Mislabeling of fish at sushi bars

[raji]

Did anyone else notice this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/...gin&oref=slogin

"In a tale of teenagers, sushi and science, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, who graduated this year from the Trinity School in Manhattan, took on a freelance science project in which they checked 60 samples of seafood using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique to see whether the fish New Yorkers buy is what they think they are getting.

They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species."

I can tell you I have seen this in practice; it can be a sushi bar whose chef may be lacking in training and/or morals, it can even be a place simply looking to cut cost, but certainly most Japanese can distinguish fish by appearance and certainly by flavor, and I've developed this talent, but it took time..

[docsconz]

I would imagine that this is even more widespread in places that camouflage their fish more than sushi restaurants.

[feedmec00kies]

Interesting. I actually had been thinking about incorrect labeling recently (specifically with white tuna; you can find information all over the interwebs).

Hopefully, those unnamed stores and restaurants can legitimately claim ignorance... though that's not such a good thing either. I'm afraid that, with operating costs increasing, this might become more and more of a problem too.

[raji]

I would imagine that this is even more widespread in places that camouflage their fish more than sushi restaurants.

←

Meaning places that server fillets?

[docsconz]

I would imagine that this is even more widespread in places that camouflage their fish more than sushi restaurants.

←

Meaning places that server fillets?

←

Fillets, fried fish, heavily sauced fish, etc. - in essence any place or situation in which the individual character of the fish is subservient to the overall dish. I'm not saying that this happens in any place like this - I don't know - but I think it would be more likely to as people would be less apt to be able to distinguish the fish in the first place.

[LPShanet]

Did anyone else notice this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/...gin&oref=slogin

"In a tale of teenagers, sushi and science, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, who graduated this year from the Trinity School in Manhattan, took on a freelance science project in which they checked 60 samples of seafood using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique to see whether the fish New Yorkers buy is what they think they are getting.

They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species."

I can tell you I have seen this in practice; it can be a sushi bar whose chef may be lacking in training and/or morals, it can even be a place simply looking to cut cost, but certainly most Japanese can distinguish fish by appearance and certainly by flavor, and I've developed this talent, but it took time..

←

I heard about this and did a little independent research. Turns out it's a multifaceted problem, some of which has to do with deception and some of which has to do with translation problems and other random factors. As Doc suggested, it turns out to be even more insidious in places that serve cooked fish, with tilapia being passed off as all sorts of other things. High end sushi places are only occasional offenders, and in most cases, the differences are due to translation rather than substitution. I'll do a bit by bit analysis as best I can below.

In terms of "white tuna", the discussion is pointless, as there is really no such thing. Some people refer to albacore as white tuna (in Japanese, I'm pretty sure it's the closest thing, as it's sometimes called shiro maguro, which means white tuna), and others use the term to refer to escolar, while still others use it to mean various other fish, but since there is no actual white tuna, it can't lead to a real discussion.

In terms of the roe (flying fish vs. smelt), restaurants have been making this error for years, even when the two cost the same. In fact, many sushi restaurants carry both (tobiko and masago). For the record, the flying fish roe (tobiko) are the slightly larger of the two, and have a slightly firmer bite. They're also a bit less sweet than the smaller masago. Part of the problem is that saying flying fish roe sounds sexier and more interesting to English speaking customers, even though most of them unknowingly prefer the taste of the smelt roe. As it turns out, many restaurant owners don't know the proper translations and often swap names or call the one they carry by the other name. Personally, I don't think there's any pernicious swapping going on here...it's mostly a case of confusion in translation.

The snapper issue is much more complicated. There are two things happening here. At the lower end, many poor sushi places are, in fact, substituting other things for snapper. This turns out to be even more prevalent in non-sushi places, where almost no actual snapper is found. In these lesser places, a much less expensive fish is usually substituted (often tilapia, which is a good fish impersonator, as it has very little distinctive flavor and can easily slip by most untrained palates). In the sushi world, this is most common in non-Japanese owned restaurants. It also turns out that in many cases, the restaurateurs aren't to blame. An investigation in Chicago showed that many ordered snapper, and unscrupulous delivery places/suppliers were delivering other things. In some cases, they were mismarking the fish they delivered, but more often they simply filled the snapper order with cases of tilapia that were marked as such but went unnoticed by the restaurants.

