So I’ve never ever had seafood and was wondering:
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What does most seafood in general taste like?
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Is seafood like tofu and takes the taste of spices or whatever its with?
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Does it taste like its smells (that fish smell)
Seriously, you never had any seafood including fish sticks. clam chowder or even a tuna sandwich? The easiest thing is just to try some and tell us what you think. If that isn’t possibility, I will give the question a shot.
Seafood is a broad term for fish, crustaceans and mollusks that come from the water. The term seafood is a bit of a misnomer because it commonly includes some species that are found in freshwater as well.
The flavor profile is quite varied among type and species. Raw oysters and clams don’t have a strong taste of their own. They taste mostly like the water that they were caught in combined with whatever condiments like lemon and hot sauce that you put on them.
Octopus and squid (calamari) have a rubbery texture and taste mostly like the spices that you cook or pickle them in. Heavy garlic is a popular choice.
Lobster has a mild but somewhat sweet taste combined with a faint taste of seawater especially in the case of boiled lobster. Crawfish taste like the strong, hot spices that they are traditionally boiled in.
It is the fish that vary a lot. There are mild white fish like catfish and tilapia that taste mostly just like the way that they are baked, fried or broiled. Then, there are much stronger tasting fish like salmon that have a very distinctive flavor of their own and the simple preparation methods used from smoking to broiling are mainly used to accentuate that flavor. Salmon just tastes like salmon. There is no other way to put it. Other popular fish like flounder and tuna also have a distinctive flavor. It is the latter group in which tasting too ‘fishy’ can be off-putting for some people especially if the fish isn’t perfectly fresh. Very fresh fish generally doesn’t have a strong ‘fishy’ taste.
Moderator Action
Let’s move this fishy topic from General Questions to Cafe Society, where we generally talk about the taste and enjoyment of food.
Squid is only rubbery if you cook it wrong. Done right, and it’s as least as tender as any terrestrial meat, and heavenly in flavor. No, I don’t know how to do it right, myself, but I’ve certainly eaten it done right.
And the smell/taste most people think of as “fishy” only shows up once it starts getting old. Unfortunately, most seafoods start getting old very quickly, which is why that smell/taste is so well-known. But if you get it truly fresh-caught (within a day), you won’t get any of that at all.
Anyone here had caviar? I hear its a delicacy but ive always been afraid to eat it because its fish eggs and it sounds gross, I wonder what it tastes like…
I don’t care for it. Perhaps it’s psychological. I like most seafood, but not all. As already pointed out, there is a huge variation in the taste and texture of “seafood.”
If you’ve never had seafood, ever (?), start light. Grab a McDonalds deep fried fish sandwich with nothing on it. It’s deep fried, so it’s good to begin with. Squeeze a little lemon juice on it if you’re feeling edgy.
Wow, I really disagree with a lot of this. Oysters have such a strong flavor that they’re one of the few bits of seafood I dislike (along with uni, calamari, and the fishiest of fishies like mullet). They taste like pee to me. Lobster has a delicious, strong flavor, as do crawfish.
Shrimp are highly variable. Buy some farmed shrimp, and they taste more or less like very firm unflavored gelatin. Yuck. But buy some wild shrimp caught fresh, and oh my lord, they’re sweet and briny, like a berry married a veal cutlet and had babies.
I agree a little more with this, except that flounder’s flavor is more mild than tuna or salmon (Googling, I’m seeing it show up on several “least fishy tasting fish” lists), and tuna’s flavor isn’t at all a fishy flavor. Mullet is about the only one I’ve had that, even fresh, is too fishy for me. People sometimes mention mackerel as super-fishy-tasting, but the fresh mackerel I’ve had is oily and rich but tastes more like a steak than like mullet.
It tastes like chicken.
Seafood does not all taste alike.
And why not try caviar? We eat chicken eggs. I’m not a huge fan, but it’s worth it if you have never had it.
Caviar is great - a little briny, the (tiny!) eggs “pop” in your mouth.
Of course the only way for you to know how anything tastes is to try it! You might start off with something easy like shrimp cocktail…the (chilled) shrimp should be mildly sweet tasting with a nice firm texture, and not at all “fishy” tasting.
Kinda salty, kinda fishy, but pleasant enough. I don’t get the extremely high social cachet, any more than I get people paying $5,000 (up!) for a bottle of wine. You can get cheap-o caviar, and it’s… Well, I liked it.
I adore seafood! From cheap supermarket canned tuna to five-star restaurant swordfish! I especially love shark. (It also always makes me laugh to eat something that, if it had the opportunity, might very well have eaten me!)
Start out with small steps. Go to McDonalds and have a Filet-o-Fish sandwich. If it makes you barf, you’ve only wasted $5.00
I had it once, as a garnish on hay-n-straw cheese linguine. I really liked it! But it was quite salty – don’t know if I would like it alone, though it made a good garnish.
I guess tastes do differ a lot. Oysters (at least the fresh New England varieties) taste mostly like seawater to me even if eaten straight. With lemon, and Tabasco, they taste well…like seawater, lemon and Tabasco. I loved them even as a child but they were mainly just a vehicle to put tasty condiments down my gullet. I never buy them myself because they are really expensive but I will down a dozen or two if someone else is paying.
Oysters do have a strong taste when cooked however but I still like them that way too. I love all seafood. Some of my fish examples weren’t the best ones for describing which ones have an especially strong flavor but, if you want to skip straight to the Big Leagues, go for eel (really oily and strong tasting but a delicacy when smoked), cheap anchovies, or canned sardines. I like all of them too but they aren’t for everyone. I could go for an anchovy and jalapeno pizza like my momma used to order right about now (they often didn’t make it right away because the pizza places thought it was a joke).
I admit that I have never tried such delicacies as Gefilte fish (the name is a warning) or the even more exotic Icelandic Hákarl (all I had to do to find the proper spelling was google ‘disgusting iceland rotted fish dish’). Maybe one day I will try them and find my limit but I love all the seafood that I am familiar with.
The one time I’ve ever tried eel, it really did taste like chicken. Though this might vary with preparation methods.
You live in the Southeastern U.S. and have never had any seafood. How is this possible?
OP; you ever had a woman?
ETA: in the biblical sense.
EETA: not counting relatives and the like.
If you swallow a caviar will it hatch in your insides? Ive always been leery of caviar for that reason
Caviar isn’t bad at all as long as spread thin because it is indeed very salty. It is greatly overrated for taste and kind of like the Marmite of the seafood world but it is fine in thinly spread moderation. It is dumb to think it is worth any more than a few dollars an ounce because of the taste factor (it isn’t) but it is worth trying at least once if someone offers it to you for free.
I lost the use of a bathroom because I had to convert the toilet into a fish bowl because I attended a fancy party at the Russian embassy once. It took six months of patient fishing and lots of seafood dinners to fix that problem. Never again.