Seafood products from thePacific Northwest providesuperior nutritional value andan opportunity to add variety tofamily menus. However, becausemost fresh seafood is seasonal, it’simportant to learn what the avail-ability of seafood is in your area atcertain times of the year. Your localfish dealer can provide you with thisinformation and indicate which va-rieties are the best value. Fresh fishmay be purchased by the pound inany of the following forms: dressed,steaks, fillets, and chunks.Keep in mind that seafoodproducts are more susceptible thanmost other food items to changesin color, flavor, and texture fromexposure to air through a processcalled oxidation. Commercial andcustom processors may use vacuumpackaging, antioxidants such asvitamin C (ascorbic acid), and othertechniques to control these changes.Seafood products can also spoilmore quickly because the bacteriaassociated with them can grow atlow temperatures. This means thatthey have a shorter shelf life thanred meat. Because aquatic foods areso sensitive to deterioration, freez-ing is an important way to maintainseafood quality.Your family can enjoy seafoodfrom the freezer that tastes almost asfresh and delicately flavored as theday it was caught, if you follow a fewrules during preparation and storage.If you catch your own fishFishers should be aware that theprocess of stiffening (rigor mortis) offreshly caught fish has a significantinfluence on the quality of the fro-zen product. The best quality frozenfish is produced from fish that havebeen handled and frozen immediate-ly after the process of rigor is over andthe fish muscle is relaxed.Fish should be bled as soon asthey are caught, and then iced im-mediately. Under these conditions,a fish will pass through rigor slowly,and there is less of a chance forgaping (separations in the meat) tooccur. Passing though rigor couldtake up to a day for large fish. Makesure that ice completely surroundsthe fish. (If the fish touches thesides of the container, it will cooltoo fast.) On a warm day, fish thathave not been iced suffer a harshrigor by going through the processquickly. This causes the flesh to tearand damages the muscle structure,especially if the fish is stiff whenyou handle it.Fish flesh that was frozen beforegoing through rigor should have ex-cellent flavor, but it may be slightlytough if you thaw it before the6–9 weeks it takes to pass throughrigor during frozen storage. If youhave little influence over how yourcatch is handled or filleted, the bestadvice is simply to keep fish as coolas possible after catching it, ice thefish immediately after butcheringor filleting, and freeze it as soon aspossible. Remember: if you’re everin doubt as to the freshness of sea-food, then by all means, don’t freezeit. If you have a serious doubt aboutthe quality or safety of the product,discard it.Freezing can never improve thequality of a bad product. Handlingfish poorly before freezing will makeit impossible to obtain good results.Freezing can only slow the loss ofquality of the fish—it can’t put anyquality back. In some cases, poorhandling can start chemical changesthat even freezing can’t stop, suchas oxidation of fats that lead to un-desirable flavor and color changes.Choosing the right packageYou can prepare fish for freez-ing in any of several ways: dressedor pan-dressed, steaks, and fillets(Figure 1). It’s usually best to freezefish in a tightly wrapped packagethat will exclude air. An additionaladvantage is that these types ofpackages take up less storage space.It is also a good idea to wrap fish inmeal size portions, so that only theproduct that is needed is removedfrom the freezer at one time.Most undesirable seafood flavorsand color changes are caused by oxi-dation of sensitive unsaturated fattyacids and pigments. These “hearthealthy” unsaturated fatty acids areone of the most important nutri-
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