Gratuitously gratuitous
Have you ever seen one of those high-budget crime flicks where a bunch of slick dudes go out and rob a bank?
It starts with a group of chiseled Hollywood 30-somethings cocooned in tailored suits, driving fancy cars and armed with enough sexy crime tech to make even the most jaded geek swoon. There’s the compulsory uber-coolness sequence where they’re slow-motion strutting out of a building, all wearing expensive shades and silk ties, oozing style. Then there’s the heist scene, a spitfire collage of action shots and staccato sound effects that raises your heart rate and stretches your eyelids up past your forehead. Finally, the smoke clears on an empty bank vault, with a bunch of bumbling police officers looking at one another in confusion, and their mustachioed, hard-boiled lieutenant staring into the middle distance, clenching his jaw in impotent fury.
Invariably, these smooth criminals now need to liquidate their ill-gotten gains so they can flee to some non-extradition paradise festooned with string bikinis and mai tai umbrellas. Problem is, the cash is easily traceable – so they go for something else.
Bearer bonds. Raw diamonds. Postage stamps. They find one of those funny ways to steal money that won’t get them reeled in by Interpol or by some twitchy, obsessive FBI agent that has willfully exceeded his jurisdiction in order to bring his better-looking, cooler, and smarter nemeses to justice. Finally, there’s the scene at the bar of the expensive resort in Montenegro or Caracas, where the government agent sidles up to the criminal and informs him that sure, he’s out of his jurisdiction, but he knows what’s going on and will make sure that so-and-so suffers for his misdeeds….
That's the stuff
… sorry, I’m digressing. I meant to stop at the point where I said “bearer bonds.”
The reason I’m bringing this up is because there’s a point of commonality here between this stamped cellulose lucre and much of the fish that one can find everyday at the local sushi bar. Both are, for the purposes of everyday commerce, untraceable.
Much of the seafood swirling about the sushi industry chain of custody is “black box” fish. It passes through so many hands, is processed and repackaged so many times, and languishes in the bellies of so many cargo planes that its history is lost. Discerning where the fish is actually from becomes an impossible task. When they’ve finally finished ricocheting around the planet, these poor animals have accumulated enough frequent flyer miles to upgrade to first class on that final trip to your dinner plate.
Living in the present
International labeling laws tend to make things even worse. Generally, a fish product is only required to list the last point at which there was value-addition (a change in formatting – repackaging, processing, cooking, etc.) This process wipes out and redrafts the history of the fish as if it were on etch-a-sketch in the hands of a kindergartener with ADHD.
Thus do we have fish landing on sushi counters without any indication of their checkered pasts. A good example is the ubiquitous tako, the mottled purple octopus whose severed tentacles adorn sushi bars across the planet.
This precise Japanese term for this species of octopus (Octopus vulgaris) is madako, or “true octopus.” This multi-limbed wonder is caught all over the world, but some of the most productive fishing is traditionally done off the coast of North Africa in Moroccan, Mauritanian, and Senegalese waters.
Swimming towards ignominy
The problem here (beyond the fact that this octopus is largely bottom trawled from flagging populations with little management) is that the world’s tako chain of custody bottlenecks in Japan. Octopus is not simply yanked out of the water to be immediately slapped down on a sushi bar, as is the case with numerous other fish. Rather, octopus has to be properly blanched, seasoned, and packaged for travel. This takes place in Japan, where there is an entire industry based around octopus processing. The world’s octopus trawl fleets capture the animals, kill them, and ship them off to Japan where they are all mixed together in enormous processing facilities. The octopus is prepared for use in sushi through a method that involves hot water, vinegar, and copious amounts of plastic. This process strips each octopus of its individuality, creating an amorphous melange of tentacles that is then re-exported and disseminated to sushi bars throughout the world, bearing stickers that read: “Product of Japan.”
But it’s not really from Japan, is it? And by the time it arrives in the United States, neither the broker who imported the octopus, the seafood distributor who trucked it to a restaurant, nor the chef who chopped it up for a salivating sushi fan is able to trace it to its source. Any knowledge of original home of the octopus has been lost, wiped from history as cleanly as a child’s carefree sand scrawls are erased by a rising tide.
Octopus Anonymous
So if we need to know the original source of the fish to determine stock status and management rigor, and we need to know about stocks and management to determine the sustainability of a given seafood option, how do we deal with tako and other black box products? How can we make educated choices to promote sustainable fisheries if we can’t even tell where the fish is from?
This is the curse of the black box. It is a general dearth of information at the final point of sale that is enabled by ineffective trade protocol and labeling laws. It is a black hole languishing in the center of the world of seafood, drawing shipping receipts, landing logs, and other data into its gravity well, engaged in a perpetual implosion that disposes of fact and history more efficiently than an armada of paper shredders set upon the National Archives.
It falls upon us to apply the precautionary principle in these situations. If we cannot adequately defend a hypothesis stating that the dish is a sustainable option, we must assume the opposite. A precautionary approach to our marine resources will allow us to protect our planet by giving our oceans, rather than the fishing industry, the benefit of the doubt. This is how we avenge the dodo.
