Beyond the Usual Catch: Ten Fish and Shellfish from River, Sea and Shore

Tilapia is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from Africa and the Middle East. Farmed production reached about 1.5 million tonnes in 2002, with China leading at 1.3 million tonnes, and the fish suit farming because they eat plant-based feed rather than costly carnivorous diets.

True eels belong to the order Anguilliformes, about 1,000 species, and the freshwater genus Anguilla migrates to the ocean to spawn. Japan eats freshwater eel as unagi and marine eel as anago, including in the expensive unadon dish, while Europe eats it jellied or smoked; the European eel is critically endangered.

Sturgeons are 27 long-lived species with rows of bony scutes, and a beluga caught in 1827 measured 7.2 meters and weighed 1,571 kilograms. Their roe made them among the most valuable wildlife resources, and more than 85 percent of sturgeon species are now at risk of extinction.

Caviar is the salt-cured roe of sturgeon, traditionally from the Caspian and Black Sea regions, with beluga, ossetra and sevruga as the classic varieties. It reached European aristocratic tables in the 10th century through Byzantine and Kievan Rus trade, and the FAO reserves the term strictly for sturgeon roe.

Sea bass is a name applied to many marine fish across several families rather than one species. In Ireland and the United Kingdom it means the European seabass, also called branzino, a major commercial fish especially in aquaculture.

Mahi-mahi, Coryphaena hippurus, is a surface-dwelling fish of warm offshore waters worldwide, also called dolphinfish or dorado. Its raw flesh is grey-white and cooks to white with a clean, non-fishy flavor, and it is among the fastest-growing fish, rarely living beyond five years.

The swordfish, Xiphias gladius, is a large migratory predator with a long flat bill, and the largest recorded specimen measured 4.55 meters and weighed 650 kilograms. Its oily meat is sold as steaks for grilling, but the FDA advises young children and pregnant women to avoid it because of methylmercury.

Monkfish are lophiid anglerfishes of the genus Lophius, seven living species in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and Lophius piscatorius is the commercially more significant species in north-western Europe. The liver is prized in Japanese cuisine as the delicacy ankimo.

Nephrops norvegicus, the Norway lobster, is a slim coral-colored lobster whose tail meat is sold as scampi or langoustine. British fishermen once discarded it as uneconomical, yet its fishery is now one of Europe's most significant, at about 60,000 tonnes a year.

Cockles are marine bivalves of the family Cardiidae with heart-shaped, ribbed shells, living on sandy beaches worldwide. They turn up boiled in Southeast Asian laksa and char kway teow, as torigai sushi in Japan, and as a freshly cooked British snack with malt vinegar and pepper.