Why does my fish taste sweet?

[Sony]

This week, for the second time, I picked up a piece of fish (prepackaged on a styrofoam tray) from the grocery store and there was something that tasted oddly sweet about it. Both times, the fish smelled faintly sweet in the package, but I thought nothing of it the 1st time.

It was catfish fillet the 1st time (I'd just dusted it with my usual cajun seasoning and cornmeal to bake) .

This time, it was trout. I'd simply put salt and pepper on it and seared it in a pan. After cooking, I swear it tasted even sweeter than it smelled. Kind of like "krab"....

Seeing as how fish is sometimes a quick go-to dinner item for me when I'm stopping at the grocery store late after work, this is a little perturbing. Is it just me?

[budrichard]

Ask your fish monger if the fish has been in a preservative bath.-Dick

[Anna N]

I have always described trout as "sweet" and the fresher it is, the sweeter I find it and to me that's its selling point. Catfish not so much. So I suppose it depends on what each of us means by sweet.

[K8memphis]

My husband used powdered sugar instead of flour to dust some catfish before cooking it. Bwoowhahahaha, gughshzeesh, it tasted like poo. He just happened to have picked up the wrong random bag of white powdery stuff in the cupboard.