Why chilean sea bass

There are regulations in place to protect the fish but it will take years until stocks increase and numbers are sufficient for it to be recommended as a sustainable choice. Like many other white fish , Chilean sea bass is a low-calorie, protein-dense fish. However, it also has high levels of mercury. The Environmental Defense Fund recommends adults only consume two portions of Chilean sea bass each month and children only eat one portion each month due to the concerning levels of mercury.

Now that we know that Chilean sea bass is not sustainable and has high levels of mercury, what other similar fish can we cook? Seaver recommends sablefish, which offers the same "silken richness" and texture that Chilean sea bass has-and with even higher levels of omega-3s. Like Chilean sea bass, sablefish is forgiving when cooked, making it a good choice for novice seafood cooks.

It also "allows for the exterior to gain a brilliant crisped coloration while the inside remains delightfully smooth," says Seaver.

By Kelly Vaughan August 01, Bruce Knecht, author of Hooked , writes :. It had a texture similar to Atlantic cod's, the richness of tuna, the innocuous mild flavor of a flounder, and its fat content made it feel almost buttery in the mouth. Lantz believed a white-fleshed fish that almost melted in your mouth -- and a fish that did not taste "fishy" -- could go a very long way with his customers at home. Lantz stuck with calling it a bass, since that would be familiar to Americans.

He rejected two of his early ideas for names, Pacific sea bass and South American sea bass, as too generic, according to Knecht. He decided on Chilean sea bass, the specificity of which seemed more exclusive.

Despite its new, noble name, chefs in fancy Manhattan restaurants did not immediately serve a nicely broiled Chilean Sea Bass with Moroccan salsa over couscous. It took a few years for Lantz to land contracts for his new find. Initially, he made only a few small sales to wholesalers and other distributors despite offering samples far and wide.

From there, Chilean sea bass quickly worked its way up the food chain. Chinese restaurants purchased it as a cheap replacement for black cod Chilean sea bass is, after all, a type of cod. A Chilean sea bass, which can live for up to 50 years and grow to lengths of over 7 feet.

The name conflates two related species, the Antarctic and Patagonian toothfish. It may seem surprising that previously ignored fish like the toothfish and the slimehead successfully rebranded as the orange roughy could so quickly become the toast of the town.

But with a long-term perspective, it becomes clear that the line between bycatch and fancy seafood is not a great wall defended by the impregnability of taste, but a porous border susceptible to the the effects of supply and demand, technology, and fickle trends.

This is true of formerly low-class seafood like oysters and, most of all, the once humble lobster. In the early colonial days, lobster was a subsistence food. The biggest knock against lobster seems to be how plentiful it was.

Commercial markets were limited and a lobster bake would have had a status lower than a meal of fried chicken today. Lobster seems to have first found a mass market thanks to the advent of canning in the early to mid s.

Once canneries managed to convince skeptical Maine fishermen to become lobstermen, canned lobster could be found in inland stores, although still at one fifth the price of baked beans. But what made the lobster king were 19th century food tourists -- moneyed visitors to the New England coast from Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.

By then, lobster prices no longer reflected snob appeal. Between canning and the demand for lobster as a luxury purchase, lobstermen overfished.

Whereas huge lobster were once laughably easy to pull up, finding one pound lobsters became the work of a professional. The exclusive image of the lobster became a self-fulfilling prophecy, reflecting its stocks in the real world. Each of the rebranded fish -- the slimehead turned orange roughy, the sea urchins turned uni, the toothfish turned Chilean sea bass -- experienced the same. And while experts aren't sure whether the fish is endangered or not, it is a fact that several of its populations have been cut down and depleted because of overfishing.

The ubiquitousness of the name "Chilean sea bass" is such that the Patagonian toothfish's cousin, the Antarctic Toothfish, is also sold as Chilean sea bass. Unless labels are clearly spelled out, it is difficult to tell the difference between the two. There's another reason why you should keep moving if you see "Chilean sea bass" on a restaurant menu or in a supermarket.

Because they are such bottom dwellers, fishermen use trawlers and longlines to try and snag the fish, and they end up damaging the ocean floor and ensnaring other animals including seabirds in the process. We're not saying you shouldn't eat fish.