| From: Jon Koplik | 5/1/2021 2:40:19 PM | | | | | | The Surprising Success Story of Fish Sticks ..................................................
April 26, 2021
The Surprising Success Story of Fish Sticks
The 1950s convenience food has enjoyed a winning streak -- no less so than during the Covid-19 pandemic
/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/da/b7/dab7d9cf-d87d-4e4d-8792-cf8ea7c8e586/gettyimages-3305193.jpg)
British schoolchildren dig into a lunch of fish sticks in 1974. Since its debut in 1953, the frozen food has proved to be a hit among kids and adults, owing to its palatability, low cost, and convenience.
By Ute Eberle, Hakai Magazine
smithsonianmag.com
There are many curious facts about fish sticks. The invention of this frozen food warranted a U.S. patent number, for instance: US2724651A. The record number of them stacked into a tower is 74. And, every year, a factory in Germany reportedly produces enough fish sticks to circle the Earth four times.
But the most peculiar thing about fish sticks may be their mere existence. They debuted on October 2, 1953, when General Foods released them under the Birds Eye label. The breaded curiosities were part of a lineup of newly introduced rectangular foods, which included chicken sticks, ham sticks, veal sticks, eggplant sticks, and dried lima bean sticks. Only the fish stick survived. More than that, it thrived. In a world in which many people are wary of seafood, the fish stick spread even behind the Iron Curtain of the Cold War.
Beloved by some, merely tolerated by others, the fish stick became ubiquitous—as much an inevitable food rite of passage for kids as a cultural icon. There’s an entire South Park episode devoted to riffing off the term fish stick, and the artist Banksy featured the food in a 2008 exhibit. When Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 90th birthday in 2016, Birds Eye presented her with a sandwich valued at US $257 that included blanched asparagus, saffron mayonnaise, edible flowers, caviar, and—most prominently—gold leaf–encrusted fish sticks.
 A frozen block of fish is transported on a conveyor to be processed into fish sticks.
To explain why the fish stick became successful, there’s probably no better guide than Paul Josephson, the self-described “Mr. Fish Stick.” Josephson teaches Russian and Soviet history at Colby College in Maine, but his research interests are wide ranging (think sports bras, aluminum cans, and speed bumps). In 2008, he penned what is still the defining scholarly paper on fish sticks. That research required him to get information from seafood companies, which proved unexpectedly challenging. “In some ways, it was easier to get into Soviet archives having to do with nuclear bombs,” he recalls.
Josephson dislikes fish sticks. Even as a kid, he didn’t understand why they were so popular. “I found them dry,” he says. Putting aside personal preference, Josephson insists that the world didn’t ask for fish sticks. “No one ever demanded them.”
Instead, the fish stick solved a problem that had been created by technology: too much fish. Stronger diesel engines, bigger boats, and new materials increased catches after the Second World War. Fishers began scooping up more fish than ever before, says Josephson. To keep them from spoiling, fish were skinned, gutted, deboned, and frozen on board.
Frozen food, however, had a terrible reputation. Early freezers chilled meat and vegetables slowly, causing the formation of large ice crystals that turned food mushy upon defrosting.
 Fish sticks are cut from a block.
That all changed in the 1920s, when entrepreneur Clarence Birdseye developed a novel freezing technique, in which food was placed between metal plates chilled to at least -30 °C. Food froze so quickly that the dreaded ice crystals couldn’t form. But when used on fish, the method created large blocks of intermingled fillets that, when pried apart, tore into “mangled, unappetizing chunks,” wrote Josephson. The fishing industry tried selling the blocks whole, as fishbricks. These were packaged like blocks of ice cream, with the idea that a housewife could chop off however much fish she wanted that day. But supermarkets had little luck selling the unwieldy bricks, and many stores even lacked adequate freezer space to display them.
Success came when the bricks were cut into standardized sticks. In a process that has remained essentially unchanged, factories run the frozen fish blocks through an X-ray machine to ensure they’re bone-free, then use bandsaws to cut them into slices. These “fingers” are dumped into a batter of egg, flour, salt, and spices, and then breaded. Afterward, they’re briefly tossed into hot oil to set the coating. The whole process takes about 20 minutes, during which the fish remains frozen, even when dunked in the deep fryer.