Pandora's box
Below is a non-exhaustive list of sushi items that commonly fall into the black box:
Tako (Octopus)
Anago (Sea eel)
Unagi (Freshwater eel)
Tobiko (Flying fish roe)
Toro (Bluefin tuna belly)
Kanikama (Surimi)
Sazae (Conch)
Processing bottlenecks, weakness in labeling, and IUU (pirate) fishing all contribute to the strength and volume of the black box. Consumer patronage of black box seafood has an extremely detrimental impact on our oceans. Please exercise extreme caution when considering any of the above options at the sushi bar.
Tags: anago, bank robbery, bearer bonds, black, black box, bluefin, bottleneck, box, conch, conger eel, curse, eel, export, flick, flying fish, flying fish roe, freshwater eel, import, IUU, japan, kanikama, labeling, madako, mauritania, morocco, movie, ocean's eleven, octopus, pirate, precautionary principle, processing, sazae, sea eel, senegal, surimi, tako, tobiko, toro, traceability, tuna belly, unagi, untraceable
Posted by Casson on Jun 29, 2009 in
Contest,
News and Announcements So, the time has finally come to announce the winner of our unagi replacement contest. We managed to try all of the items that were suggested (with the lamentable exception of rattlesnake) and have come to a clear and unanimous decision about which we feel best replicated the dark, sweet experience that unagi fans have come to crave.
I’ll go over the entries one by one:
1) Portobello mushroom, suggested by Christina
Portobello mushroom: Flavor 3.5/5, Texture 1/5
This actually delivered a very nice dish, albeit not one that ended up working as an unagi substitute. The mushroom held the kabayaki flavor well and, if marinated in some similar flavors, really did deliver that sweetness that eel fans are looking for. It was a very nice bit in its own right — but as far as the goal of supplanting unagi was concerned, it came up short in texture. The spongy nature of the mushroom made it difficult to mimic the delicate, flaky nature of eel. Still, we did eat the whole dish. I mean, it tasted really good… it just wasn’t what we were looking for.
Arctic char: Flavor 2.5/5, Texture 3/5
2) Arctic char, suggested by Genie
Arctic char is a delicious fish and I’m huge proponent of using it in sushi. We tried it out for this purpose and, to be honest, it almost seemed a bit of a shame to cover a complex and well-flavored fish with the saccharine syrup that is used to prepare your standard unagi. All the delicacy of the char was overwhelmed. Again, not a bad dish, but the char could be so much more on its own.
3) Spanish mackerel, suggested by Richard
Spanish mackerel: Flavor 2/5, Texture 3/5
Spanish mackerel is an interesting fish that is, in my opinion, underused in the sushi world. Known in Japanese as sawara, Spanish mackerel can be delicious in the hands of a skilled sushi chef that knows how to properly marinate and prepare it. We wrangled with the idea of marinating it in a typical pre-nigiri style before turning it into kabayaki, but decided against it in favor of using the natural flavors of the fish. In the end, the natural flavors of the mackerel were a bit too strong and clashed with the sauce.
Sand dabs: Flavor 4/5, Texture 1/5
4) Sanddabs, suggested by Amy
I cannot even express how much I enjoy sanddabs. Although they’re found in other areas as well, sand dabs are considered a local delicacy of the Monterey Bay area, these flaky saucer-sized flatfish are a genuine local treat for those visiting or living on the Central California coast. Unfortunately for the sake of this contest, the flesh of the fillets is simply too delicate and lean to withstand the searing that unagi is subjected to. It tasted quite nice, but the heat caused the fish to fall apart.
5) Pacific Octopus, suggested by Roshi
Octopus: Flavor 2/5, Texture 1/5
We were unable to locate true North pacific giant octopus, and instead sourced some fresh trap-caught common octopus (as opposed to packaged and prepared product generally used as tako in sushi bars). To be honest, it was a rather odd dish that we created. The octopus does not take well to the kind of cooking that is used to prepare unagi, needing instead a prolonged blanching period. After we blanched the octopus, we attempted to sear it in a kabayaki style, but ended up just charring the flesh. In the end it was far too chewy. On the plus side, this suggestion did force us to look around for some sustainable replacements to the standard it-says-product-of-Japan-but-who-knows-where-it-really-comes-from octopus that the conventional sushi industry uses all too frequently.
Eggplant: Flavor 4/5, Texture 4/5
6) Eggplant, suggested by Heather
This was a great call. The marinated eggplant took the flavors intrinsic to a standard unagi dish extremely well, and while the eggplant itself ended up soft and flaky, we were able to sear it along the sides to change the outer consistency. The presence of the eggplant skin was invaluable as well, as the marinade, kabayaki sauce, and blowtorch flame combined to create an impressive simulacrum of well-cooked eel skin.
So, in the end, the winner was Heather with her eggplant suggestion. Score one for vegan sushi!
