Some of what's served in the bay area - known for its prolific grouper catch - actually comes in a box from, say, New Zealand.
By AMY WIMMER
Published August 6, 2003
[Times photo: Lance A. Rothstein]
The options: At top, fresh red grouper from the Gulf of Mexico; fresh black grouper from the gulf; fresh fillet of grouper flown in from Brazil and Mexico; and frozen fillet of grouper shipped in boxes from Vietnam and Thailand. The bottom one can be several months old.
From her table at a waterfront restaurant in St. Pete Beach, Pat Tinsley of Tampa could see the gulf, teaming with fresh fish. But on her plate was a grouper fillet that looked like a slab of turkey and tasted like a mouse pad.
She put down her fork and beckoned the manager.
"It must be grouper," the manager told her, "'cause that is what it said on the box."
Grouper from a box, not a boat?
Tampa Bay's commercial grouper fishermen are Florida's most prolific, bringing to shore about half of the 12-million pounds caught each year by the state's anglers. But the grouper found in local restaurants and grocery stores often arrives from as far away as Mexico and New Zealand.
Conversely, millions of pounds of Florida grouper are shipped north each year to markets such as New York and Chicago, where buyers will pay higher prices.
To grouper aficionados who think they're supporting local fishermen when they slather tartar sauce on blackened fillets, imported or frozen grouper might sound blasphemous. Think San Francisco sourdough baked in Bulgaria, or a Philadelphia cheesesteak assembled in Thailand.
But for scores of Tampa Bay area restaurants trying to meet customer demand, grouper filleted in Indonesia, then boxed and flown to Miami, is a cheaper and reasonable alternative.
Those who sell imported grouper make no apologies.
"The state-of-the-art frozen food is so good now it's just perfectly acceptable," said Michael Birnbaum, vice president for marketing at Sysco Food Services, which distributes fresh and frozen foods. "And no one should be embarrassed to serve a frozen product."
Tell that to the dozens of area restaurateurs who declined comment and hurried off the phone when a St. Petersburg Times reporter mentioned frozen fish.
Marlene George, co-owner of Woody's Waterfront Cafe and Beach Bar in St. Pete Beach, where Tinsley claimed to have eaten bad grouper, says the customer was only looking for a free meal. What George won't say is where the grouper comes from.
Steve Burgess, vice president of operations at Gold Coast Restaurants of Tampa, which operates the Johnny Leverock's Seafood House chain, said through an assistant that the chain occasionally turns to frozen fish for appetizers but otherwise serves fresh fish. He declined to speak directly to a reporter.
Rare were the restaurants that would defend their frozen grouper. Among them was the Sloppy Pelican Saloon in St. Pete Beach, where manager John Baines said the restaurant relies on frozen grouper to avoid wasting fish.
Shells Seafood Restaurants, the Tampa-based seafood chain, uses fresh grouper in dinners and frozen for sandwiches.
"The main reason for that is the fresh grouper prices, and the availability, fluctuate a lot," said Rick Van Warner, a Shells spokesman, pointing out that the sandwich might cost $14 or $15 if the grouper was fresh. "Doing it this way gives us the consistency of a good, high-quality sandwich, with a good value."
It takes no coaxing for the fresh-grouper restaurants to talk about their prized menu item.
Rick Falkenstein, whose family owns the Hurricane Seafood Restaurant in Pass-a-Grille, says employees inspect the groupers' eyes and gills to make sure the fish is suitable.
Renee Holt, owner of Grouper's Seafood Grill & Market in St. Pete Beach, says she has to serve fresh grouper to live up to her restaurant's name.
"I've been working the beach for years, and I've seen it all," said Steven Green, chef at the Conch Republic in North Redington Beach, which Green says serves fresh fish.
Green has been a chef at various Pinellas restaurants for 15 years.
"I see them serving frozen, I see them serving grouper that's not even grouper," he said. "You're either going one way or another: You're going for total quality, or you're going for a lower-priced product."
The grouper import business has ballooned into a $15-million-a-year industry, buoyed by U.S. restrictions on commercial fishing, improvements in frozen food and Americans' insatiable taste for the mild, meaty fish.
