Fish Is The New Beef

This quarantine has given us some tough times. Now our food chain is being threatened. Beef and chicken are starting to become scarce. Thankfully there is fish and seafood to provide  us with protein and sustenance. Americans are rediscovering them and becoming adventurous with cooking.

Pete Wells, usually the restaurant critic for The New York Times wrote this informative piece in yesterday's New York Times Food section. he interviewed the Rozzo family , famed for their seafood company F.Rozzo And Sons which goes back decades and generations. Luckily the fisheries haven't suffered like the meat processing plants where whole swaths of workers came down with the Corona virus.Yet the usually $5.6 billion industry has not escaped the fall out. Restaurants and other food service establishments normally amount for about two-thirds of the sale of fresh seafood in the country. When nearly all the restaurants closed save for take or delivery, the entire seafood distribution network froze. Along the Atlantic coast, some fishing boats were dumping fish they couldn't sell. It was also a terrible spring, rife with storms and high winds. Luckily there is a bright spot and that's retail. Home chefs are discovering fish as a great sub in for red meat and poultry. Then there are the seafood lovers who can't dine at their favorite seafood restaurants. They bring that home, as they try new recipes or recreate their favorite ones.

Fish is an easy cook. Many home chefs never want to cook it, because of the smell or they have no knowledge of how to cook it. Then they're afraid it may go bad.Yet any fish is relatively easy to make. What Mr. Wells found out is that a few home chefs are adventurous. It also helps that other fish companies like Pierless FIsh, owned by Robert DiMasco, have begun home deliveries. His new clients are even  buying fish collars which are the area right next to the head. He sold thirty pounds of them in one day , although they are tasty and actually full of fat.They're also versatile which would appeal to the adventurous cook. In addition to the dried anatomical scraps it markets as pet scraps Pierless also offers  Spanish mackerel, skate, silver dory and catfish. All have been sold out. Famed chefs are also big fans of Pierless. Jean-Georges Vongerichten, the famed chef and owner of many restaurants from New York to Las Vegas, raved about the company's squid. Frank Rozzo and Sons are also enjoying the uptick in sales. It sold one hundred pounds of drumfish from the Gulf Of Mexico.

There will always be fish when there is no more chicken or beef. It's tasty and easy to cook. Consider it on your next shopping trip.