Photo by Neil Caudle 



Boxes of fresh-frozen seafood line a blast freezer 



pulled out of the siyf this morning, just in time 

 for breakfast. Nothing will ever taste better than 

 that. 



We're talking averages here. Unless you live 

 right on the coast, the average "fresh" seafood 

 you buy may be six days old. Two weeks out of 

 the water is not so unusual. 



Today's commercial blast freezers, on the other 

 hand, can stop the freshness clock at about two 

 days, if that's how long it takes the fish to reach 

 the freezer. 



We'll admit, frozen fish may have deserved its 

 unsavory reputation in years past. Not anymore. 

 Science has found a way to drop the temperature 

 without dropping the flavor. Still skeptical? Read 

 on. This month's Coastwatch looks at what hap- 

 pens when you freeze a fish — the right way. 



Eight days in the life of a seafood 



Consider the flounder fillet on your 

 grocer's meat counter. Perhaps it land- 

 ed whole and alive on the deck of a 

 trawler somewhere off North Carolina. 

 Had it been possible for you to clean 

 and cook the fish that moment, you'd 

 have tasted flounder at its peak: firm, 

 fresh and delicious. 



But shortly after it reaches the boat, 

 the flounder and most of the rest of the 

 catch are shoveled below decks and 

 iced for safe-keeping. The clock is 

 already taking its toll on the flounder's 

 flavor. 



After another night or two of 

 fishing, the crew heads home. 



Elapsed time: two days. 



At the fish house, things happen fast. 

 The flounder are unloaded, sorted, 

 cut, boxed, iced and loaded onto 

 trucks — all in a matter of hours. From 

 the packer, the trucks often travel to 

 wholesale distributors, where the 

 flounder might spend another night or 

 two before it is packed off to grocers 

 and restaurants across the Piedmont 

 and Coastal Plain. Often, these ship- 

 ments reach the grocery stores on 

 Tuesday nights. The meats manager 

 unpacks the boxes, and trays and 

 wraps the flounder for sale the next 

 day. 



Elapsed time: five days. 



Wednesday and Thursday, sales are 

 good, but Friday is the big day for 

 seafood. And Friday evening might 

 have found you at the meat counter, 



picking up a package of "fresh" floun- 

 der. 



Elapsed time: eight days. 



This is only a hypothetical case. 

 There are other routes the fish can 

 take to your market, and sometimes 

 the elapsed time is a day or two less. 

 Occasionally, it is even longer — 

 sometimes two weeks or more. 



Handled correctly, many week-old 

 fish are still very good. But much 

 beyond that one-week interval, quality 

 drops quickly. The fish teems with ac- 

 tivity. Bacteria convert nutrients into 

 smelly new compounds. Unsaturated 

 fats and oils become rancid. Enzymes 

 break down muscle proteins and 

 reduce the texture to mush. Even- 

 tually, time will make the meat inedi- 

 ble. 



Can the clock be stopped? Almost. 

 But ironically, the very means for 

 preserving seafood's quality is the 

 method many of us equate with in- 

 ferior seafood: freezing. 



Tyre Lanier, of the food science 

 department at North Carolina State 

 University, has for five years been con- 

 ducting Sea Grant research into the 

 packaging and preserving of seafoods. 



His studies, using panels of tasters, 

 market studies and lab tests, have 

 shown that most seafoods, properly 

 frozen and prepared, are at least as' 

 good to eat as fresh products. 



"There's maybe a slight difference 

 in the appearance of frozen seafoods, 

 but when they're cooked there's no dif- 

 ference at all," Lanier says. "In fact, 



most panels cannot distinguish be- 

 tween a fresh fish and one that has 

 been frozen over a year." 



But Lanier says that such quality 

 depends on fast-freezing the product in 

 a good package, at temperatures below 

 -10° F. A home freezer won't do the 

 same job. 



"If you freeze seafood, all you do is 

 crystalize the water," Lanier says. "If 

 you fast-freeze it, the water crystals 

 are very small, and they do the least 

 damage to the product. The faster you 

 freeze it and the colder you hold it, the 

 less damage." 



Uneven cooling due to the cycling of 

 some freezers can build larger crystals 

 and reduce the quality of frozen meats, 

 Lanier adds. 



Lanier says that some seafood 

 species keep longer than others. Low- 



"Most panels cannot distinguish between a fresh 

 fish and one that has been frozen over a year." 



— Tyre Lanier 



