Fishmongers • HFX • NS
Fishmongers • HFX • NS
The journal
Go behind the scenes with the fishers, food lovers, and changemakers building a better seafood system.
Most people assume "local" on a label is marketing with nothing behind it. It is not. Canada defines the word, the definition covers an entire province, and it has been temporary for thirteen years.
The thing that makes fish safe to eat raw is not a label and not a grade. It is a specific freezing…
DNA testing has repeatedly found that close to half the seafood sampled in Canada is not the species on the label. The…
Knowing why fish sticks is not the same as being able to cook it. These are the five things you do with…
There is no shortage of fish recipes. There is a shortage of the four or five things that decide whether any of…
It is the question we get most often, and the honest answer has two halves. One is about what "fresh" actually means…
Ocean Wise recommended is the lowest bar we will sell under, not the highest thing we can say about a fish. Here…
A scallop cooks in three minutes and waits for nobody, so the real question is not what goes with it but what…
Sea scallops vs bay scallops is not a size question. They are two species with two different lives, and only one of…
Wet scallops are soaked in phosphate so they hold water you end up paying for, and they will not brown properly. Here…
Most people assume "local" on a label is marketing with nothing behind it. It is not. Canada defines the word, the definition covers an entire province, and it has been temporary for thirteen years.
The thing that makes fish safe to eat raw is not a label and not a grade. It is a specific freezing process, and a domestic freezer generally cannot perform it. Here is what the parameters actually are.
DNA testing has repeatedly found that close to half the seafood sampled in Canada is not the species on the label. The number is bad. What is more useful is where it concentrates, because that part is actionable.
Knowing why fish sticks is not the same as being able to cook it. These are the five things you do with your hands, what each one feels like when it works, and how to practise it deliberately.
There is no shortage of fish recipes. There is a shortage of the four or five things that decide whether any of them work, and a recipe is structurally incapable of telling you those.
It is the question we get most often, and the honest answer has two halves. One is about what "fresh" actually means at a Canadian fish counter. The other is about what is convenient for us, and we would rather say both.
Ocean Wise recommended is the lowest bar we will sell under, not the highest thing we can say about a fish. Here is what the labels actually promise, what they deliberately leave out, and the questions worth asking after the logo.
A scallop cooks in three minutes and waits for nobody, so the real question is not what goes with it but what you can have finished before it hits the pan. Portions, pairings and the order of operations.
Sea scallops vs bay scallops is not a size question. They are two species with two different lives, and only one of them is fished on our own coast. Here is what separates them and which one you actually want.
Wet scallops are soaked in phosphate so they hold water you end up paying for, and they will not brown properly. Here is what the soaking does, what Canadian rules actually require, and how to tell dry vs wet scallops before you buy.
