Selling tilapia instead of grouper, that is. Recently sitting at a dockside restaurant eating dolphin sandwiches with a bunch of fish-socioeconomics-types I heard how some Tampa-St. Pete area restaurants were serving non-grouper as grouper and at grouper prices. I was shocked and outraged that a business firm would do something like that! I've also heard that your scallops might be shark, etc. Bottom line: if your fish fried it might be the mystery meat.
The NYTimes covers the story yesterday (That grouper on the menu ...). I find much of the story incredible (these are numbered comments below, as usual, some are half-serious, the other comments are half-not-serious).
On the weathered deck of Dockside Dave’s, a table of tourists waits for the sandwich that has long been as much a part of the beach experience here as the sunshine. Then it arrives, a half pound of fried filet of grouper, fresh from the dock, topped with lettuce, a slice of fresh tomato and splayed on an open bun.
As the waitress places the sandwich on the wooden picnic table, an onlooker asks, “Is it real grouper?”
Kenny Gamble, Dockside Dave’s manager and chef, has often heard the question since a Florida attorney general’s investigation revealed this year that 17 of 24 other restaurants in and around Tampa Bay were passing off cheaper imported fish — tilapia, bream, hake, sutchi, emperor, green weakfish, painted sweetlips — as grouper.
#1. Fish names are great fun, but "painted sweetlips"? That one must be fake.
The revelation hit hard here in Madeira Beach, the self-described “grouper capital of the world” because it produces more grouper than anyplace else in the United States. Grouper fishermen are already hard-pressed by fishing restrictions, higher fuel costs and the development taking over the waterfront.
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Waitresses down the road at Woody’s Waterfront in St. Pete Beach would clean a grouper at the water’s edge and ceremoniously ring a bell as they toted the filet back to the kitchen. Commercial fishermen could venture into the Gulf of Mexico and in a week catch 5,000 pounds of grouper, sell it on the docks, then go to the tavern for a night of raucous celebration.
#2. Waitresses would clean the fish? Then wash their hands and continue to wait tables? If you have ever cleaned a fish then you will doubt that.
#3. Commercial fishermen drinking alcoholic beverages? At a tavern? Bogus.
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The party started winding down in the mid-1980s when federal studies showed that grouper were being overfished. Along with the state, the National Marine Fisheries Service started significantly limiting how much fishermen could catch. The price of the local fish started jumping, and the bell at Woody’s Waterfront stopped ringing.
The owner of Woody’s, Marlene George, eventually found a substitute for the signature fish that was served on her “famous grouper sandwich.” She said her supplier told her “it was a different type of grouper imported from Thailand.” She started buying the frozen filets for about half the price of local grouper. “It was not as tasty, but it was a great product,” Ms. George said.
#4. Down below Ms. George claims to be an innocent victim. Now, think about it. You go from serving fresh red grouper to frozen "grouper" from Thailand at half the price and you are still charging fresh grouper prices to customers? ... Innocent? ... Victim? If I was the prosecuting attorney with Ms. George on the witness stand, I'd wheel around to the jury and proclaim "The victim is YOU, the seafood customer!" That would be very effective, I think, at least on television.
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Two years ago, fishing for red grouper, the most common commercially caught species, was prohibited for two months because fishermen reached their annual quota early. The ban shut down docks, put fishermen out of work and left many other restaurant owners scrambling for the fish they were famous for.
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When some restaurant owners saw their competitors still serving what they advertised as grouper, they grew suspicious.
#5. Ah, the implicit fake grouper restaurant cartel didn't include all of the restaurants. Didn't the cheaters have some idea that they would get turned in by the others?
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Last fall, The St. Petersburg Times, Gov. Charlie Crist’s hometown newspaper, got suspicious too. It tried the advertised grouper at 11 local restaurants and found that only 6 were really serving it. The exposé lead the state to do its own sting.
That was when Ms. George said she found she had been a victim of the “switcheroo.” A state-conducted DNA test determined the fish she was serving as grouper was actually emperor, a West Pacific fish that is not a species of grouper.
#6. That tricky importer-exporter wasn't telling the truth. Still another cost of globalization.
She agreed to pay $2,500, which included the cost of the investigation and a $500 fine, and removed grouper from her menu, saying she could not afford to sell the local catch. “At $11 to $12 a pound,” she said, “I’ve got to get $18 or $19 out of a dinner, which I can’t do in my little place.”
Places like the Friendly Fisherman and Dockside Dave’s, which rely on their reputations for serving fresh grouper, cannot afford not to pay the price. Mrs. McDole of the Friendly Fisherman said that for the first time she was advertising grouper at market price, instead of a fixed one. Dockside Dave’s now sells its grouper sandwich for $10.95, compared with $8.45 a year ago.
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#7. Weird thing about "market price" on the menu, if you have to ask then you can't afford it. My rational decision maker model somehow doesn't account for the fact that I'm too embarrassed to ask and will purchase something without knowing the price. But, I do know that it is probably the most expensive thing on the menu so I do have a price threshold with which to make my decision.
