From the Water to the Plate: Fish and Shellfish

Herring are small forage fish that move in large schools, and three Clupea species make up about 90 percent of all herring caught. They are commonly salted, smoked or pickled, and in the United Kingdom were called silver darlings.

Sardine and pilchard are imprecise names for small oily fish, and a common convention calls fish under 15 centimeters sardines. The FAO and WHO standard for canned sardines names 21 species that may be sold under the name.

Mackerel is a name for many pelagic fish, mostly in the family Scombridae, with flesh high in omega-3 oils. More than 5 million tons were landed by commercial fishermen in 2009.

Cod names the genus Gadus, chiefly Atlantic and Pacific cod, both named by Linnaeus in 1758. It is valued for mild flavor and dense, flaky white flesh, and its liver is processed separately into cod liver oil.

Tuna are 15 species in the tribe Thunnini, from the bullet tuna at about 50 centimeters to the Atlantic bluefin at up to 4.6 meters. Cave paintings near Sicily dated to about 9200 years bce are the earliest reliable evidence of people exploiting bluefin.

Salmon are anadromous: they hatch in freshwater gravel beds, live as sea fish, then return to their birthplace to reproduce. Their relatives include trout, char, grayling and whitefish.

Shrimp is a common name for crustaceans with elongated bodies that swim by paddling their swimmerets. Their escape response is a rapid series of tail flicks that drives them backward, and under a broad definition the word overlaps with prawn.

Crabs are armoured decapods that walk sideways, and the crab shape evolved independently in several lineages. They make up about 20 percent of all marine crustaceans harvested or farmed worldwide.

Lobsters belong to the family Nephropidae and have claws on the first three pairs of legs, with the first pair much larger. The commercial species include two northern Atlantic Homarus species and the smaller Nephrops norvegicus, known as langoustine or Norway lobster.

Oyster is a common name for several families of salt water bivalves, and some species are eaten as a delicacy. Other oysters are harvested for pearls or, like the windowpane oyster, for their shells.

Mussels are mostly marine bivalves of the family Mytilidae with elongated, asymmetrical shells, attached to firm surfaces by byssal threads called a beard. The same name covers unrelated freshwater pearl mussels and zebra mussels.

Clams are bivalves that live half buried in sand and burrow with a powerful foot, unlike oysters and mussels, which attach to surfaces. Edible forms include palourde clams and elongated razor clams, and at least one specimen has been found to be over 500 years old.

Squid closes the path as a mollusc eaten in many cuisines, often sold as calamari. It is fried in Mediterranean cooking, eaten raw in Korean and Japanese cuisine, and sold dried and shredded as a snack in parts of East Asia.