Why is fish so fucking expensive?
>>7582971
Because it expires very quickly if it's not frozen and freezing it reduces the quality of it dramatically. Aside from that, it has to be transported long distances, usually from oceans, and kept either chilled or frozen the entire way.
So in conclusion
>If it's frozen you're paying for cost of transporting the frozen fish from point A to point B and/or just keeping it frozen the entire time
>If it's fresh but shipped from somewhere else then you're paying for the cost of transporting the chilled fish from point A to point B in a timely manner
>If it's fresh and local then you're paying a premium for locally produced premium food and the logistics of getting it to a restaurant/store/market very quickly and probably still chilling it
>>7582971
Is it? A side of salmon is 8-10 € per kilogram. What other high grade cut of protein costs less?
>inb4 oxtail/cheek/heart
>>7582971
Depends on what kind you get. Some common varieties are pretty tasty and comparatively cheap.
>>7582971
Because you live in a small town of 2,000 people in a flyover state with 8/10 people living there have never seen the beach.
That's why.
>>7582982
Assuming it's not farmed fish, then you've also got to factor in all the costs of a fishing operation.
Because you're trying to get imported salmon/whatever from fucking Norway or some shit. Hit up your local fishermen/seafood market and get that shit fresh and cheap.
If you live in a landlocked country then you might want to try food other than fish (because freshwater fish are disgusting).
>>7582971
The export market to Asia increased its value substantially.
>>7582971
>image.jpg
>>7583058
>freshwater fish are disgusting
Perch pike is god tier. So is eel, char, trout, greyling and euro perch. Fuck off and educate yourself.
>>7582982
>Because it expires very quickly if it's not frozen and freezing it reduces the quality of it dramatically.
You need to tell Jiro that he's doing it all wrong.
>>7582971
Because people, shit as they are, think its their god given right to have children, and wont let anyone fucking stop them, so they fuck and breed till theres 7-8 billion of us and then wonder why all the fish are getting overfished and harder to get ahold of as we outpace their capacity to breed.
don't listen to these other morons. the problem is litterally unchecked fucking in the human species. and I'm not just talking about china and india either, even the west has way to many fucking people.
>>7582982
>he thinks fresh fish means never frozen
>>7583259
But the population of native born Westerners is actually in negative growth.
>>7583143
dank
>>7582971
shop harder, you clearly suck at it because i got salmon for about 8 dollars at about half a kilo
>>7582971
Where do you live?
>>7582971
Preservation and shipping.
>>7582982
>and freezing it reduces the quality of it dramatically
No it doesn't, you retard.
>t. commercial fisherman
>>7583354
Yes it does.
>t. pro chef
>>7583356
Not when they're handled properly. Buy better fish.
>>7583356
No it doesn't.
>t. cdc
What are you talking about a kilo is around €3...
Oh wait, your an americuck.
>>7583387
There are probably more chefs here than fishermen
maybe not high tier chefs, but chefs all the same
I'd still believe a fisherman over a chef
>>7582971
>my dad's one hobby is fishing
>we live in Washington on the coast
>get oodles of fresh caught salmon every weekend
>super used to it
>can never get salmon in restaurants because I'm used to eating salmon that died five hours ago
>>7583037
bro i i live in chicago and fish is expesive.
>>7582982
>>7583354
You're both right. Let me explain.
When >>7582982 says freezing, he's talking about when you put thawed fish in a walk-in freezer, which causes slow ice crystal growth; it ruptures cells, which results in moisture loss when it's thawed, a mealy texture, and generally a poor quality of fish. You're right.
But the type of "freezing" that >>7583354 is referring to is NOT the same; it's about a step down from immersing the fish in liquid nitrogen in terms of the quality of the preserved meat. The actual freezing process isn't a freezer like we think of it; it's more of a sort of inverse sous-vide (It uses a brine bath or something like it to drop the temperature of the fish until it either freezes or is at freezing) which results in minimal cell damage.
TL;DR home-freezing without special equipment will result in shitty, mealy fish- but flash-frozen fish will not get mealy.
>>7583014
Buy a rib roast, dry-age it in a modified minifridge. Boom, dry-aged steaks for almost nothing (Dry-aged Choice-grade tastes just as good as Prime pre-aging desu).
