Buying Fish: Cooked, Fresh or Frozen

One of the nicest things about moving from a small town in western Pennsylvania to New Jersey was access to fresh fish. When I was growing up, Mrs. Paul's frozen fish sticks, along with canned tuna, salmon and oyster stew were the only fish on the menu at my house. 

Grilled swordfish or meltingly tender bay scallops, cooked Julia Child's way, were not on my horizon. Skyrocketing prices have turned both those dishes into occasional treats, and tilapia and arctic char are on the menu a lot more often these days.

Once upon a time Ridgewood had a fish market on Prospect Street across from the bus station, right near a small produce market whose owner hit the Paterson market to buy fresh vegetables every morning at dawn. I could buy vegetables from him and then two doors down, get very lively blue crabs trying to crawl out of a basket. Both shops are long gone, but it was nice while it lasted. 

Today our choices are the local supermarkets and Pete's in Midland Park. We buy nearly all of our fish at Pete's, but we have friends who swear by King's, and we have seen some tempting deals listed on the board outside the store.

Whole Foods has a big selection, and we went there one Monday to explore, lured by a promotion promising a pound of cooked shrimp for $9.99. As a rule, we don't eat fish on Monday, because, one, Pete's is closed on Sunday and Monday, and, two, we know any fish we buy is likely to be three or more days old.

So having any kind of fish on a Monday was fun. Some of the fish, including salmon fillets, looked on the dry side, and we stayed away from the mussels—although we do love mussels. The swordfish looked good but at $17.99 a pound, it was not in our budget. Ditto the tuna at $20.99 a pound.

We wound up with Wild Pacific Dover Sole at $6.99 a pound, which we cooked slowly, in olive oil in a cast iron skillet. It wasn't swordfish, but it was fine.

Later in the week, we checked out King's where the swordfish, billed as never frozen, was on special for only $14.99 a pound. But bay scallops were also on sale for $6.99 a pound. Now those we had to try. Cooked our usual way, they were a major disappointment, lacking any kind of flavor. 

We also tried King's salmon cakes, which were also on special at $2.49 instead of $4.19. They were quite good and cheaper than the Whole Foods offering at $4.99. Whole Foods also has crab cakes at $4.99 versus $4.49 at Kings. Pete's crab cakes, however, cost half that.

Whole Foods also offers cod cakes. These ready-to-heat cakes are a blessing on busy nights but, obviously, become very costly if they are to serve as a main course.

In general, we think the prices at Pete's are a little lower than Whole Foods and the quality is higher. I think the people at Pete's decide what to offer daily based on what looks good at the market and what they consider a reasonable price.

As for that "cooked" shrimp promotion that got us to the Whole Foods fish counter, it turns out there weren't any left. The promotion didn't mention that the shrimp were frozen rock hard in a plastic bag, and the substitute offered was the same. We passed.

The promotion did, however, pique our curiosity about buying shrimp. Has most of what we buy been frozen, and where is it all coming from? More on that later.