Bitter scallops

[fresco]

I can't run a Nuclear Power Plant on an explanantion that is good enough for now.

(Sorry, but finding that statement in a thread about scallops kinda got to my funny bone.)

Dave, I am wondering if the traceability issue is the issue of assuring that what you have is really scallops? Many years ago, some yahoos were importing chunks of meat punched out of stingray wings and trying to sell them as scallops. Stingray wings are really good for this scam because the texture and the muscle grain are really very similar. Electrophoresis was a new technique (I am dating myself here.) and I helped develop a diagnostic technique for identifying scallop juice versus stingray juice. Yes, we could have just cooked them and tasted them, because stingray doesn't taste like scallops. However, the prosecutors wouldn't take our word for it so we had to come up with "scientific proof".

I really don't know if scallop counterfitting is much of a problem today. Maybe it is.

I'm surprised that some entrepreneur hasn't tried to market these legally as "skate scallops" or some such imaginative concoction. Or maybe they have.

[budrichard]

Dave, if it doesn't have a shell, than it is not a diver scallop to me. The folks that harvest by trawl will not take up boat space by the leaving the shells on. Therefore if it has a shell on, it is most likely a diver scallop. Obviously not a certainty but the best I can do.

BTW the retail market in the midwest for Diver or shell on scallops has dried up. I haven't been able to obtain them in years. The scallops from Browne Trading are excellent but I really like having the mantel and roe. Anyone have a mailorder source that they have used with good results? -Dick

[Nick]

I think I'll bow out of this conversation for now. If I reach someone at DMR that can tell me how the shucking law came about, I'll be back. I'm really intrigued by the tracebilty of scallops through their shells. Maybe all fish fillets should be skin-on. The possibilities are endless.

[Dave the Cook]

I can see, based on how you define "diver" scallop, how a shell might be some reassurance. Seems to me, though, that the presence of the shell is no more than that -- "Look, it's still in its shell!" There's no reason a scallop couldn't be dragged in in the usual way and simply left in the shell. And that's not a diver scallop by anybody's definition.

Real traceability would probably require a tamperproof tag or food-grade stamp, on which would be inscribed the date and location of harvest, and the scallop would have to be still attached to the shell (needless to say, I suppose). The only seafood I know of that reaches the consumer level with this sort of record is farmed mussels.

fifi: I thought it might be the skate thing, but as you say, the difference is obvious when the muscle meets the mouth. Regardless, you gotta love lawyers, don't you?

I did have what I assume were true diver scallops (mantel, roe, adductor, shell) at Mark's in Miami Beach (of all places). You might try calling them to see if they will disclose their source.

[fifi]

The only seafood I know of that reaches the consumer level with this sort of record is farmed mussels.

I am not sure about this but I think Gulf Coast Oysters are similarly identified, at least at the wholesale level. I think that I read somewhere that you can ask for that information. That probably only applies to the oysters in the shell. And I should probably find out more about it before I babble any more. If I find something, I'll let you know. HOW they do it would be interesting.

[Dave the Cook]

I think a lot of bivalves are traced -- as you note, at the wholesale level. For all we know, scallops are. Perhaps mussels retain this information all the way to the retail store because -- maybe someone can confirm this, too -- they're retail-wrapped at the harvest site, so it's easy.

This also, to my way of thinking, has a lot to do with the rocketing sales of mussels, and gives them something of a competitive advantage: if you've never bought live shellfish, and you have a choice between those loose, ugly, hard-to-open oysters, and atttractively wrapped, date-stamped, smooth-shelled, blue-black mussels, which would you pick?

[fifi]

The results of my googling have proven me wrong. (Imagine that!) There were a lot of hits about California banning Gulf Coast Oysters, the usual hysteria from CSPI, calls for labeling laws, yelling about the FDA doing nothing, etc. etc. etc. Checking with some of my oyster buying friends that go to our waterfront just off the boat places. They say that they often see tags on the bags of oysters. That may be just because that particular oysterman chooses to do that for whatever reason but there doesn't appear to be a uniform regulation about it. I didn't get any hits about state level legislation but maybe my google skills aren't all that great, either. However... I did find this about Texas Oysters. This looks like a Texas Department of Agriculture voluntary certification program so maybe that is what the tags are about. There is a guy named Jonathan Packman on the Marketing Committee from Central Market in Austin. Maybe if foodie52 checks in she can ask him the status of any labeling legislation.

There... I have learned a lot more than I want to know about labeling of ANY bivalve. (I don't even LIKE oysters for chrisakes.)

[budrichard]

Fifi, I can't quote the reg but wherever you are in the US and you purchase oysters and clams from government allowed waters, a tag listing where and when the bivalve was harvested should be kept with the bivalves and shown to the customer upon demand. In most grocery stores you will find a couple of weeks have elapsed from harvest to marketing. The oysters from Browne typically have a day or two when they reach you by FedEx. -Dick

[jo-mel]

About the skate/scallop problem-------

I'd read somewhere that you can tell the scallop from the skate by the little 'nudge' where the scallop was attached to the shell.

In Loomis's Seafood Cookbook, she says that the skate grain is horizontal while the scallop is vertical.

I don't believe I've ever had or tasted skate.

[fresco]

There's nothing at all wrong with skate, in fact it is quite delicate and good, and ridiculously cheap. Skate wing sells in Chinatown seafood stores here in Toronto for $1.99 a pound--that's about US$1.50.

[tommy]

There's nothing at all wrong with skate, in fact it is quite delicate and good, and ridiculously cheap. Skate wing sells in Chinatown seafood stores here in Toronto for $1.99 a pound--that's about US$1.50.

damn straight. most of the time, i prefer skate to scallops!

[fifi]

Ummm... I THINK the muscle fibers, or at least the major layer is verticle in a stingray. I say think because my ichthyology books are in storage. As I recall, it is easy to remove that muscle layer and punch out "scallops".

Just to be clear, this is a stingray.

This is a skate that East Coasters may be familiar with.

The scallop scam years ago was identified as stingray. As I recall, they were imported from Venezuela which would match the critter's range. Stingray's can get huge. It is not unusual to see a surf fisherman haul in big suckers that are four feet across or more.