97 Fun Facts About Seafood

Lobsters have blue blood because their blood carries oxygen using a compound built around which metal?

Copper: lobster blood carries oxygen with hemocyanin, a copper-based molecule that turns blue when oxygenated; vertebrates use iron-based hemoglobin, which is why our blood is red.

The heaviest lobster ever caught, just over 20 kg per Guinness, came from the waters of which Canadian province?

Nova Scotia: Guinness lists a lobster of just over 20 kg, about 44 lb, caught off Nova Scotia in 1977 as the heaviest on record; lobsters keep growing throughout their lives, so the oldest become giants.

A cooked lobster turns orange as heat frees astaxanthin, a pigment that also colours which bird's feathers?

Flamingo: flamingos turn pink from astaxanthin and related pigments in the algae and shrimp they eat; in a live lobster a protein binds the pigment and masks it blue-black until heat breaks the bond.

In colonial New England, lobster was regarded as food for whom?

Servants and the poor: lobster was so plentiful on colonial New England's shores that it ranked as poverty food, fed to servants and prisoners; the tale of contracts limiting servants to two lobster meals a week has no evidence behind it.

Maine made it famous, but the first lobster roll is credited to a restaurant in which state?

Connecticut: Perry's in Milford is credited with the first lobster roll in the 1920s, served hot with butter; the cold roll dressed with mayonnaise is the Maine style.

Under ideal laboratory conditions a single oyster can filter roughly how much water in a day?

190 litres: about 50 US gallons a day at best; Chesapeake Bay's oysters could once filter the whole bay within about a week, a job that would take today's depleted reefs around a year.

The nucleus placed in an oyster to start a cultured pearl is usually a polished piece of what?

Mussel shell: the bead nucleus is cut and polished from thick freshwater mussel shell, mostly from American rivers, which the oyster then coats in layers of nacre over the following years.

Which tetrodotoxin-laden fish may only be prepared in Japanese restaurants by specially licensed chefs?

Pufferfish: fugu's poison has no known antidote, so Japan lets only licensed chefs prepare it, after at least two years of apprenticeship and a practical exam.

Serving which prized part of the fugu was banned in Japanese restaurants in 1984?

The liver: widely held to be the tastiest part and among the most poisonous, it was banned nationally in 1984; kabuki star Bandō Mitsugorō VIII had died in 1975 after eating four servings, claiming he could survive the poison.

Hanaya Yohei is credited with inventing nigiri sushi around 1824 in which city?

Edo: nigiri began as the fast food of Edo, today's Tokyo, eaten at street stalls by busy townspeople long before sushi became fine dining.

In 1958 Yoshiaki Shiraishi opened the first sushi restaurant with what?

Conveyor belts: Shiraishi got the idea from watching beer bottles ride the line at an Asahi brewery, then spent years building his own; the format boomed after his chain served at the 1970 Osaka Expo.

Traditionally, the word caviar refers only to the roe of which fish?

Sturgeon: under US rules only salted sturgeon eggs may be sold simply as 'caviar', while other eggs must name their fish; yet American bars once gave caviar away free, because its salt made drinkers thirsty.

Almas, a famously costly caviar from rare albino fish up to a century old, is named for which gem?

Diamond: almas is Persian for diamond; the paler the eggs, the older the fish and the higher the price, and these come from albino beluga said to be 60 to 100 years old.

Joseph Malin is usually credited with opening Britain's first fish and chip shop around 1860 in which city?

London: Malin, a Jewish immigrant, paired fried fish with chips in the East End around 1860; Lancashire disputes it, crediting John Lees, who sold the pair from a wooden hut in Mossley around 1863.

During the Second World War, fish and chips held what special status in Britain?

It was never rationed: the wartime government kept fish and chips off the ration book to protect morale, though queues and shortages were common; Churchill called the pair 'the good companions'.

Ceviche is recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of which country?

Peru: UNESCO listed Peruvian ceviche as Intangible Cultural Heritage in December 2023; the citrus juice firms the raw fish and turns it opaque, as if cooked, because its acid denatures the proteins.

Paella takes its name from the word for what in Catalan and Valencian?

Frying pan: paella is the Valencian and Catalan word for the wide, shallow pan the rice cooks in; the traditional paella valenciana holds no seafood, but rabbit, chicken and green beans.

