MARK BITTMAN
ESSAY


In 1994, I published my first book, “Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking.” The premise was straightforward: if you buy fish fresh and cook it simply, you’ll eat well.

It quickly became much more complicated, because “Fish” appeared in the midst of a revolution, one that has transformed the world of seafood.

Since the ‘80s, we’ve seen the surge of international trade, the accelerating aquaculture of fin fish, and the rise of large-fleet fishing that began in the 1950s and has since depleted the stocks of fish in all the world’s oceans.

Merely buying a piece of fish has become so challenging that when my publisher asked if I wanted to revise the book, I felt I had to decline. The cooking remains unchanged, but the buying has become a logistical and ethical nightmare.

I first shopped for, learned about and cooked fish when my selections were varied and mostly local. Occasionally, there would be Pacific salmon or mahi-mahi, but orange roughy, Pacific cod and Chilean sea bass (actually Patagonian toothfish) were unheard of.

Meanwhile, change was afoot. Chefs were bragging about bringing in “the freshest fish” they could find, even if it came from thousands of kilometers away. Farm-raised salmon became commonplace. First it was thrilling - here was a flavorful, previously unaffordable, fatty-buthealthy fish. Then it seemed threatening, as the downsides of farming became evident.

None of this changed a basic fact about fish: cooked with almost nothing else, it outshines every other animal in terms of ease of cooking and variety of tastes and textures. The best fish dishes - grilled toro, pils-pils, fried shrimp, boiled lobster, smoked salmon, barely cooked bay scallops - are not only among the greatest culinary pleasures, they’re among the least fussy.

But how do you buy fish without driving yourself crazy or feeling never-ending guilt- It’s easy enough to say “buy only sustainable fish,” but despite the laudable efforts by programs like the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, this isn’t easy.

Paradoxically, some of the most abundant fish are nearly impossible to find. And even when you encounter a fish you believe to be in plentiful supply, nomenclature can confuse you. So when Seafood Watch names “black sea bass” a “good” alternative, it also points out that several other species are called by the same or similar names (including grouper, mostly endangered). They also say that it’s important to avoid black sea bass caught in the South Atlantic. Or any caught by trawling.

The alternative that always comes up is farm-raised fish. But with the exception of mollusks, which have been farmed forever with little environmental impact and sometimes with as much flavor as wild, most of the products of aquaculture are not only not worth cooking but are also environmentally challenged.

In fact, in many instances wild fish are harvested to produce feed for farmed fish, and it takes about 1.4 kilograms of wild fish to produce about half a kilogram of farmed salmon. Aquaculture is also a local pollutant and a major consumer of antibiotics, and it has long been thought that escaped farmed fish will interbreed with and weaken wild fish.

Well-intentioned people are working on making aquaculture more appealing, and ultimately, I think, we will see two categories of farm-raised fish. One will be well taken care of, tasty enough, and exclusively for the wealthy. The other will be tilapia and its ilk, fish that live on plants and can be raised and sold relatively inexpensively. It will taste better than it does now, though probably still not fabulous.

One could argue that one shouldn’t eat fish at all, fearing that if fish lovers begin consuming those few remaining species that are not in trouble - sardines, mackerel, squid - we might just put them in danger, too. But though that may be the easiest argument to phrase, it isn’t likely to be popular.

Besides, the situation is not hopeless. Many experts believe that if the management practices of the most highly regulated fisheries were followed globally, most fish could return to commercially viable levels more quickly than was thought.

If this happens, and farm-raised fish problems are “solved,” more fish will be available, good and sustainable. (And more expensive, but you can’t have everything.)

In the meantime, I’m careful. I’m trying to see eating fish as a treat. I won’t eat it daily or in huge quantities, but occasionally, with appreciation. The days of “see it/eat it” are gone.

From top: Mackerel, herring and anchovy are not depleted like many other species of fish.