It ain't like we are getting are fish from the lifeless void of Lake Michigan, shit gotta travel. Costco has some good cuts of fish (salmon mainly) if you have / can afford the membership.
>>7582971
>>7582982
>used to live in a fucing coastal city on an island nation
>fish was still fucking expensive
>moved to a landlocked city
>it costs even more
IM SO TIRED OF EATING FUCKING BEEF LAMB AND CHICKEN BUT IM POOR SOMEBODY KILL ME
>>7583471
This times a million.
Even the most expensive, and highest quality sushi restaurants are using frozen fish in this country.
Even if we ignore certain "meme" foods... Unless you live in a coastal area, that top dollar fish comes in frozen.
>>7583363
This.
Flash frozen fish that is properly thawed is just as good as never frozen.
>>7583503
I actually tested this, side-by-side. Took a piece of trout, cut into thirds. Froze one in my freezer, dropped one in a vat of liquid nitrogen, and kept the third unfrozen. Cooked all three the same way (sous-vide with lemon, thyme, olive oil and parsley to prevent any culinary fuckups invalidating the result).
Home-frozen was mealy, pasty, and generally miserable- I actually fed it to the cat.
The nitrogen-frozen fish and fresh were identical- as in if I didn't Sharpie the bags as "nitro" and "fresh" then I wouldn't have known the difference.
Yes, I went to these lengths to test this myself. No, I had nothing better to do with my time and money. Yes, I know I need to do it again with salmon or something, AND ACTUALLY DOCUMENT IT THIS TIME.
Still angry with myself that I didn't the first time.
>>7583503
>Even the most expensive, and highest quality sushi restaurants are using frozen fish in this country.
they do that because freezing kills a lot of potential parasites/bacteria since they are serving the fish uncooked, it has nothing to do with the integrity of the fish
>>7583471
>But the type of "freezing" that >>7583354(You) is referring to is NOT the same; it's about a step down from immersing the fish in liquid nitrogen in terms of the quality of the preserved meat. The actual freezing process isn't a freezer like we think of it; it's more of a sort of inverse sous-vide (It uses a brine bath or something like it to drop the temperature of the fish until it either freezes or is at freezing) which results in minimal cell damage.
What you're describing is a seawater-slush cooling system, not an actual freezer. That's used for fish that are offloaded to processors as whole fish and only keeps them at top grade for up to five days but fish frozen at sea (or in a processing plant, for that matter) are usually cleaned mere minutes before being frozen in an industrial freezer (~-50F or colder) and are immaculate even after months, provided that they're protected from freezer burn via a glaze of ice. Alaskan king salmon, for example, have a commercial season measured in weeks but the fish is handled so carefully from beginning to end that king salmon that's been frozen for ten months is just as good as a king salmon caught yesterday and stored in the fridge.
>>7583548
With very few exceptions, all fish a restaurant buys comes frozen simply because it's the easiest way to distribute it and it provides the best quality-to-price ratio by a long shot. The main trick to quality is proper defrosting.
>>7583568
My bad, but I remember reading that some ships use large brine-based immersion freezers, if that's the word.
And yeah, I don't know the technicalities too well, but my point got across; industrial processing freezers/coolers do virtually no damage to the meat's structure, while a home freezer is a step below beating it with a bat.
>>7583574
>My bad, but I remember reading that some ships use large brine-based immersion freezers, if that's the word.
The ships that don't process aboard generally do. They just refrigerate their catch with slush or RFS until they can offload it to a tender, which then processes and/or freezes it before heading to a shoreside distribution center.
Fat fish like salmon or mackerel get this disgusting fish oil taste if it is frozen for too long.
In my family we fish a lot of the fish ourselves at the cabin. Haddock and pollock is fine to freeze and keep for some months, but mackerel we only eat in the summer when it's fresh desu.
Bro go tothe asian markets, they usually have good shit cheap
>>7583574
So what would be a good immersion freeze at home? Vacuum seal fresh caught fish, and put them in a huge bath of super saturated salt water at -10C?
>>7583583
Glad to know that I'm not entirely wrong, and I learned something new. Thanks, anon.