Which style of clam chowder is made with a clear broth, using neither milk nor tomatoes?

Rhode Island: its chowder is a clear clam broth, with neither New England's milk nor Manhattan's tomatoes; the red Manhattan style is itself often credited to Rhode Island's immigrant fishing communities.

Imitation crab sticks are made from surimi, a paste most often based on which fish?

Alaska pollock: most surimi is made from Alaska (walleye) pollock, a cheap, mild white fish whose minced flesh is washed, shaped and coloured to mimic crab; Japan has made fish paste since kamaboko appeared in 1115.

The five-toothed chewing organ of a sea urchin is named after which ancient philosopher?

Aristotle: the urchin's jaw apparatus is called Aristotle's lantern after his description in Historia Animalium; the 'lantern' probably referred to the whole animal, which resembled the horn lamps of his day.

Bouillabaisse, the Provençal fish soup, originated in which port city?

Marseille: bouillabaisse began as a fishermen's stew of the bony rockfish they couldn't sell; in 1980 eleven of the city's restaurateurs signed a Bouillabaisse Charter fixing its ingredients and method.

Lutefisk, the Nordic Christmas dish, is dried whitefish that has been cured in what?

Straight out of the lye the fish has a pH of 11 to 12 and is inedible; days of soaking bring it back.

The fermented Nordic delicacy hákarl is made from the meat of which animal?

Greenland shark: hákarl is Greenland shark fermented underground for weeks, then hung to dry for months; fresh, its flesh is toxic from urea and trimethylamine oxide, and Anthony Bourdain called it the worst thing he had ever eaten.

Which pungent fermented fish sauce did ancient Romans add to dishes from boiled veal to pear soufflé?

Garum: Romans fermented the innards of fatty fish in brine for it, and the costliest grade, garum sociorum, was shipped from Cartagena and Cádiz; Seneca sneered at that 'expensive bloody mass of decayed fish'.

Which small fish is a key ingredient of both Worcestershire sauce and Caesar salad dressing?

Anchovy: Lea & Perrins lists anchovies in its Worcestershire sauce, and Caesar Cardini's own salad used no anchovy fillets, only a dash of that sauce; the fillets were a later addition.

Which sea snail has an ear-shaped shell with a row of holes and is called pāua in New Zealand?

Abalone: New Zealand's pāua has a blue-green iridescent shell lining, which Māori carvers inlay into the faces of their carved figures.

Which huge burrowing clam of the Pacific Northwest can live for well over a century?

Geoduck: pronounced 'gooey-duck', it is the largest burrowing clam and one of the longest-lived animals, often passing 100 years; adults have few natural predators, which may help explain it.

In 1983 which US state named the crawfish its official state crustacean?

Louisiana: it named the crawfish its state crustacean in 1983 and by 2018 held over 90% of US crawfish farms, yet most frozen crawfish sold in other states' supermarkets is imported from China.

The Soviet Union deliberately introduced the red king crab into which sea in the 1960s?

Barents Sea: Soviet scientists released Pacific red king crabs into the Barents Sea near Murmansk in the 1960s to create a fishery; the crab has since spread along the Norwegian coast as both prized catch and invasive pest.

In July 1992 Canada declared a moratorium on fishing which species off Newfoundland?

Northern cod: stocks had fallen to about 1% of historic levels when minister John Crosbie closed the fishery, putting tens of thousands out of work; the 'two-year' ban on commercial fishing lasted until 2024.

Which country is said to have more than 365 ways of cooking bacalhau, its beloved salt cod?

Portugal: the Portuguese claim a bacalhau recipe for every day of the year, yet the fish is no local catch: their fleets once crossed the Atlantic to the Grand Banks for it, and today it is imported from far northern waters.

Which country is the world's largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon?

Norway: the floating sea cage that made salmon farming possible was developed in Norway's sheltered fjords in the late 1960s, and the country remains the leading producer, ahead of Chile.

Which herb is the classic flavouring in the salt-and-sugar cure for gravlax?

Dill: gravlax means 'buried salmon', from the days when fishermen salted the fish and buried it in sand above the tide line to ferment; today it is simply cured under salt, sugar and dill.