However, in higher end Japanese sushi places, there were also snapper substitutions for an entirely different reason...the reason of translation. The various Japanese terms that refer to what we think of as snapper (usually tai, madai, kinmedai, etc.) actually refer to various types of bream. Specifically, the sushi known as tai has long been translated as red snapper, but in Japan is actually a form of red bream. True red snapper is very rarely eaten as sushi (even in Japan), and the term tai has actually referred to the red bream for years, without most American people realizing it's inaccurately translated as snapper. Furthermore, red bream costs just about the same as red snapper, so there's no advantage in pulling a switch. The bream also has superior flavor in most sushi chefs' minds. The other (non-red) snappers are actually more likely to be blackeye breams and other related species, again due to translation issues and not deception.

On a related note, I was a bit surprised to see the whole furor attributed to those two high school kids in New York. My understanding was that their "study" was really just a school project knockoff of the similar study that the Chicago Tribune did a little while ago, for a story about the same. In the Chicago article, it was clear from the names of the restaurant owners that most were not Japanese.

Edited August 23, 2008 by LPShanet (log)

[docsconz]

Did anyone else notice this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/...gin&oref=slogin

"In a tale of teenagers, sushi and science, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, who graduated this year from the Trinity School in Manhattan, took on a freelance science project in which they checked 60 samples of seafood using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique to see whether the fish New Yorkers buy is what they think they are getting.

They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species."

I can tell you I have seen this in practice; it can be a sushi bar whose chef may be lacking in training and/or morals, it can even be a place simply looking to cut cost, but certainly most Japanese can distinguish fish by appearance and certainly by flavor, and I've developed this talent, but it took time..

←

I heard about this and did a little independent research. Turns out it's a multifaceted problem, some of which has to do with deception and some of which has to do with translation problems and other random factors. As Doc suggested, it turns out to be even more insidious in places that serve cooked fish, with tilapia being passed off as all sorts of other things. High end sushi places are only occasional offenders, and in most cases, the differences are due to translation rather than substitution. I'll do a bit by bit analysis as best I can below.

In terms of "white tuna", the discussion is pointless, as there is really no such thing. Some people refer to albacore as white tuna (in Japanese, I'm pretty sure it's the closest thing, as it's sometimes called shiro magura, which means white tuna), and others use the term to refer to escolar, while still others use it to mean various other fish, but since there is no actual white tuna, it can't lead to a real discussion.

In terms of the roe (flying fish vs. smelt), restaurants have been making this error for years, even when the two cost the same. In fact, many sushi restaurants carry both (tobiko and masago). For the record, the flying fish roe (tobiko) are the slightly larger of the two, and have a slightly firmer bite. They're also a bit less sweet than the smaller masago. Part of the problem is that saying flying fish roe sounds sexier and more interesting to English speaking customers, even though most of them unknowingly prefer the taste of the smelt roe. As it turns out, many restaurant owners don't know the proper translations and often swap names or call the one they carry by the other name. Personally, I don't think there's any pernicious swapping going on here...it's mostly a case of confusion in translation.

The snapper issue is much more complicated. There are two things happening here. At the lower end, many poor sushi places are, in fact, substituting other things for snapper. This turns out to be even more prevalent in non-sushi places, where almost no actual snapper is found. In these lesser places, a much less expensive fish is usually substituted (often tilapia, which is a good fish impersonator, as it has very little distinctive flavor and can easily slip by most untrained palates). In the sushi world, this is most common in non-Japanese owned restaurants. It also turns out that in many cases, the restaurateurs aren't to blame. In investigation showed that they ordered snapper, and unscrupulous delivery places were delivering other things. In some cases, they were mismarking the fish they delivered, but more often they simply filled the snapper order with cases of tilapia that were marked as such but went unnoticed by the restaurants.

