat these? That depends. The meat from small fish is easily extracted. With the correct machinery; the same is true, more or less, with larger fish (for example, salmon trim). I am not speaking of a human scraping a backbone with a spoon. I speak of large drum extractors, processing tons at a time. These machines exist already, and have been in use all over the world for decades.
How easily can we use this extracted meat? That also depends. Not all fish produce the same kind of surimi, of course, But research has shown that most common “trash fish” species could be used to some degree, for various applications. Small pelagic fish, for example (think anchovices and sardines etc) make fine surimi, but the color and texture of the final product makes it impractical for use in things like imitation crab.
How easily could we actually use these products? It would only require a small bit of imagination. If surimi-type products seem rather impractical, please recall all the incredibly processed products in the US made with ground chicken, pork, and beef (and then go visit your nearest Asian market one more time).