What is the Japanese name for freshwater eel, grilled over charcoal with a sweet soy glaze?

Unagi: Japan traditionally eats grilled unagi on the Midsummer Day of the Ox, a centuries-old custom meant to build stamina against the heat; anago is its saltwater cousin, the conger eel.

Which British favourite is a herring split from tail to head, salted and cold-smoked?

A kipper: a herring cured harder still turned reddish and pungent, the original 'red herring'; its figurative sense probably comes from smoked herrings being used to lay scent trails for hounds.

Cioppino, the Dungeness crab seafood stew, was created by Italian immigrant fishermen in which city?

San Francisco: Italian fishermen of North Beach, many from Genoa, made cioppino from the day's catch; the name comes from Ligurian ciuppin, a fish stew, though a popular tale has fishermen asked to 'chip in'.

Which Birds Eye product reached Britain in the 1950s after its planned herring version lost a trial to a blander fish?

Fish fingers: Birds Eye planned to sell 'herring savouries', but in its test markets the plain white-fish fingers included only as a control won easily, and a staff poll then picked the name.

Shrimp and grits, a Lowcountry signature, was historically eaten at what time of day during shrimp season?

Breakfast: it began as a plain home dish, made with small creek shrimp and eaten by some families every morning; restaurant chefs later dressed it up as a fine-dining dinner entrée.

Which two parts of a squid are considered inedible?

The beak and the pen: the hard beak and the clear, quill-like pen, a last trace of the outer shell that squid ancestors once wore, are thrown away; the mantle, arms, tentacles and even the ink are eaten.

Which Canadian province produces most of North America's cultured mussels?

Prince Edward Island: PEI's sheltered bays grow the blue mussels sold across the continent, by one count 80% of North America's farmed supply; the 'beard' you pull off is the byssus, threads the mussel uses to cling on.

Unlike most bivalves, scallops have a ring of many simple what around the edge of their mantle?

Eyes: a scallop's mantle edge carries up to 200 tiny eyes, each focusing light with a mirror of guanine crystals rather than a lens; scallops also swim, clapping their shells to jet away from starfish.

Which New Orleans sandwich, classically stuffed with fried shrimp or oysters, is said to date from a 1929 streetcar strike?

Po' boy: the story goes that the Martin brothers, former streetcar conductors, gave striking drivers free sandwiches on French bread, calling each arrival another 'poor boy'.

An old rule says to eat oysters only in months whose names contain which letter?

R: the rule skips May to August, when warm weather made unrefrigerated oysters far more likely to spoil; with modern refrigeration and oyster farming, they are now sold and eaten all year.

Mercury-tainted seafood poisoned thousands of people from the 1950s in which Japanese city?

Minamata: a Chisso chemical plant's wastewater put methylmercury into the bay's fish and shellfish; the illness became known as Minamata disease, and the 2013 global treaty on mercury carries the city's name.

Korea's hongeo-hoe, a delicacy notorious for its ammonia reek, is made by fermenting which fish?

Skate: as skate ferments, its flesh gives off ammonia, which preserves the meat and produces a smell likened to an outhouse; Korean fishermen found centuries ago that it was the one fish that kept without salt.

In Oceana's 2013 DNA study of US seafood, fish sold under which name was something else 87% of the time?

Snapper: only seven of the 120 fillets sold as red snapper were the real thing; across all 1,215 samples a third were mislabelled, which is why Oceana pressed for boat-to-plate tracing of seafood.

Pinnacle Point, whose caves hold the earliest known evidence of humans gathering shellfish, is in which country?

South Africa: people used the caves near Mossel Bay from about 170,000 years ago; a harsh climate and scarce food inland may be what first drove them to the shore to gather shellfish.

Which fish did wealthy Romans have brought to table alive, to watch its colours shift as it died?

Red mullet: it was carried to the diners in glass vessels so they could watch its red fade through a run of shades; Seneca wrote that a mullet was thought little of unless it died in a guest's hands.

What pokes through the pastry crust of Cornwall's stargazy pie?

Fish heads: the fish are baked whole with their heads through the pastry so that their oil drains back into the pie; Mousehole serves it on Tom Bawcock's Eve, for a fisherman said to have saved the village from famine.

Which Scottish soup of smoked fish, potato and onion is named after a town in Moray?