Heather will receive a copy of Sustainable Sushi as well as a free dinner for two at Tataki Sushi Bar in San Francisco.
Oh, and I should mention — just because the contest is over doesn’t mean that we’re not still looking for new ways to replace unagi. Eel populations are still crashing and Chinese eel ranches continue to spill more pollution into neighboring wetlands every day. Until eels have been properly protected and stocks are rebuilding, we will continue to look for inventive options that can serve to make the presence of eel on sushi menus obsolete.
Thanks everyone for your entries, this was really a lot of fun for us.
Tags: char, Contest, eel, eggplant, heather, iwana, mackerel, nasu, octopus, portobello, sanddab, sawara, spanish mackerel, tako, unagi, winner
A simple truth of sushi is that it tends to involve fish. A second simple truth is that, before they were nigiri or maki, these fish were living, breathing creatures. Strangely, this latter axiom seems to pass unnoticed all too often.
Luckily, we have Gayle to remind us.
The gifted and lovely Gayle Wheatley.
Gayle Wheatley is a well-known artist based in the Los Angeles area. She is supremely talented and works in an impressive array of media, including oil on canvas, illustration, and graphic design. Her work is displayed in numerous exhibitions and galleries around the world, and much of it has been snapped up by art collectors who lamentably discovered her before I did.
Gayle spent two years living in Japan, and I’m guessing that this is at least part of what has inspired her to use sushi imagery in her work. What interests me about Gayle’s art is her uncanny ability to depict the connection between sushi and life.
I often find myself waxing on ad naseum about this subject: fish are alive. Until they die, that is. Or we kill them.
This in itself isn’t a problem for me; rather, I’m concerned by the dubious understanding that we have of this connection on a subconscious level. Consciously, sure, we know the sashimi on our plate is fish… but do we stop and think about how it was a fish, as well?
- We are hamachi.
Picture this: you walk into your favorite sushi restaurant. You order hamachi. You wait a few minutes, maybe savoring a steaming cup of green tea or sipping Sapporo from a pilsner glass. A moment passes and a modest but smiling server approaches your table, places a small wooden block before you, and vanishes. On the block, resting softly on a shizo leaf, are two loosely-molded lumps of rice topped with a couple of pieces of a rich, cream-colored flesh with light veins of red and pink streaking through it. It is a beautiful dish, rich in its simplicity, evoking thoughts of freshness, purity, and delight.
What it doesn’t make us think of is a fish.
- But I was hamachi first.
Hamachi is a staple in the US sushi industry, but it is exceedingly rare in other sectors of our seafood landscape. You won’t find hamachi at your local Safeway, WalMart, or Kroger; nor will you see one resting in the crushed ice of a high-end independent urban seafood market. In fact, outside of a sushi bar, most Americans will never encounter a hamachi at all.
Which means most sushi-goers have no idea what the living fish actually looks like.
I find that it’s difficult to connect with something of which I have no tangible or visual appreciation, and fish are no exception. These gaps between us and the animals that we consume allow us to feed upon them with less regard for what they once were. Harmful fishing practices, filthy farming conditions, and even the ugly faces and off-putting monikers of particular fish are hidden to foster our ability to purchase in blissful ignorance at the point of sale. Why else would merchants decide to change the name of the Patagonian toothfish to the Chilean seabass? Or market the slimehead as “orange roughy”?
(Speaking of that, have you ever seen a whole, head-on Chilean seabass displayed in a fish counter? No? Maybe it’s because they look like this.)
This is a point of concern for me. In my view, it is missing the point to work towards sustainability in the fish industry if we do not reconcile our eating habits with the fact that fish are living creatures, not an amorphous commodity. As long as we continue to to treat these animals as less than that (farming them in unsuitable conditions, filling them with drugs and dyes, devastating their habitat with destructive fishing gear, etc.), we will continually find ourselves struggling to reach sustainability.
Gayle has managed to use sushi to portray these undersea organisms as the vivacious, mysterious, beating-heart marvels that they are. Her vibrant, almost monstrous depictions of the animals “behind the sushi” strikes a chord with me. Salmon roe sport teeth, similar to those they would have developed had they been allowed to hatch and mature. A clutch of eels writhe and squirm against a nori yoke, struggling mightily to escape a hackneyed kabeyaki fate. Cold- or warm-blooded, exo- or endo-skeletal, shelled or scaled, pelagic or benthic… it makes no difference. Gayle’s work ably demonstrates that all of the ocean’s inhabitants merit our reverence, as does the amazingly complex ecosystem that they compose.
It’s not about refusing to eat fish. It’s about bringing our awareness of what we are actually eating to the table. Once the information is present, we can make defensible decisions as to what is right for us as individuals. We can clearly delineate for ourselves what we will and will not consume. This kind of consumption works in harmony with our own personal ethics, and I promise, fish tastes so much better that way.
Tags: amberjack, art, eel, gayle, gayle wheatley, hamachi, ikura, illustrations, maguro, octopus, salmon, salmon roe, sushi, Sushi culture, tako, tuna, unagi, wheatley