In 1953, 13 companies produced 3.4 million kilograms of fish sticks. A year later, four million kilograms were produced by another 55 companies. This surge in popularity was partly due to a marketing push that stressed the convenience of the new food: “no bones, no waste, no smell, no fuss,” as one Birds Eye advertisement proclaimed.
The appeal of fish sticks is somewhat paradoxical. They contain fish, but only that with the mildest flavor—and that fish has been dressed up to resemble chicken tenders.
 Factory employees sort fish on a conveyor.
The battered disguise may be needed because, at least in North America, seafood has often been second-tier. “We’ve mostly considered the eating of fish to be beneath our aspirations,” writes chef and author Barton Seaver in American Seafood. Traditionally, fish was associated with sacrifice and penance—food to eat when meat was unaffordable or, if you were Catholic, to eat on the many days when red meat is verboten. Fish also spoils fast, smells bad, and contains sharp bones that pose a choking hazard.
The advent of fish sticks made eating fish easier and more palatable for the seafood wary. “You can almost pretend that it isn’t fish,” says Ingo Heidbrink, a maritime historian at Old Dominion University in Virginia. In his native Germany, where a reported seven million people eat fish sticks at least once a week, companies changed the fish at least three times since its introduction, from cod to pollock to Alaska pollock, a distinct species. “Consumers didn’t seem to notice,” says Heidbrink.
Josephson calls fish sticks “the ocean’s hot dogs.” Served as casseroles or alongside mashed potatoes, they quickly became standby meals for school lunches and family dinners. During the pandemic, demand has risen— in some countries reportedly by up to 50 percent—as families stock up on convenience foods during lockdowns.
Surprisingly, fish sticks are fairly sustainable. Today, most contain Alaska pollock, which is largely sourced from well-managed fisheries, says Jack Clarke, a sustainable seafood advocate at the United Kingdom–based Marine Conservation Society. The climate impact of fish sticks is small, too. “I was surprised at how low it was,” says Brandi McKuin, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who recently studied Alaska pollock products. Each kilogram of fish sticks produces about 1.3 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which “rivals the climate impact of tofu,” she says. Beef, by comparison, produces over 100 times that amount of carbon dioxide per kilogram.
But not everyone seems confident about what exactly they’re eating when they consume the breaded fish. In the United Kingdom, where fish sticks are known as fish fingers, a survey revealed that one in five young adults believes they are actually the fingers of fish.
They still eat them happily.
This article is from Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems.
© 2021 Smithsonian Magazine.
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| From: Jon Koplik | 9/24/2021 4:38:21 PM | | | | | | Bangor Daily News -- 600-pound bluefin tuna will feed hungry Mainers at Belfast soup kitchen ................
Sept. 24,2021
600-pound bluefin tuna will feed hungry Mainers at Belfast soup kitchen
 by Abigail Curtis
Doug Shartzer of Somerville, who has fished for bluefin tuna recreationally, begins breaking down a 600-pound fish that was accidentally caught by seine fishermen last week in Belfast Harbor. The fishermen donated the fish to the Belfast Soup Kitchen. Credit: Courtesy of Doug Shartzer
BELFAST, Maine -- Atlantic bluefin tuna is one of the most prized fish in the world, and on the open market, a 600-pound fish might sell for as much as $10,000.
But in Belfast, patrons of the Belfast Soup Kitchen will dine next week on locally caught bluefin tuna steaks for free after Maine fishermen donated an accidentally caught fish to the nonprofit organization.
That’s thanks to a turn of events that still boggles the mind of Jamie Steeves of Rockland’s J&J Lobster. The crew of his commercial fishing boat were off Belfast last Friday morning, using a seine net to fish for pogies, a fish used as bait for the lobster industry. Suddenly, though, the smaller fish disappeared and the net started dancing.
They had caught a 600-pound bluefin tuna in the net, completely by mistake.