Cullen skink: the soup is named for Cullen, a fishing town on the Moray coast; 'skink' is a Scots word for a shin of beef that came to mean a soup, even one with no beef in it.

Arbroath smokies, EU-protected since 2004, are a hot-smoked form of which fish?

Haddock: an Arbroath smokie is a whole haddock, headed and gutted, dry-salted, tied in pairs and hot-smoked over hardwood; legend says the method began when a store in nearby Auchmithie burned, cooking barrels of salted fish.

The Filet-O-Fish beat which Ray Kroc creation in a 1962 Friday sales contest?

The Hula Burger: Kroc's meatless idea, grilled pineapple and cheese on a bun, lost 'hands down' to the fish sandwich that Cincinnati franchisee Lou Groen had devised because his Catholic customers gave up meat on Fridays.

Lobster Thermidor is named, via an 1891 play, after a month in which calendar?

French Republican: Thermidor was the summer 'month of heat' in the French Republican calendar; Victorien Sardou's 1891 play of that name was shut down after a near-riot at its second performance, and the dish is said to be named for it.

According to legend, Lobster Newberg was first demonstrated at which New York restaurant?

Delmonico's: the story has sea captain Ben Wenberg showing off the dish there in 1876, then quarrelling with Charles Delmonico, who scrambled 'Wenberg' into 'Newberg'; yet no surviving Delmonico's menu lists a Lobster Wenberg.

Which seafood seasoning did a German-Jewish refugee launch in Baltimore in 1939?

Old Bay: Gustav Brunn, freed from Buchenwald, fled to Baltimore and started a spice company; his crab seasoning was later renamed after the Old Bay Line, whose steamers ran to Norfolk.

Crab Rangoon, named after a Burmese city, was probably invented at which restaurant chain?

Trader Vic's: crab rangoon appears on a 1950s Trader Vic's menu and is credited to Victor Bergeron's tiki chain; its cream cheese filling is a mid-century American touch found in neither Chinese nor Burmese cooking.

A soft-shell crab is simply one that has just done what?

Shed its exoskeleton: a soft-shell crab has just moulted, shedding its old exoskeleton before the new one hardens; crabbers hold 'peelers' in tanks and pull them within hours of the moult, while the shell is paper-thin.

Stone crab fishers take what from the animal before returning it alive to the sea?

Its claws: fishers twist off one or both legal-size claws and return the stone crab to the sea, where the lost limbs can regrow over later moults; the bodies are small and rarely eaten.

Which misleadingly named delicacy is really a small fish, salted and dried in the sun?

Bombay duck: it is a lizardfish, the bummalo, dried until pungent; a European import rule shut it out in the 1990s until a 'Save Bombay Duck' campaign won a change in the regulations.

In Poland, gefilte fish was classically made from which freshwater fish?

Carp: Poles know the dish as 'Jewish-style carp'; Polish Jews sweetened theirs with sugar while Lithuanian Jews preferred pepper, a divide one linguist dubbed the 'Gefilte Fish Line'.

Katsuobushi, the smoky flakes scattered over okonomiyaki, are made from which fish?

Skipjack tuna: the fillets are simmered, smoked for up to a month, then mould-cured and sun-dried until they are as hard as wood and under a fifth of their original weight, ready to be shaved into flakes.

Which country won all three 'Cod Wars' against Britain, at one point threatening to quit NATO?

Iceland: its coast guard cut the nets of British trawlers, and in 1976 Britain accepted Iceland's 200-nautical-mile fishing zone, ending centuries of British fishing in those waters.

In the 1995 'Turbot War', Canadian patrol boats fired warning shots at, and seized, a trawler from which country?

Spain: Canada seized the Galician trawler Estai in international waters, accusing Europe's fleets of overfishing Greenland halibut, the 'turbot' of the name; fisheries minister Brian Tobin came out of it nicknamed 'Captain Canada'.

The Italian-American Feast of the Seven Fishes is traditionally eaten on which day of the year?

Christmas Eve: Italian Americans also call the feast La Vigilia, the vigil; Catholics could eat no meat on the eve of a feast day, so cooks laid on a long table of fish instead.

A whole Dutch Hollandse Nieuwe herring is traditionally eaten how?

