Atlas Trail
From Stream to Sea: Ten Fish and Shellfish at the Fishmonger's Counter
This path starts in fresh water with trout, catfish and crayfish, moves out to the cold North Atlantic whitefish and the flatfish and reef fish of the open sea, and ends with three molluscs, the scallop, the abalone and the octopus. Each stop is an ingredient with its own account of how the animal lives and how people have caught, farmed and cooked it.
Stop 1 of 10.
Ingredients
Trout lives mostly in fresh water, though steelhead spend years in the ocean before returning to spawn. Its entry calls it an oily fish, notes the flesh is bonier than salmon, and says it is cooked much as salmon is, smoked or otherwise.
Stop 2 of 10.
Ingredients
The order Siluriformes holds about 3,093 described species, named for barbels that look like whiskers. Its entry notes that channel catfish farming in Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas is a 450 million dollar a year industry, and that the fish is fried in the American South and stewed in Nigeria.
Stop 3 of 10.
Ingredients
A freshwater crustacean related to lobsters, with more than 330 species in southeastern North America. Only a small part of the body is eaten, and its entry records that Louisiana held 93 percent of United States crayfish farms in 2018 while China led Asian production, 95 percent of the world supply.
Stop 4 of 10.
Ingredients
The Atlantic pollock is a cod-family whitefish that once stood in cheaply for cod and haddock. As overfishing thinned those fish, its entry says, pollock turned up in fish fingers, imitation crab and fish and chips.
Stop 5 of 10.
Ingredients
Haddock is the only species in its genus, marked by a black lateral line and the so-called Devil's thumbprint. It is sold fresh, frozen and smoked, as Finnan haddie and the Arbroath smokie, and is rated Vulnerable by the IUCN.
Stop 6 of 10.
Ingredients
The name joins haly, holy, and butte, flatfish, for its popularity on Catholic holy days. Pacific and Atlantic halibut are the world's largest flatfish, and the North Pacific commercial fishery dates to the late nineteenth century.
Stop 7 of 10.
Ingredients
Snapper is a family of about 113 species, mostly marine, living near coral reefs in warm waters. Its entry notes that many unrelated fish in different places are locally called red snapper, a sign of how prominent the group is in commerce.
Stop 8 of 10.
Ingredients
The edible part is the adductor muscle, while the roe, called coral, has a different flavor. Its entry contrasts hot buttered pans in French cooking, sushi in Japan and breaded fried scallops in the northeastern United States.
Stop 9 of 10.
Ingredients
A marine snail with an ear-shaped shell, with about 70 living species. Archaeological evidence shows people have harvested it for over 100,000 years, and because wild stocks were depleted, farming now supplies most of the abalone meat eaten.
Stop 10 of 10.
Ingredients
A soft-bodied mollusc with more than 500 million neurons, two thirds of them in the arms. Its entry says it is eaten and considered a delicacy in many places, especially around the Mediterranean and in Asia.
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