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LAST! :)
LAST! :)
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What is fake fish?
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This is why you don't buy sushi from gas stations, and you only go to top notch sushi restaurants. Also, avoid tuna at sushi buffets. If you're going for tuna sashimi, please just go with the top quality stuff.
I remember some high school student did the same test in New York and she was featured on some national TV show. I blame the supplier.
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This is a silly exchange to make, from my experience as a fish wholesaler, the price of escolar really that much cheaper than fresh sushi grade tuna, and frozen sushi grade tuna comperably priced. Now bluefin being served as yellowfin is getting a free upgrade and most chefs will not do this since bluefin is more expensive than yellowfin. Chefs who go cheap on tuna generally go frozen, some of it is pretty good.
And this is generally not an issue with the supplier because any chef who confuses escolar with yellowfin is incompetent and should put down his chef's knife and apply at Mcdonalds.
So is Escloar where they harvest Alli from?
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Escolar is an amazingly delicious fish and there is nothing nasty about it if you eat a sensible portion. That being said, if you order tuna you should get tuna.
P.S. - your link to the scientific report goes back to this post.
Absolutely. Escolar steaks are awesome!
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@pinecone99: Good God, escolar is inedible. It does indeed contain indigestible fats. Didn't eat the potato chips that made you soil yourself? Don't eat escolar.
The reason behind the confusion is that escolar is commonly sold as \"white tuna.\"
I'm a fishmonger and have eaten and sold plenty of escolar. Trust me, I've eaten generous portions of it (~8 oz) plenty of times and have never experienced any sort of digestive trouble, although I know it can happen. It's highly unlikely anyone would eat enough \"white tuna\" sushi/sashimi to have a problem. Have you ever tried escolar? IMO, it's way tastier than any tuna. It's not like they're substituting something of lower quality. The other issue here is that almost all sushi fish/sashimi sold in the US is from the same supplier (owned by the Moonies!). Doesn't matter what part of the country or whether it's grocery store sushi, a buffet, or some fancy place.
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i think it's definitely the suppliers that deliberately mislead the restaurants.
Having said that...the fake white tuna aka Escolar is actually REALLY tasty. No orange-oily discharge from my butt, so i'm ok!
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Some people might have been willing to pay more for the endangered fish, y'know. Just sayin'
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Scientific report link is busted: [www.plosone.org]
I want a handheld DNA tester! As a frequent consumer of fish, overfishing is one of my biggest concerns when eating out or shopping in the grocery store. It has definitely affected my individual buying habits.
Good God, escolar is inedible. It does indeed contain indigestible fats. Didn't eat the potato chips that made you soil yourself? Don't eat escolar.
The reason behind the confusion is that escolar is commonly sold as \"white tuna.\"
(Reposted because my comment did not originally go wher I expected...)
I like salmon better anyways. :D
Damn. I had this mental image of a sexy, lucy liu-esque undercover agent testing sushi samples around the world with a mini DNA sequencer disguised as a powder compact. That is, until I read the part about \"bizarre episodes of diarrhea, accompanied by a waxy intestinal discharge.\" That kind of ruined it for me.
Mmmm, sushi. Want some NOW.
I think I saw this story on CTV News in BC, Canada regarding lower mainland Vancouver sushi restaurants serving tuna sushi that isn't exactly tuna.
I had an encounter with escolar this past spring, recounted here: http://kitchenhacker.net/content/white-tuna-delicious-what-cost
It wasn't pretty... at least not the next day.
Most sushi afficianados are well aware of Escolar. There's no such thing as \"White Tuna\" - you have Albacore, which sears white but is actually pink, and Escolar, which is not a tuna at all but is suitable to eat raw. Escolar does not sound very good to consumers so they just call it \"White Tuna\". If the sushi joint you eat at sears your \"White Tuna\", it's albacore. If they serve it raw, it's escolar. Keep in mind that even if it was Tuna, it has high mercury levels so pigging out on it either way would have been dangerous.
Escolar is called Butterfish because of it's delicate flavor and buttery texture - it is a joy to consume raw, but is very high in cholesterol. Ask a fishmonger about eating it raw sometime - they'll either wax poetic or tell you you'll die. For those of us who order it every time we go into a sushi bar, take a guess which side we're on. ;)
As for RED tuna - Maguro - it's kind of hard to fake. As for endangered, that's to be expected at Sushi bars in Denver - 99% of the fish you're going to find there is frozen and imported from overseas. Keep in mind that we're in the minority as far as countries that respect endangered species law, and these fish are sent over frozen by the tens of thousands of pounds on cargo ships. To a sushi chef, maguro is maguro, bluefin maguro is bluefin maguro - they're not going to wonder what region it came from or whether the bluefin in that region are endangered or not.
I've always been under the impression that escolar was used to con unaware diners who come in demanding Toro, the prized fatty cut of tuna. Maguro is the more standard, bright red cut of tuna.
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\"Bizarre episodes\".....sounds fun.
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So...they're selling lots of red herring instead?
*rimshot*
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I will not eat anything that swims in its own toilet...
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I'm not at all surprised by this.
I was always amazed that the chefs on \"Hell's Kitchen\" are able to tell one white flaky fish from another... I'll bet 3/4 of the chefs out there (sushi or not) wouldn't be able to tell most of fish meat apart.
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it seems bizarre to me that the two places they tested in were denver and manhattan... i've never been sick from sushi i've gotten in nyc, and i usually get it once every two or three weeks.
that said, the most delicious sushi i've ever eaten was in cleveland of all places. i'm choosing to believe the fish came from the cuyahoga river. tasty, tasty poision.
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Didn't some teenage girls do this exact same thing a few years back?
this seriously scares me as a sushi lover...is there a way to safeguard against this?
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So after reading some of the comments here and some light research on Wikipedia, I come to the understanding that \"white tuna\" is actually escolar. But how can anyone fake regular (red/pink) tuna? And if they can, how can an average consumer tell the difference? We love sushi and would hate to have to give up this one vice that we can still afford.
The only thing to worry about is too much mercury from albacore. There is no real way to fake tuna.
This story is pretty misleading. I don't think anyone will eat Escolar by mistake thinking it to be actual tuna. Yes, they call it \"White tuna\" but it's a misnomer, not fraud.
Regarding bluefin... again, you won't get that by accident. It's very expensive. It being endangered is a political issue, not an issue of fraud.
I love some good sushi, but all these different reports about it come out that scare me closer to giving it up altogether. I definitely do NOT like the sound of... waxy...
This happens in Florida all the time with Grouper, at least it doesn't usually result in waxy discharge.
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Eeek!
I certainly wouldn't want to eat escolar. According to Wikipedia, escolar has been banned from consumption in Japan since 1997. You know, the country that brought sushi to North America. And this the same place where they willingly eat natto.
If they're unwilling to touch this fish, you know there's got to be something horribly wrong with it.
I love sushi, but I won't eat escolar.
I became friends with the chef/owner of my local sushi place. I asked him why he didn't sell \"white tuna\" like his competition did. He told me that escolar (1) is not tuna, and (2) is impossible to prepare safely as a sushi dish. It's a warm water fish, and as such is much more likely to carry parasites than cold water fish, apparently. No amount of cleaning can eliminate the risk of contamination. \"I like my customers,\" he said, \"so I don't serve them that fish.\"
Needless to say, I am a loyal customer.
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I am so completely glad I don't eat sushi.