100 Fun Facts About Seafood

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

Vertebrates use iron-rich hemoglobin instead, 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?

Lobsters keep growing throughout their lives, adding new muscle cells at every moult.

A cooked lobster turns orange because heat breaks down a protein that had been masking which pigment?

The same pigment is what farmed salmon are fed to give their flesh its pink colour.

In colonial New England lobster was so abundant it was thought of as food for whom?

The oft-repeated claim that laws banned serving it to servants more than twice a week has no evidence behind it.

The lobster roll is commonly credited to a restaurant called Perry's in which Connecticut town?

The Connecticut style is served warm with butter; the Maine version most people picture is cold with mayonnaise.

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

Chesapeake Bay's historic oyster reefs once filtered the entire volume of the estuary every three or four days.

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

It then takes three to seven years for the oyster to coat the nucleus in enough nacre to make a perfect pearl.

Oysters Rockefeller was invented in 1889 at Antoine's because it ran short of what?

It was named after John D. Rockefeller, then the richest American, because the sauce was so rich.

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

Only chefs who have qualified after three or more years of rigorous training are allowed to prepare it.

Serving which part of the fugu, its tastiest and most poisonous, was banned in Japanese restaurants in 1984?

The Kabuki star Bandō Mitsugorō VIII died in 1975 after eating four servings of it, insisting he was immune.

In which Japanese city, then under its old name, did Hanaya Yohei invent nigiri sushi around 1824?

It was the fast food of Edo's townspeople, sold from street stalls long before it became fine dining.

The first conveyor belt sushi restaurant, Genroku Zushi, opened in what year?

The idea went national after Genroku won an award at the Osaka World Expo in 1970.

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

The world's largest caviar company today is Chinese, farming sturgeon in a lake in Zhejiang.

Iran's 'Almas' caviar comes from the eggs of a rare albino fish aged between how many years?

Russia banned the harvest and sale of black caviar in 2007 after wild stocks collapsed from over-fishing.

Which immigrant opened the first recorded fish and chip shop in Bow, East London, around 1860?

When Malin's closed in the 1970s its recipe and fryer design were sold to the US chain Arthur Treacher's, where a few Ohio outlets still use them.

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

Winston Churchill called the pairing 'the good companions'.

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

The word first appears in writing in an 1820 patriotic song called 'La Chicha', considered Peru's first national anthem.

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

Valencians insist the only 'true' paella contains rabbit, chicken, duck and snails; the seafood version is paella de marisco.

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

The tomato-based Manhattan style is often traced to Rhode Island's Portuguese fishing communities rather than to New York.

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

Japan has been making surimi since 1115, originally for the steamed fish cake kamaboko.

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

The 'lantern' likely referred to the whole animal, which looks like the horn lamps of his day; the edible part sold as uni is the gonads.

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

In 1980 eleven Marseille restaurateurs signed a Bouillabaisse Charter fixing the ingredients and method, and it must include rascasse.

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.

Swedish shops release each year's surströmming on the third Thursday of which month?

The old royal decree no longer applies but retailers keep the 'premiere' date and often sell out within minutes.

Iceland's fermented national dish hákarl is made from the meat of which animal?

The fresh meat is poisonous because of its urea content; Anthony Bourdain called the cured version the worst thing he had ever eaten.

According to amphora inscriptions, the Roman fish sauce garum was most often made from which fish?

Pliny the Elder bluntly described garum as 'the liquor from putrefaction', yet it appears throughout the Roman cookbook Apicius.

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

The Peruvian anchovy fishery is one of the largest in the world, though most of the catch becomes fishmeal rather than dinner.

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

The iridescent inner shell is a major source of decorative mother-of-pearl.

The geoduck, the world's largest burrowing clam, has a typical lifespan of about how many years?

Its name comes from the Lushootseed word gʷidəq; in Chinese it is literally the 'elephant-trunk clam'.

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

The state produces about 100 million pounds of them a year, mostly red swamp and white river crayfish.

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

The species can reach a leg span of 1.8 metres and is named for the colour it turns when cooked, not its living burgundy shade.

On 2 July 1992 Canada declared a moratorium on fishing which species off Newfoundland?

The Massachusetts House of Representatives still hangs a wooden carving known as the Sacred Cod in its chamber.

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

It is the traditional Christmas Eve dinner in parts of the country, which has the highest per-capita fish consumption in the EU.

Which country accounts for more than half of the world's salmon production?

Producers grade the pink of the flesh against the 'Roche Colour Card', aiming for a value of 16.

Gravlax takes its name from an old Scandinavian word meaning what, describing how the salmon was cured?

Today the fish is 'buried' only in a dry marinade of salt, sugar and dill for anything from twelve hours to a few days.

Which country consumes more than 70 percent of the world's eel catch?

In London, by contrast, jellied eels were once a staple of the poor, and the oldest surviving eel, pie and mash shop, M. Manze, has traded since 1902.