However, in higher end Japanese sushi places, there were also snapper substitutions for an entirely different reason...the reason of translation. The various Japanese terms that refer to what we think of as snapper (usually tai, madai, kinmedai, etc.) actually refer to various types of bream. Specifically, the sushi known as tai has long been translated as red snapper, but in Japan is actually a form of red bream. True red snapper is very rarely eaten as sushi (even in Japan), and the term tai has actually referred to the red bream for years, without most American people realizing it's inaccurately used for snapper. Furthermore, red bream costs just about the same as red snapper, so there's no advantage in pulling a switch. The bream also has superior flavor in most sushi chefs' minds. The other (non-red) snappers are actually more likely to be blackeye breams and other related species, again due to translation issues and not deception.

On a related note, I was a bit surprised to see the whole furor attributed to those two high school kids in New York. My understanding was that their "study" was really just a school project knockoff of the similar study that the Chicago Tribune did a little while ago, for a story about the same. In the Chicago article, it was clear from the names of the restaurant owners that most were not Japanese.

←

Outstanding post! Thanks for the insights and extra detail.

[LPShanet]

Did anyone else notice this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/...gin&oref=slogin

"In a tale of teenagers, sushi and science, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, who graduated this year from the Trinity School in Manhattan, took on a freelance science project in which they checked 60 samples of seafood using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique to see whether the fish New Yorkers buy is what they think they are getting.

They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species."

I can tell you I have seen this in practice; it can be a sushi bar whose chef may be lacking in training and/or morals, it can even be a place simply looking to cut cost, but certainly most Japanese can distinguish fish by appearance and certainly by flavor, and I've developed this talent, but it took time..

←

I heard about this and did a little independent research. Turns out it's a multifaceted problem, some of which has to do with deception and some of which has to do with translation problems and other random factors. As Doc suggested, it turns out to be even more insidious in places that serve cooked fish, with tilapia being passed off as all sorts of other things. High end sushi places are only occasional offenders, and in most cases, the differences are due to translation rather than substitution. I'll do a bit by bit analysis as best I can below.

In terms of "white tuna", the discussion is pointless, as there is really no such thing. Some people refer to albacore as white tuna (in Japanese, I'm pretty sure it's the closest thing, as it's sometimes called shiro magura, which means white tuna), and others use the term to refer to escolar, while still others use it to mean various other fish, but since there is no actual white tuna, it can't lead to a real discussion.

In terms of the roe (flying fish vs. smelt), restaurants have been making this error for years, even when the two cost the same. In fact, many sushi restaurants carry both (tobiko and masago). For the record, the flying fish roe (tobiko) are the slightly larger of the two, and have a slightly firmer bite. They're also a bit less sweet than the smaller masago. Part of the problem is that saying flying fish roe sounds sexier and more interesting to English speaking customers, even though most of them unknowingly prefer the taste of the smelt roe. As it turns out, many restaurant owners don't know the proper translations and often swap names or call the one they carry by the other name. Personally, I don't think there's any pernicious swapping going on here...it's mostly a case of confusion in translation.

The snapper issue is much more complicated. There are two things happening here. At the lower end, many poor sushi places are, in fact, substituting other things for snapper. This turns out to be even more prevalent in non-sushi places, where almost no actual snapper is found. In these lesser places, a much less expensive fish is usually substituted (often tilapia, which is a good fish impersonator, as it has very little distinctive flavor and can easily slip by most untrained palates). In the sushi world, this is most common in non-Japanese owned restaurants. It also turns out that in many cases, the restaurateurs aren't to blame. In investigation showed that they ordered snapper, and unscrupulous delivery places were delivering other things. In some cases, they were mismarking the fish they delivered, but more often they simply filled the snapper order with cases of tilapia that were marked as such but went unnoticed by the restaurants.

However, in higher end Japanese sushi places, there were also snapper substitutions for an entirely different reason...the reason of translation. The various Japanese terms that refer to what we think of as snapper (usually tai, madai, kinmedai, etc.) actually refer to various types of bream. Specifically, the sushi known as tai has long been translated as red snapper, but in Japan is actually a form of red bream. True red snapper is very rarely eaten as sushi (even in Japan), and the term tai has actually referred to the red bream for years, without most American people realizing it's inaccurately used for snapper. Furthermore, red bream costs just about the same as red snapper, so there's no advantage in pulling a switch. The bream also has superior flavor in most sushi chefs' minds. The other (non-red) snappers are actually more likely to be blackeye breams and other related species, again due to translation issues and not deception.