Dangled by its tail: you lift the herring by the tail and lower it into your mouth, often with raw onion; the fish's own enzymes ripen it in brine, which is why Hollandse Nieuwe is so mild and soft.

Which Tokyo fish market, long the world's largest, closed in 2018 when its wholesalers moved to Toyosu?

Tsukiji: the market closed on 6 October 2018 and trading resumed days later at Toyosu, a move delayed two years after toxic substances were found in soil left by a former gas plant.

The wild fish behind classic beluga and osetra caviar swim chiefly in which sea?

Caspian Sea: overfishing, smuggling and pollution so reduced its stocks that in 2005 the United States banned imports of Caspian beluga caviar to protect the endangered fish.

The first Red Lobster opened in 1968 far from lobster country, in which southern state?

Florida: Bill Darden opened the first Red Lobster in Lakeland, Florida, in 1968; General Mills bought the five-restaurant chain in 1970 and took it national.

The Dungeness crab is named after a town and sandy spit in which US state?

Washington: George Vancouver named the spit in 1792 after Dungeness on the English Channel; the crab is nonetheless the state crustacean of Oregon, where schoolchildren lobbied for it in 2009.

Scampi, langoustine and Dublin Bay prawn are all names for which animal?

Norway lobster: Nephrops norvegicus, the Norway lobster, is the scampi of British menus, the langoustine of France and the Dublin Bay prawn of Ireland; in 1995 Symbion pandora, found on its mouthparts, founded a new phylum, Cycliophora.

Ackee and saltfish is the national dish of which Caribbean country?

Jamaica: the ackee fruit came from West Africa in the 1700s; unripe, it carries hypoglycin, the cause of 'Jamaican vomiting sickness', which is why shipments to the United States are restricted.

Moqueca, a fish stew often cooked in hand-made clay pans, comes from which country?

Brazil: Bahia's moqueca uses palm oil and coconut milk, while in Espírito Santo the clay pan matters so much that the craft of the potters who make it was registered as national heritage in 2002.

Fish tacos originated in which Mexican state?

Baja California: fish tacos are a Baja speciality; San Diego student Ralph Rubio tasted them at a stand in San Felipe on spring break and opened the first Rubio's in 1983, carrying them north of the border.

Takoyaki, the griddled batter balls of Osaka, are filled with which seafood?

Octopus: tako means octopus; Osaka street vendor Tomekichi Endo is credited with inventing takoyaki in 1935 by combining a local beef-filled batter snack with the octopus dumplings of nearby Akashi.

Which Italian delicacy is a salted, dried pouch of fish roe?

Bottarga: the whole roe pouch is salted and dried until it can be sliced thin; Greek makers still coat theirs in beeswax to preserve it.

Tobiko, the tiny crunchy orange roe on sushi rolls, is harvested from what?

Flying fish: tobiko is flying fish roe, naturally red-orange and often dyed black with squid ink; smaller capelin roe, masago, is frequently substituted for it because the two look and taste alike.

Which creature is sold dried across Asia as bêche-de-mer or trepang?

Sea cucumber: boiled and dried, it must be soaked for days before cooking in Chinese soups and stews; Makassan crews from Indonesia were sailing to northern Australia to gather trepang by the mid-1700s.

'Chubby' Woodman of Essex, Massachusetts, is credited with inventing what in 1916?

Fried clams: Woodman already had big vats of hot oil for making potato chips at his roadside stand, and is said to have dropped in clams dug from the nearby mud flats on 3 July 1916.

Which Boston restaurant, open since 1826, bills itself as America's oldest in continuous service?

Union Oyster House: among its regulars was Daniel Webster, who is said to have taken a tumbler of brandy and water with each half-dozen oysters and seldom stopped short of six plates.

Dublin's anthem 'Molly Malone' is also known by the name of which two shellfish?

Cockles and mussels: the refrain 'alive, alive-oh' gives the alternative title; Dublin's unofficial anthem was published as the work of a Scot, James Yorkston of Edinburgh, and its earliest known printing was in Boston in 1876.

Fishmongers famously hurl customers' orders across Pike Place Market in which city?

Seattle: the show took off in 1986, when the nearly bankrupt Pike Place Fish Market resolved to become 'world famous' and made thrown fish and games with customers part of the job.