A kipper is a split, salted, cold-smoked herring; what is a herring cold-smoked whole called?

The word kipper is thought to come from the Old English cypera, meaning copper, after the fish's colour.

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

Legend says a fisherman who came back empty-handed would carry a pot round the wharf for the others to 'chip in'.

In 1950s Britain, Birds Eye shoppers unexpectedly preferred fish fingers made of which fish over herring?

The herring version had been marketed as 'herring savouries', a name that did not survive the test.

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

In the Lowcountry it was long known simply as 'breakfast shrimps'.

Which are the only two parts of a squid that are not eaten?

The ink is not wasted either; in Spain squid stewed in its own ink is calamares en su tinta.

Which Canadian province produces about 80% of North America's cultured mussels?

The 'beard' you pull off before cooking is the byssus, the threads a mussel uses to cling to rock.

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

They can also swim, jetting away from starfish by clapping their shells together.

By 2016, which country had become the world's largest exporter of shrimp?

Shrimp trawling accounts for only about 2% of the world's catch by weight but over a third of all bycatch.

How many oysters a day did the lover Casanova reputedly eat?

Shellfish are especially rich in zinc, which is essential for healthy skin, muscles and fertility.

The first widespread mercury poisoning via seafood happened in the 1950s in which Japanese town?

Methylmercury in a chemical plant's wastewater built up in fish eaten by locals; severe mercury poisoning is still named after the town.

Which country tops the world in seafood consumption, at about 78.5 kg per person a year?

Norway (66.6 kg) and Portugal (61.5 kg) follow; the global average has more than doubled since 1960 to over 20 kg.

A 2013 Oceana study found roughly what share of US seafood samples were mislabelled?

Snapper and tuna were the most frequently swapped, and species substitution was the commonest type of fraud.

Pinnacle Point, a sea cave with evidence of humans harvesting marine life 165,000 years ago, is in which country?

Neanderthals appear to have been eating seafood along the Mediterranean coast at about the same time.

Which fish did Romans prize as the height of luxury because its scales turned bright red as it died?

The fish were sometimes allowed to die slowly at the table, even in a sauce of garum, until the fashion ended abruptly in the early Imperial era.

Stargazy pie, with fish heads poking through its crust, comes from which Cornish village?

It is eaten on Tom Bawcock's Eve, 23 December, to honour a fisherman who braved a storm and saved the village from starvation.

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

Skink is a Scots word for a shin of beef that came to mean soup; the town hosts a world championship with a 30-minute time limit.

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

Legend says the recipe began by accident when a store in nearby Auchmithie burned down, cooking barrels of salted fish.

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

Kroc's entry was a slice of grilled pineapple with cheese on a cold bun; franchisee Lou Groen's fish sandwich won a permanent menu spot.

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

Victorien Sardou's play was so controversial the authorities shut it down, which only added to the name's notoriety.

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

The story goes that a falling-out with sea captain Ben Wenberg led the restaurant to scramble his name into 'Newberg'.

Old Bay Seasoning takes its name from what?

Its creator, Gustav Brunn, fled Nazi Germany with little more than a spice grinder and started the Baltimore Spice Company in 1939.

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

Its cream cheese filling gives the game away: the ingredient is a 1950s American staple found in neither Chinese nor Burmese cooking.

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

The window is tiny: crabbers keep them in climate-controlled tanks and pull them the moment they molt, before the new armour hardens.

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

The limb regrows, and the harvest is legal only from 15 October to 15 May; the small bodies are rarely eaten at all.

Bombay duck, a dried Indian delicacy, is actually what kind of animal?

The nickname was in print by 1815; an EU import ban in the 1990s prompted a 'Save Bombay Duck' campaign that won it an exemption.

The 'gefilte' in gefilte fish is Yiddish for what?

The forcemeat was once packed back inside the intact fish skin; a 1350 German cookbook already describes stuffed pike this way.

Katsuobushi, the Japanese flakes that dance on hot okonomiyaki, are made from which fish?

The fillets are smoked, then deliberately cultured with mold and sun-dried until they are as hard as wood and less than a fifth of their weight.

The 1976 deal ending the Cod Wars gave Iceland a fishery zone of how many nautical miles?

Iceland won all three confrontations, partly by threatening to quit NATO and take a vital Cold War submarine chokepoint with it.

Canada's 1995 'Turbot War' with Spain was fought over a fish better known as what?

Canadian officers fired machine-gun bursts over the bow of the trawler Estai before boarding it 220 nautical miles offshore.

The Italian-American Feast of the Seven Fishes is also known by which Italian name?

Some families serve thirteen dishes rather than seven, a custom well documented in Calabria.

In Hawaiian, the word poke literally means what?

Food historian Rachel Laudan dates the dish's present form only to the 1970s, when it evolved from Japanese-Hawaiian sashimi salads.

A whole Dutch Hollandse Nieuwe herring is traditionally eaten how?