Nearly all of the 8-million pounds of grouper imported to the United States last year arrived at ports in Miami and Tampa, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The imported grouper helps meet the demand of Floridians, who eat twice as much seafood each year as the average American, says Chuck Adams, a professor in the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida.
Mark Twinam, a former commercial fisherman who runs T.W. Wholesale in Madeira Beach, was making deliveries recently when he saw a box of grouper marked "Pakistan" in the freezer of a local business. "I didn't even know Pakistan was on a sea," Twinam said.
Pakistan, located on the Arabian Sea, shipped 4,567 pounds of grouper to the United States last year, according to the fisheries service. It was one of 33 countries that exported grouper here.
The consequences of all this imported grouper are hotly debated, probably because the stakes are so high, leaving the fishing industry divided on several fronts.
Domestically, commercial and recreational fishermen are at odds over rules that apply to one group but not the other. Seafood wholesalers that deal exclusively in domestic seafood deride the quality of imported products. Big-name distributors such as Sysco tout the progress of frozen-food technology, while traditionalists say there's nothing like grouper from home.
"I live and work in a place that is less than 400 yards from the ocean," said Dave Keenan, who manages the Red Lion Restaurant & Pub in Indian Rocks Beach. "I just find it kind of hard to justify frozen grouper when it's so abundant here."
That doesn't mean he finds fault with frozen.
"Your general public doesn't know the difference," he said, "especially your tourists."
No government agency collects numbers on how much grouper leaves Florida. But Madeira Beach Seafood - the biggest fresh grouper packing house in Florida's top grouper-producing county - ships 80 percent of its catch to markets such as Canada, New York, Chicago and California.
"There are better prices out of state," said Bob Spaeth, president of Madeira Beach Seafood, which takes in 2-million pounds of gulf grouper each year. "The fish are more valuable, and there's greater demand out there."
In a study of the grouper industry published in June in Marine Fisheries Review, Eckerd College economics professor Linda E. Lucas wrote that "grouper has a clear cultural value to the west coast of Florida."
Tinsley said she was celebrating that culture when she and her five friends went to Woody's this summer for grouper.
"Any restaurant that we go in around here, and I see it on the menu, I just assume it's fresh," Tinsley said. "Wouldn't you?"
The fish arrived, she said, appearing freezer burned.
The three elderly couples complained, then complained more loudly. Eventually, the owners called the St. Pete Beach police, who escorted the dinner guests off the property and ordered them not to return.
Seldom does the fresh-vs.-frozen debate reach such levels.
But Lucas' study estimates that further restrictions under consideration by the federal government could decrease the annual domestic catch by as much as 22 percent, making the local delicacy even scarcer.
"Frozen, top-quality fish is here to stay, and fresh fish is here to stay, too," said Steve Otwell, a professor in the Aquatic Food Products Lab at the University of Florida. "But good-quality fresh fish is getting more difficult to come by."
If it tastes fishy . . .
Frozen seafood dealers argue that improved technology and faster transport times for imports make frozen grouper more palatable than ever. But if fresh and local matters to you, here are some tips for sniffing out frozen grouper:
- Check out the price. "When you see all-you-can-eat grouper for $6.99," said Mark Twinam, a former commercial fisherman who now runs T.W. Wholesale, "that's an indication that it's not fresh grouper." Fresh grouper generally costs about $2 more per pound than frozen, and restaurants pass that expense on to customers.
- If the frozen grouper is low quality or has not been stored properly, it might be drier or flatter than fresh. It could also be spongy or hard around the edges. "It will be flavorless and not as flaky and moist as fresh grouper would be," said Kevin Matheny, co-owner of Dockside Dave's in Madeira Beach, known for its fresh grouper.
- Sometimes fresh fish is placed in the freezer after a couple days to extend its shelf life. "A fresh piece of grouper doesn't taste fishy," said Bob Spaeth, executive director of the Southern Offshore Fishing Association and president of Madeira Beach Seafood packing house. "If it tastes fishy, it isn't fresh."
- Restaurants that specialize in seafood and grouper are most likely to offer the fresh and local variety. Some places keep the frozen fillets on hand for convenience but don't sell enough grouper to justify buying fresh.
- Even fresh-fish fanatics say frozen can suffice. "If you eat it and it tastes good, even if it's not fresh grouper, you had dinner," Twinam said.
