Fish and Seafood

Cafe Society
1

I think fish is a category of food that has a very high percentage of detractors. I count myself among them generally, although I have always had exceptions, and I am working on warming to it, with some limited success, because it’s so healthy.
The exceptions I’ve always had:

Canned tuna. In oil as a child, water as a young adult, and now I’m back to oil. With miracle whip and sweet pickles as a child, mayo and dill as an adult.

**Canned salmon **prepared as salmon cakes with finely diced onions and other vegetables, fried in butter until browned, with a heavy dose of lemon before eating.

Shrimp in almost any preparation. (Although a sweet South American man invited me to his home for dinner when I was young and presented me a beautiful plate of shrimp…that had their heads. I was too young and foolish to un-see that and could not eat them even when they were cleaned. I feel badly about that, he was so proud and so wounded. I’m sorry, wherever you are!)

Crab, almost any preparation but man do I love cracking open some big 'ol claw and slurping out the tender sweet flesh with a tiny taste of something tart.

Lobster - never understood the raving, I think crab kicks lobster ass, but it’s nice, like giant shrimp.

Fish sticks which of course have nothing to do with fish, they are just fried and anything fried is a good thing.

Fish n Chips Again, fried is always good. Although please get that vinegar out of my face. Thank you.

I’ve learned to like some fish, primarily salmon and mahi mahi. But I can enjoy most firm-fleshed fish that:

Is fried, grilled, or broiled.
Has a tart, NEVER creamy sauce or seasoning
Is insanely fresh
Has been stripped of all skin and bones
Is very mild in both flavor and aroma

But some things that live in water are just never, ever going to be my idea of a good time:

Oysters
Clams
Anything with suckers
Eggs or guts
Strong flavors of any kind
SKIN - GAH
Of course, anything that might kill me if the chef isn’t paying attention.

And I will never in this life understand how anyone can tolerate, much less actively enjoy, anything animal flesh, whether surf or turf, that is raw. Not just psychologically, but because the texture is bizarre and for me, the reverse of appetizing. I know it’s not true, but somewhere in my heart of hearts I still think that people only eat sushi and sashimi because they think it makes them look cool and sophisticated.

How about you?

2

I recommend exploring the two extremes of flatfish. A platter of fried sanddabs and a nice halibut steak, or halibut cheeks.

3

I eat it all… including the cheeks, tails, eyeballs and lobster tomalley (liver/pancreas of the lobster)

4

Mixed feelings from me. Forget freshwater fish completely - won’t touch them. Saltwater fish are largely dependent on how healthy they are for me. The healthier, the less I like them. Cod, roughy, halibut, tuna, pollack and the like I’ll eat. Mackeral and the other high Omega-3 fish you can keep. If it just sits on the sea floor you can keep it as well: clams, oysters, mussels, and all the low-tide stuff. But shellfish of all sorts is good: shrimp, lobster, crab. Everything else stays where it is. I have zero taste for squid, octopus and the rest.

5

I can and will cheerfully eat anything that swims, crawls on the bottom, or is found buried in the mud. Cooked, raw, or still wriggling.

6

raw… tuna, oysters.
fried… clams, squid, octopus, cod, trout, and of course catfish.

that’s about it. i’m allergic to crustaceans.

7

Here’s a thoroughly disgusting thought: Crab and lobster, those high end delicacies, are really just enormous bugs. Arthropods: insects, millipedes…and a $50 dinner.

8

High-five! :p:p:p

9

Fried: I just saw your mention of being a "super-taster: in another thread.
How did you come by the knowledge that you are a “super-taster”? I think I am, but I’m not sure if I would be officially considered one. I just know that I’m able to detect the tiniest amounts of things and people look at me like i’m crazy. I can’t use any kind of detergent on non-stick or iron because I taste it in my food.

In fact, I have to boil baking soda and/or vinegar in my pots to rid them of lingering flavors that infect the next thing I eat. It’s a pain, and why I try to only prepare certain flavor profiles in particular pans and pots.

10

I like most seafood, prepared in a variety of different ways. I don’t eat raw shellfish, and avoid oysters (though I love clams, mussels, and scallops). I am not a fan of fish soups other than bisques, including clam chowder. Not a fan of mackerel, and I only eat a few types of sushi.