The fish are caught between late May and early July, before spawning, and the Dutch name carries EU traditional-speciality protection.

Tokyo's Tsukiji wholesale fish market closed in 2018 and moved to which site?

The move was first scheduled for 2016 ahead of the Olympics but was postponed; only Tsukiji's outer market of shops remains.

The beluga, source of the priciest caviar, holds which record?

The largest accepted specimen, taken in the Volga estuary in 1827, weighed 1,571 kg and measured 7.2 metres.

The first Red Lobster opened in 1968 in which US state?

Its garlic cheese biscuits arrived in 1991 and were only christened Cheddar Bay Biscuits five years later.

The Dungeness crab became which state's official crustacean in 2009 after pupils lobbied?

Schoolchildren at Sunset Primary School in West Linn led the campaign; California followed suit in 2024.

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

In 1995 a tiny creature found on its mouthparts, Symbion pandora, turned out to be the first member of an entirely new phylum.

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

The ackee fruit is toxic before it ripens and splits open, so the United States restricts its import.

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

The Bahian version insists on dendê palm oil and coconut milk; the Espírito Santo version uses lighter oils and no palm oil at all.

Fish tacos originated in which Mexican state?

North of the border they were popularised by the Rubio's chain and remain most popular in California, Colorado and Washington.

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

Street vendor Tomekichi Endo is credited with inventing them in 1935, and his shop Aizuya still serves them without sauce or mayonnaise.

Bottarga, the cured roe pouch grated over pasta in Italy, comes chiefly from which fish?

It was traditionally sealed in beeswax to keep, as it still is in Greece and Egypt; Sicily makes a version from bluefin tuna.

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

It is often coloured naturally: squid ink makes it black, yuzu pale yellow and wasabi green and spicy.

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

The dried form accounts for about 95% of the trade, and it must be rehydrated by boiling and soaking for days before cooking.

Deep-fried breaded clams are credited to 'Chubby' Woodman of which Massachusetts town?

He is said to have fried the first batch on 3 July 1916 using clams he dug himself from the mud flats near his roadside stand.

Which Boston restaurant, open since 1826, is the oldest continuously operating in the US?

Daniel Webster was a regular who reputedly put away at least six plates of its bivalves at a sitting.

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

Her statue, unveiled on Grafton Street in 1988, was quickly nicknamed 'The Tart with the Cart' by locals.

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

The throwing began as a gimmick to rescue a business near bankruptcy in 1986; a sign now warns 'Caution: Low Flying Fish'.

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

She called that 1948 lunch 'an opening up of the soul and spirit for me', and enrolled at the Cordon Bleu soon after.

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

The original is a rice-and-lentil dish with no fish at all; by the late 19th century the British version was nursery food in wealthy homes.

Sweden's Jansson's temptation layers potato, onion and cream with which pickled fish?

English recipes often get it wrong because Swedes have called spiced pickled sprats 'ansjovis' since the mid-19th century.

She-crab soup, the Charleston speciality, traditionally gets its orange tint from what?

It takes its name from the gravid female crabs that supply it; a splash of dry sherry goes in only as the bowl is served.

Frogmore stew, the Lowcountry shrimp boil, is named after a community in which state?

Richard Gay of the Gay Fish Company coined the name in the 1960s; the Beaufort Water Festival version uses 1,200 pounds of shrimp.

Whitstable, shipping oysters to Rome two thousand years ago, is in which English county?

At their 1850s peak the town's companies sent as many as 80 million oysters a year to Billingsgate market.

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

They are European flat oysters, a species whose weak seal means they are often sold with a rubber band holding the shell shut.

The blue crab's species name, Callinectes sapidus, ends in the Latin for what?

It is Maryland's largest commercial fishery, and University of Maryland scientists finished sequencing its genome in 2021 after six years of work.

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

An experimental pack of 700 cases in 1903 launched the entire American tuna-canning industry.

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

The name comes from medieval Latin words for thumb and foot; they are boiled briefly in brine and served hot under a napkin.

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

About 97% of the world's supply comes from its rivers, and the fish alone accounts for more than 1% of the national GDP.

Singapore's chilli crab is usually served with which buns for mopping up the sauce?

The dish traces to a 1956 pushcart run by Cher Yam Tian and her husband, who stir-fried crabs in bottled chilli and tomato sauce.

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

Before mass tourism, the freshwater-fish version was the most common form across Thailand's rivers and canals.

The word sardine is said, rather dubiously, to come from which Mediterranean island?

Regional usage is loose: the UK's Sea Fish Industry Authority simply classes sardines as young pilchards.

Laksa, the spicy coconut noodle soup of Southeast Asia, originated in which cuisine?

The name is borrowed from a Persian word meaning 'slippery', once used for noodles.

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

The toxin is made by a tiny organism living on coral and concentrates up the food chain into barracuda, grouper and moray eel.