I understand there will be a shortage of Cod in the near future.?

Question

If that were so, which fish would your prefer, fried with your chips?

Answer 1

Prefer Haddock, but Coley or Pollock is very similar to Cod anyhow and once you've got vinegar,tomato sauce or curry sauce over it, does it matter? My mouth is watering now!

Answer 2

Fried haddock. . .oh wait they're threatened.
Fried sea bass. . .oh wait they're threatened too.
Damn!

Threatened fish species to avoid eating
http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/fisheat.html

Regional sustainable seafood guides for Americans:
http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_regional.aspx
Printable pocket guide
http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_howto.asp

Fish populations and solutions is a topic which fascinates me (maybe it's partly guilt because I love eating fish), so I wanted to clarify some earlier statements.

1. Fish farming has issues with it as well including pollution created by the waste and requires more than double the weight of fish is required to raise farmed fish.
(There is some interesting aquaculture being developed with large floating off-coast cages.)

2. Steve M is wrong! "There will only be a shortage of cod in the UK. There is no shortage in other parts of the world." Atlantic cod is also endangered, along with many other species. There are no barriers or political divisions in the ocean.

"First of all the Atlantic was fished dry, now the North Sea is empty"

". . .the North Sea has been closed. For twelve weeks, from February to April, all fishing boats. . .were banned from huge stretches of the sea, from the coast of East Anglia to France, around the coast of Norway, and off the west coast of Scotland.

The plan is to give cod a chance to spawn in peace. The hope is that the North Sea can avert the catastrophe of the Grand Banks cod fisheries off the Atlantic coast of Canada. These waters were so rich that the Europeans who first discovered them were startled by their teeming abundance. When they needed to eat, the fifteenth-century Italian explorer John Cabot and his men didn't use nets, but simply lowered buckets into the sea and raised them full of cod. . .So abundant were the catches that in 1873, the French writer Alexandre Dumas predicted that if they multiplied any more, it would be possible to walk across the Atlantic dryshod on the backs of cod. For more than a century they carried on fishing this most bountiful sea. Until one day in 1991, the boats just started coming back empty: the very last cod had gone. All cod fishing was immediately suspended, hoping that after a year or so the cod would come back. Ten years later there's still no sign of them."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,,488334,00.html

Answer 3

I rekon Haddock is bt far the better flavour for good fish and chips.My local chippy man convinced me about 15 years ago so I know it wasn,t because of his dwindling cod stocks.Cod is nice but I find it a bit fibrous compared to Haddock.

Having studied population dynamics as part of an Environmental Biology degree I am convinced we have already fished cod to a level where it already has little chance of recovering.The quota's are too little too late and are only compromises made by politicians who will only do enough to keep their jobs.those that say there is plenty out there are only thinking short term about their livelehoods.Carry on now and then have no fishing industry at all in a short space of time,It is only human nature, just like the vested interests denying global warming, BSE or the HIV pandemic when HTLV3 was discovered.

Despite this short sightedness there are some other good fish for F & C's such as Rock, Pollock, Ling and I think Heston Blumenthal said he thought Dover Sole was the best.

Answer 4

Whiting is an underated fish and has a sweeter taste than cod and as for a shortage Iceland manages its cod stocks very well in fact their trawlermen police themselves.If an Icelandic trawler starts to catch immature fish they up nets and radio the rest of the fleet to avoid the area.

Answer 5

Near future???

Try has been for the last ten years, there so bad now it's touch an go if they can ever recover.
An now the Dutch have perfected a method for fishing in their last breading grounds (the arctic) its all over.

There's plenty of alternatives to cod, you'd be surprised at how many times people are miss sold cod.

Answer 6

The Pacific Northwest prefers Halibut.

Answer 7

There will only be a shortage of cod in the UK. There is no shortage in other parts of the world.

Answer 8

There's been a shortage of cod since the '60s cod wars! Also, since we joined the EU we haven't been allowed much; it's reserved for our Spanish brothers, amongst others. As to alternatives, apart from haddock!, try coley, pollack, hake.

Answer 9

The UK government fishing authority is apparently considering the introduction of the Barramundi Cod from Australia, which tastes very good. How they tend to introduce it to our waters is uncertain, but with warmer seas, it could be successful. Probably they will fish farm initially.

Answer 10

Only from EU controlled waters, Greenland that has a 20 mile exclusion zone still has plenty. Fish is a matter of local choice, East Anglia prefers Rock Salmon (Dogfish), the North West prefers Haddock.