As a I opened the box of local black cod I could
tell something was not right. The filets had a dull finish and indented
easily with a gentle press of the finger. Droplets of water percolated
out of the loins and I could immediately tell the fish had been
frozen. The person who had sent me the fish is a reputable local
business, but unfortunately deception and misrepresentation are rampant
in the fishing industry. Angrily, I called the distributor demanding
that he bring fresh fish within the next hour and remove the garbage he
had sent. There is no way of telling whether he meant to send the
offensive product, or simply overlooked a shipment from his own
distributor, but either way these occurrences happen all too frequently
across the wholesale fish industry. It does not matter whether you are
buying direct from a fisherman, or from a National seafood distributor,
it is a problem deeply engrained in every aspect of the business.
For
me, this was the final straw, it was time to cut out the middle man and
go directly to the source. I live only a few blocks from the
commercial wharf in Monterey, where numerous fisherman and shops process
seafood on a daily basis. Armed with a 50 gallon trash bag and my
tiny BMW roadster I departed on a mission. A local prawning boat had
just pulled up and I was able to get a few pounds of still-jumping spot
prawns. Tiny Sanddabs and a few giant black cods were just being loaded
onto ice. I purchased 15 live Dungeness crab being held in the tank of
a boat inside the marina and barely fit the thrashing bag into my
trunk. There is simply no substitute for picking out seafood in person
and I plan to start visiting the wharf as often as I can.
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