Just for dinner tonight, I had some cornmeal-dusted pan fried snapper over creamy parmesan grits (polenta). Mmmmm…

11

Love seafood – clams (especially soft-shell clams, which I haven’t seen in decades), lobster, shrimp, crab (primarily in crabcakes), mussels, scallops, oysters, calamari, etc. Of course, it’s best if it’s fresh (get a lobster in Maine or the Maritimes when you visit). Clams and oysters are best if raw and fresh.

Fish depends on the type. If it’s fresh, I like it. My favorites are swordfish and tuna (both fresh and canned). I also go for salmon, tilapia, flounder, and trout.

Not a big fan of catfish.

12

I don’t like most types of fish. Mainly it’s the “fishy” smell. I like sushi, because it has to be very very fresh. I also like tuna, both otoro (tuna sushi) and the canned kind. I like shrimp only if it’s cleaned and deveined. I’ll eat crabmeat and lobster if I don’t have to be the one to crack it and dig around in it, 'cause I’m lazy. The only time I ate a freshly cooked lobster willingly was on a day trip to Puerto Nuevo, Baja California (famous for its lobster dinners) with some coworkers; it was so good I’d do it again. I don’t like most shellfish, although I did get adventurous and eat a raw oyster once on my birthday a couple years ago. I don’t like clam chowder or other fish-based soups.

13

I really can’t think of anything I don’t like. I generally prefer any and all shellfish over fish-fish, but love both and can’t think of anything (oysters, octopus, catfish) that I don’t enjoy–raw/tartar, breaded & deep fried, you name it.

14

Not a big fan of octopus, but I like all the rest of the seafood. Just about anything that swims, crawls along the bottom or just lies there. I’m crazy about oysters, clams, scallops, mussels.

That said, canned mackerel can be overpowering, but it’s good if I only have it once in a while.

15

I used to love seafood, and still do under some circumstances. But I had a weird reaction once to some bouillabaisse. It was incredibly tasty, but I felt like I smelled all weird and fishy for days afterward. It grossed me out, and now I’m all weird about seafood.

I’m pretty sure I’m just a freak, but I swear my skin smelled fishy. Bleargh.

16

Some foods store and travel well, some do not.
Some foods tolerate indifferent preparation, some do not.

Fish and seafood must be handled delicately, or you harm the spell.

17

Salmon steaks are something I will only eat when fresh. If I’m going to freeze it I cut it into smoking sized strips and stock pile it for the fall when I have a smoking and canning party with friends. After it has been canned I eat it like tuna and really love it.

Halibut I really like; my favorites are fried, coated in Pringles potato chips and broiled, or covered in gruyere cheese and sprinkled with sharp cheddar.

My favorite foods from the ocean are all the things that are not fish. The other night a friend brought back a 5 gallon bucket of sea cucumbers, i helped him process the cucs for a share of the seafood goodness. I battered and fried them, they’re a lot like clam strips.

Another friend works part time tending for a geoduck diver and will occasionally bring me a few they can’t sell (broker shells). For the most part I can them for chowder but there is not much better than a big plate of fried geoduck strips.

18

There are ways I don’t like seafood. But they’re ways I don’t like food in general.

Like Stoid, I don’t like eating raw (or rare) meat or seafood.

I’m also ambivalent on batter-fried food. I enjoy it somewhat if it’s very well-made and I’m in the mood for it. But overall anything in fried batter is something I’d pass over on the way to something else on the menu.

19

Perhaps I’m in a bad mood but WTF with regards to a poll that offers 17 options that would have been much better presented (IMO) as a hierarchy of choices:

Liking or disliking fish/shellfish.
Liking or disliking sushi versus cooked fish/shellfish.
etc
etc

20

I love most fish and seafood, but a) I have much less tolerance for less-than-perfect freshness than I do with other proteins; b) I certainly favor some preparations over others (when I was a kid, for example, I could put away huge quantitites of fried shrimp with tartar sauce, but now consider it an insult to the shrimp and would much prefer them grilled or as scampi or curry or something); and c) I like sushi once in a while, but generally prefer just about any cooked preparation. And I’ve never in my life had the urge to eat a raw oyster.

Other than that, though, shellfish will just about always be my favorite protein. Or, as an ex-BF put it when explaining why he would never keep Kosher, “no God of mine is going to tell me I can’t eat shrimp!”