“What happened shouldn’t have happened. What we did was definitely an accident,” Steeves said Thursday.
A crew fishing for pogies to use as lobster bait last week in Belfast accidentally caught a 600-pound bluefin tuna in a seine net. They donated the fish to the Belfast Soup Kitchen. Credit: Courtesy of Jamie Steeves
The fish was undeniably impressive, he said.
“It’s beyond wildest dreams. It’s probably the biggest one landed in the state this year,” he said. “What we saw, a person could fish five lifetimes and it wouldn’t happen.”
But the bluefin tuna, which died before it could be released from the net, also posed a problem for the fisherman and his crew. In order to prevent overfishing, there are strict regulations that govern how Atlantic bluefin tuna can be harvested. Commercial and recreational fishermen must have a permit to fish for it. Rules that govern bycatch mean that almost everything that was unintentionally scooped up in a net must be thrown overboard.
While the fish was still in the net, Steeves reached out to Maine Marine Patrol officers to tell them about his dilemma and ask for guidance.
“Obviously our biggest concern is that bycatch isn’t exploited for personal gain. There isn’t a great mechanism in place to handle those situations,” Capt. Matt Talbot of the Maine Marine Patrol said. “It certainly would be a waste to throw that over the side.”
Because it was obvious from the outset that the fishermen had caught the fish by accident -- meaning that it didn’t have to be seized as evidence -- they immediately got the green light to find it a new home at a soup kitchen or somewhere similar, Talbot said.
For help, Steeves reached out to Doug Shartzer of Somerville, a friend who has experience recreationally fishing for tuna and was willing to make some phone calls. Shartzer said that the tuna had likely followed the schools of pogies, also called menhaden, which come closer to shore in the fall in search of warmer water.
“There’s a lot of sea life up there right now,” he said. “We still think there are tuna there.”
Shartzer called five area soup kitchens and other charitable organizations to ask if they would be interested in the fish. Other people called other places, asking the same question. But all were closed on Fridays. Finally, the Belfast Soup Kitchen answered the phone.
“He cold-called, asking ‘Can you use a 600-pound tuna?’” Cherie Merrill, the executive director of the Belfast Soup Kitchen, said. “I never say no to anything, but all I could picture was dropping this 600-pound fish off at the door.”
Fortunately, that’s not what happened.
Shartzer had broken down the fish at the dock in Rockland. Marine patrol officers brought it up to Belfast in coolers, where Merrill, bemused but delighted, was trying to figure out what to do with it next. She knew the fish would be a hit at the soup kitchen, a busy place that has served more than 300 guests a day this month. All the people who have heard about it, guests and volunteers and others in the community, think the gift was amazing, she said.
“It was just a highly unusual donation,” she said. “Everybody was thrilled.”
Fishermen who accidentally caught a 600-pound bluefin tuna last week in Belfast Harbor donated it to the Belfast Soup Kitchen. Credit: Courtesy of Jamie Steeves
Still, butchering bluefin tuna is not something she has experience doing. Shartzer offered to come up the following day to help.
“He brought the knives he needed and everything,” Merrill said. “He absolutely knew what he was doing.”
Shartzer and four volunteers spent four or five hours filleting tuna steaks and vacuum sealing usable portions to place in the freezer. They also saved scrap pieces with the intention of making canned tuna fish with it.
“It came out beautiful,” Merrill said.
Shartzer also was able to get 50 pounds of top-quality toro tuna from the fatty part of the fish. This is the most prized part and expensive part of a tuna, and used for sushi.
After the butchering was done, the volunteers did sample some of the fish for lunch.
“The toro just melted in your mouth. It was fantastic,” Shartzer said.
Merrill said the Belfast Soup Kitchen may save the toro to use during a fundraiser dinner, with money raised being used towards the purchase of a walk-in cooler.
Next week, though, the guests at the soup kitchen will enjoy marinated tuna steaks with local bok choy and rice.
“Talk about local,” Merrill said. “We distributed 10,000 pounds of local produce last month. To add fish caught in the ocean to that is very exciting.”
© 2021 Bangor Publishing Company.
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