On a related note, I was a bit surprised to see the whole furor attributed to those two high school kids in New York. My understanding was that their "study" was really just a school project knockoff of the similar study that the Chicago Tribune did a little while ago, for a story about the same. In the Chicago article, it was clear from the names of the restaurant owners that most were not Japanese.

←

Outstanding post! Thanks for the insights and extra detail.

←

Thanks! Glad to help.

[JWangSDC]

Did anyone else notice this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/...gin&oref=slogin

"In a tale of teenagers, sushi and science, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, who graduated this year from the Trinity School in Manhattan, took on a freelance science project in which they checked 60 samples of seafood using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique to see whether the fish New Yorkers buy is what they think they are getting.

They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species."

I can tell you I have seen this in practice; it can be a sushi bar whose chef may be lacking in training and/or morals, it can even be a place simply looking to cut cost, but certainly most Japanese can distinguish fish by appearance and certainly by flavor, and I've developed this talent, but it took time..

←

I heard about this and did a little independent research. Turns out it's a multifaceted problem, some of which has to do with deception and some of which has to do with translation problems and other random factors. As Doc suggested, it turns out to be even more insidious in places that serve cooked fish, with tilapia being passed off as all sorts of other things. High end sushi places are only occasional offenders, and in most cases, the differences are due to translation rather than substitution. I'll do a bit by bit analysis as best I can below.

In terms of "white tuna", the discussion is pointless, as there is really no such thing. Some people refer to albacore as white tuna (in Japanese, I'm pretty sure it's the closest thing, as it's sometimes called shiro maguro, which means white tuna), and others use the term to refer to escolar, while still others use it to mean various other fish, but since there is no actual white tuna, it can't lead to a real discussion.

In terms of the roe (flying fish vs. smelt), restaurants have been making this error for years, even when the two cost the same. In fact, many sushi restaurants carry both (tobiko and masago). For the record, the flying fish roe (tobiko) are the slightly larger of the two, and have a slightly firmer bite. They're also a bit less sweet than the smaller masago. Part of the problem is that saying flying fish roe sounds sexier and more interesting to English speaking customers, even though most of them unknowingly prefer the taste of the smelt roe. As it turns out, many restaurant owners don't know the proper translations and often swap names or call the one they carry by the other name. Personally, I don't think there's any pernicious swapping going on here...it's mostly a case of confusion in translation.

The snapper issue is much more complicated. There are two things happening here. At the lower end, many poor sushi places are, in fact, substituting other things for snapper. This turns out to be even more prevalent in non-sushi places, where almost no actual snapper is found. In these lesser places, a much less expensive fish is usually substituted (often tilapia, which is a good fish impersonator, as it has very little distinctive flavor and can easily slip by most untrained palates). In the sushi world, this is most common in non-Japanese owned restaurants. It also turns out that in many cases, the restaurateurs aren't to blame. An investigation in Chicago showed that many ordered snapper, and unscrupulous delivery places/suppliers were delivering other things. In some cases, they were mismarking the fish they delivered, but more often they simply filled the snapper order with cases of tilapia that were marked as such but went unnoticed by the restaurants.

However, in higher end Japanese sushi places, there were also snapper substitutions for an entirely different reason...the reason of translation. The various Japanese terms that refer to what we think of as snapper (usually tai, madai, kinmedai, etc.) actually refer to various types of bream. Specifically, the sushi known as tai has long been translated as red snapper, but in Japan is actually a form of red bream. True red snapper is very rarely eaten as sushi (even in Japan), and the term tai has actually referred to the red bream for years, without most American people realizing it's inaccurately translated as snapper. Furthermore, red bream costs just about the same as red snapper, so there's no advantage in pulling a switch. The bream also has superior flavor in most sushi chefs' minds. The other (non-red) snappers are actually more likely to be blackeye breams and other related species, again due to translation issues and not deception.

On a related note, I was a bit surprised to see the whole furor attributed to those two high school kids in New York. My understanding was that their "study" was really just a school project knockoff of the similar study that the Chicago Tribune did a little while ago, for a story about the same. In the Chicago article, it was clear from the names of the restaurant owners that most were not Japanese.

←

Nice, I haven't done any formal research but my own opinion is in line with what you've so eloquently pointed out.