It Looks Like Snapper ...

By Chuck Sudo in Food on May 11, 2007 6:30PM

One of Chicagoist's first summer jobs, between summer breaks in high school, was working on a catfish farm in Southwest Tennessee. We'd catch, clean, and dress the fish for smoking. We were paid by the dressed pound, and the owners knew whenever we sneaked a perch or a chub in the mix in order to get more pay. So we were intrigued when we picked up yesterday's Sun-Times (GB's Drive-Thru linked to it yesterday, as well) and saw on the front page an investigatve report that found fourteen restaurants in the greater Chicago area claiming to sell red snapper on their menu were actually serving either tilapia or sea bream. Using a control red snapper they picked up from the Fish Guy on Elston, they took samples from each of the fourteen to compare.

This is indicative of a larger problem regarding control of fish sales from wholesalers. The Sun-Times report says that there outside of the Food and Drug Administration, there's very little government oversight ensuring that seafood wholesalers aren't misrepresenting brands. They do investigate false representation claims on a case-by-case basis, but also have bigger priorities right now. Like trying to contain e.coli tainted vegetables, or ensuring that chickens that were fed feed with tainted melanine are safe to eat.

After the Sun-Times reported their findings to the unlucky fourteeen, only a handful remedied the situation by either changing the menu to reflect that they were serving a different fish, or by taking it off the menu altogether. Some, like the trendy Japonais (found to be serving red sea bream), said that customers can't tell the difference between red snapper and the fakes.

Let's hope they can read and find their way to this and the Sun-Times article, then.