How to Buy Fish and Seafood

by Sandra Dinsmore

Whole flounder on ice at the waterfront. Three good clues to freshness. These fish may have been as few as 12 hours from when they were caught when this photograph was taken. Super market fish could be 12 days old after being dipped and shrink wrapped. Fishermen’s Voice photo

Michael Pugliese, a fishmonger for 38 years, has fish markets in Westerly, R.I., (The Fishery) and in Stonington, Conn., (The Mystic Fishery). He also has a place in Steuben, Maine, so he knows Maine fish and seafood, too. Fishmongers Ted and Alene Whipple own fish markets, both called Seawell Seafood, in Pawcatuck and Mystic, Conn. The Whipples also own three draggers and are starting their own oyster farm, the better to serve their clientele. “If I can buy off a boat,” Alene says, “I can inspect the whole fish and I can sell at a better price.”

Both Pugliese and the Whipples feel strongly about selling only top-quality seafood and educating consumers. They advocate getting to know the person who sells fish as part of the process of learning about buying, cooking, and eating.

Last fall, Pugliese visited Portland’s Harbor Fish Market. “It’s incredible!” he reports. “They had everything that was coming in to Portland. That’s what you want to buy: what’s in season.”

But aside from Harbor Fish, Maine doesn’t have many fish markets. Consumers mostly buy their seafood at supermarkets. Pugliese says few independent ones carry high-quality products at the same prices as fish markets, and maintained that fish markets are no more expensive than supermarkets when selling comparable products. (In researching this story, this proved to be the case with Blue Hill’s Trade Winds supermarket.) What Maine does have, though, is traveling fish markets: refrigerated trucks, primarily owned by fishing families, filled with fresh fish and shellfish.

Veteran Stonington, Maine, lobster fisherman Perley Frazier and his wife Caty have been operating a mobile fish market for eight years. “During scallop season, halibut season, mackerel season,” Caty says, “we can get fresh seafood, including clams and crabmeat, right here from the island [Deer Isle]. Ninety-five percent of what we put on the truck is fresh.” The other 5 percent, the Fraziers buy from Ellsworth’s Maine Shellfish, which gets it from the Portland Fish Exchange. Caty gave as an example cod whichs she says, “We can’t seem to get fresh, so that’s previously frozen. But we let people know. We tell them.”

Because Perley makes the Fraziers’ main living from trapping lobster on the ocean floor, and, as Caty says, “A lot of farm-raised salmon kills the ocean bottom,” the Fraziers do not deal in farmed salmon. Caty explains, “If the bottom is dead, there’s nothing there.”

Pugliese and the Whipples carry only organic, open ocean-farmed salmon. Nick Alfiero, of Harbor Fish Market, says salmon farming, a young industry, has only been of any size in the last 20 years and has improved over the last six or seven. “These farms have learned to take their pens and rotate them,” he reports. “They tow them around, so they’re not over one particular spot all the time.” Another improvement Nick notes is the feed. “They used to use feed with red dye in it,” he recalls. “The salmon would turn that color, and [salmon farmers] were indiscriminate about the types of antibiotics they used.” He adds that salmon still need an antibiotic because of living in close quarters.

Harbor Fish Market sells wild salmon (West Coast coho is now in season). The Alfieros buy farmed salmon from the Faroe Islands, farmed off Norway and Iceland, and salmon farmed off eastern Maine for a company called True North. Nick Alfiero calls Faroe Islands salmon quality superior, their shipping methods timely, and their farming methods, “as good as any in the world.” As for True North’s farming methods, “From what we’ve been able to find out,” Nick says, “they’re also doing a very good job.” He adds, “We don’t use any farmed salmon that we feel is grown and harvested in a suspect manner.”

As Nick’s brother Mike Alfiero states, “Everything we do, we do to our utmost capability. Everything we try to sell and everything we try to market, we do with the idea of sustainability. Everything is all-natural, no chemicals, no soaking of product. We’re committed to that. We also are very committed to being sensitive to the environment. Those fisheries we support. That’s kind of our mission statement. That’s the only way we know how to do business.”

The soaking of product Mike Alfiero mentions refers to seafood that has been soaked in liquid that is probably sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP), a chemical additive that makes fish soaked in it weigh more and appear fresher than it is. Pugliese says STPP makes fish look very white, a false color, and gelatinous. He calls it a Jell-O-style coating and said to avoid any seafood with a lot of liquid.

Wikipedia defines STPP as “a preservative for seafood, meats, poultry, and animal feeds. In foods, STPP is used as an emulsifier and to retain moisture. Many governments regulate the quantities [of STPP] allowed in foods, as it can, in particular, substantially increase the sale weight of seafood.”

The United States Food and Drug Administration [FDA] lists STPP as “generally recognized as safe,” but Whipple argues, “There are a lot of things that people in the industry are allowed to do that the FDA has deemed they don’t have to let you know.” She said, “Fishmongers disagree with the FDA.”

The Alfieros and the Fraziers agree with Pugliese and the Whipples about educating the public.

The Fraziers provide the only fish market at farmers’ markets in Northeast Harbor (on Thursdays), Stonington (on Fridays), Orono (on Saturdays), and Bar Harbor (on Sundays). Although there are some itinerant fish markets in southern Maine, the Fraziers seem to have the only one at eastern Maine farmers’ markets. Other traveling fish markets sell from the streets of Maine towns. (Fishermen parked by the side of the road selling their catch on ice from unrefrigerated trucks is a different story.)

Caty Frazier says that because sometimes people don’t know various species and how to prepare them, she began preparing recipes. “We hand those recipes out at the market,” she says, “because sometimes there are vegetables in the recipe, so customers can get everything right there.”

And price does not always tell the story. As Pugliese illustrates, “What’s more expensive, if you’re cooking the water out of 9 dollars per pound frozen flounders when in reality it’s costing you $11 or $12 per pound? You’re paying for 35 or 40 percent water once it’s thawed out.” This is what he calls “the misconception of the price point.”

The fishmongers interviewed for this article all feel strongly about selling fresh, sustainably caught fish whenever possible and avoiding any fish touched with chemicals. Although consumers could feel safe patronizing any of their businesses, not all readers live near enough to do so.

Pugliese suggested that consumers living in interior parts of New England contact someone knowledgeable to ask their best bet for buying fresh fish. “Most places in New England have ties to Boston or Portland,” he says. “There is some decent fish being distributed in some of these markets.”

He concludes, “If you really want to know what you’re buying, ask your fish guy if it’s local. When fisheries regulations started to come into play and fishermen’s catches were cut so dramatically, that’s when the import market strengthened.” Whipple adds, “If fishmongers buy directly from a boat, and customers have learned to trust their fishmonger, they don’t have to be so overly informed.”