Julia Child's 'culinary revelation' at La Couronne in Rouen centred on which fish dish?

Sole meunière: Julia Child called that first French meal at La Couronne, with oysters and fine wine, 'an opening up of the soul and spirit for me'; she went on to graduate from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris in 1951.

Kedgeree, the British smoked fish and rice plate, descends from which Indian dish?

Khichdi: kedgeree is thought to descend from khichdi, an Indian dish of rice and lentils usually made with no fish at all; the smoked fish is a British addition.

English recipes for Jansson's temptation call for anchovies, but the Swedish 'ansjovis' in it is really which pickled fish?

Sprats: Swedes have called sprats pickled in sugar, salt and spices 'ansjovis' since the mid-19th century, while true anchovies are sold there as 'sardeller', so translated recipes keep getting the fish wrong.

Which fortified wine is splashed into a bowl of Lowcountry she-crab soup as it is served?

Sherry: a little dry sherry goes in as the soup is plated; the 'she' is the female crab whose orange eggs traditionally enriched it, though some states now restrict the catching of egg-bearing crabs.

Frogmore stew, the one-pot shrimp boil, is named after a community in which state?

South Carolina: Frogmore is a community on St Helena Island near Beaufort; fish dealer Richard Gay coined the stew's name in the 1960s, and a Gourmet magazine cover in the 1980s carried it far beyond the Lowcountry.

Whitstable, famed for its native oysters since Roman times, is in which English county?

Kent: Whitstable sits on the north Kent coast; the Romans prized its oysters enough to ship them live to Rome, and by the 1850s the town was sending as many as 80 million a year to Billingsgate fish market.

Belon oysters take their name from a river estuary in which French region?

Brittany: Belons are European flat oysters from the Belon river estuary; their shells seal less tightly than other oysters', so they are commonly shipped with a rubber band to keep the liquor in.

Which crab's scientific name, Callinectes sapidus, means 'savory beautiful swimmer'?

Blue crab: Callinectes is Greek for 'beautiful swimmer' and sapidus Latin for 'savory'; paddle-shaped back legs make it a strong swimmer, and it is Maryland's largest commercial fishery.

Which is the only tuna that may be sold in the US as 'white meat tuna'?

Albacore: US rules reserve the 'white' label for albacore; American tuna canning began with an experimental 700-case pack of it in 1903, and demand grew so fast that three other tunas were being canned by the 1920s.

Percebes, harvested at great risk on Galician cliffs, are what kind of creature?

Goose barnacles: medieval Europeans, never seeing barnacle geese nest, decided the birds grew from these shellfish, hence the name; Galicia's percebeiros still risk their lives prising percebes from the rocks.

Which country's national fish is the hilsa, an oily relative of the herring?

Bangladesh: the hilsa, or ilish, is the national fish, and Bangladesh lands the largest share of the world's catch; it schools in coastal seas but swims up the region's rivers to spawn.

Chilli crab was first sold from Cher Yam Tian's riverside pushcart in 1956 in which city?

Singapore: Cher Yam Tian stir-fried the crabs her husband caught in tomato and chilli sauce and sold them beside the Kallang River; diners mop up the gravy with fried or steamed mantou buns.

Thailand's tom yum kung takes the 'kung' in its name from which ingredient?

Prawns: kung is Thai for prawns or shrimp, so tom yum kung is the prawn version of the hot-and-sour soup; Thais even call the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which began in Thailand, the 'Tom Yum Kung crisis'.

What is the traditional name for a large, mature sardine, especially one landed in Cornwall?

Pilchard: pilchard is the traditional name for a mature sardine, Sardina pilchardus; Cornwall's fishery once salted and pressed millions for export to Italy, and the rebranded 'Cornish sardine' won EU protected status.

Which spicy noodle soup grew out of the Peranakan kitchens of the Straits Chinese?

Laksa: Chinese traders who married into local communities formed the Peranakan culture; most laksas have a rich coconut curry broth, but the asam kind swaps it for a sour tamarind one.

Ciguatera poisoning from reef fish is known for which bizarre symptom?

Hot and cold feel reversed: in ciguatera, cold objects can feel burning hot; the toxin, made by the reef microbe Gambierdiscus, builds up in barracuda, grouper and moray eel, and cooking does not destroy it.