>>7583440
I live in Chicago too and logistically we're not particularly a haven for fresh seafood.
You could easily drive up to Wisconsin and eat lake caught fish in the middle of nowhere if you wanted to for cheap while drinking $1 beers.
Where I live cod is 5 usd a pound
>>7583484
>be poor
>buy beef and lamb instead of beans and lentins
>>7582971
Fish should be even more expensive, to discourage people from eating it. Overfishing is murder.
>tfw living by a river with salmon, zander, trout, bass and pike
Pulled up 5 zanders yesterday, shit's fucking ambrosia.
I live in Bucharest (not near the see) Romania and i got a 2.5 kg live fish from tank for about 35 ron (8.84 US Dollar)
>>7583484 :')
Live in seaside town.
Fish is cheap as fuck.
Nobody eats it. Everyone goes burger when pork and beef is a hard farm on the shitty land we have in this country
JUST
>>7583058
>walleye
>pike
>trout
>salmon
>bass
Freshwater fish are delicious. Even crappies are great.
>>7584000
>Overfishing is murder
That's quite a bit of autism you have there, friend
>>7584177
Crappies are god-tier as far as I'm concerned. Sweet and meaty like a good catfish.
Probably because you live somewhere that's landlocked.
>>7583916
seriously beef and lamb is fucking expensive here, I'm in victoria canada but gradually I've seen beef especially become more and more expensive.
>>7583037
This is the case for me. That's why I never got into fish. I want to move to a comfy ocean town.
>>7586360
I moved from West Virginia to Maryland, and while the cost of living is fucking ridiculous here compared to what I'm used to, it's nice being to pick up a whole mess of crabs and shrimp for dinner for a price that won't ruin me.
Back in Appalachia good luck getting any crab that wasn't canned or frozen, and even then it was stupid expensive.
>>7586342
crappies are meme freshwater fish. overrated imo
>not going out to your local lake or river, catching a catfish or bass yourself, and grilling the bitch right there on the lakefront over a fire
assuming you don't live in some polluted shithole where the water's literally sludge
loll enjoy you're mercury poisoning retard's
>>7582982
Fresh fish has to be flash frozen according to US law. Unless you get it straight from the fisherman or you fish it yourself, your fish was frozen at some point
Lures and bait are cheap
>>7587529
>>retard's
>>'s
>>'
Indeed.
>>7582971
It was the poor mans food, now you gotta be a fuckin rich to eat that.
>>7583037
Yea, but I bet they got some good mountain oysters and land crabs in Mr. Flyovers State.
>>7583037
Dude I live on Cape Cod, a place surrounded by ocean and literally named after a fish and that shit is still expensive.
I can turn a $1.99 box of generic cheerios into 20 pounds of bluegill if you give me a week.
>>7589676
catching sunfish is about the easiest shit ever.
>>7583253
all fish "needs" to be frozen if it's being sold to the mass consumer market. flash freezing is the best way to get rid of the parasites.
>>7583259
>Australians try to stop overpopulating the continent
>Government ships in more human resources
Fuck off we're full.
Its not Why is Fish so expensive its more like When the cost of oil was stupid high and the costs of food went up the same why didnt fish/ seafood come down with everything else?
>all this freshwater damage control
Feels good to not be flyover
because the united states fell for the beef meme. Fish farms only sell b2b for mass produced items, and the health nuts believe you need wild caught.
>>7583587
Why -10C? A good freezer does -18 and brine can go that low.
Add some weights on a corner of the package and they'll probably go vertical from floating, this should help convection.
>>7582971
Because we are destroying the world's ecosystems for our temporary pleasures
Total newb cook here.
How do you get rid of these mini-bones buried in the fishes? Cant enjoy myself a nice salmon because of these little nightmares...
>used to live in a small coastal town
>cheap fish everyday
>move away to the city
>fish is expensive as fuck
Just kill me now, I must return to the sea
>>7591507
Scrape with the blunt side of a knife against the grain to make them pop out more and then remove the little bones with a pair of small pincers.
>>7591525
Oh God, Thanks
>>7591529
You're gonna have to remove them one by one so don't thank me yet.
