Fairway prices aren't the real shock

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Fairway Market's California roll is made with an artificial sweetener and a preservative.

I drove over to Fairway Market in Paramus today to pick up a few items during its "shock price" promotion, but the real surprise was the ingredients list for one of the sale items.


I picked up the 9-piece California roll for $3.99 -- which is made in the store --  and tried to read the long list of ingredients in very small type. 


I did a double take when I saw "aspartame," an artificial sweetener, and "potassium sorbate," a preservative. They also were listed on rolls with raw fish.


I mentioned the ingredients to a woman ahead of me in the checkout line when I saw she had picked up a salmon roll. She said couldn't read the list, because she didn't have her glasses with her.


Whole Foods Market in Paramus, ShopRite supermarkets and H Mart also make sushi and rolls in their stores, but I haven't tried any recently and haven't paid attention to the ingredients.


At Fairway, I bought three Fuji apples at 99 cents a pound, three 1-pound packages of Campari tomatoes at $1.66 each and Fairway Organic Fair Trade Coffee Beans (Turkish grind) at $7.99 a pound.


The "shock price" promotion runs through Feb. 9.

Tasting and shopping notes

I sliced six or seven pieces of giant bluefin-tuna sashimi as part of my dinner last night and wasn't disappointed. Veined with fat, the raw fish just melted away in my mouth with a minimum

of chewing. Heavenly. I also had small, green obah leaves (wrap for the sashimi), seasoned fish eggs, cooked eel sushi and roll, and a triangle of seaweed-wrapped cooked rice stuffed with spicy cod roe, all from Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater, where I bought the tuna Sunday ($62.99 a pound). See earlier posts.


Clementines from Spain and black figs grown in the U.S. have begun appearing in markets, but at higher prices than I remember from last year. I haven't seen clementines for less than $9.99 for a 5-pound box. My wife bought domestic clementines for half that at ShopRite in Englewood, but they are sour and full of pits. An employee of H Mart in Englewood said the price of the imported clementines will fall next month.


I bought a box of 24 black figs at H Mart in Little Ferry yesterday for $9.99. I saw then for 99 cents each at Mitsuwa Marketplace that morning as I gathered items for my sashimi and trimmings dinner. The figs I bought were ripe and sweet, and I'm storing them in the fridge. I want to try them with Manchego sheep milk's cheese and almonds for dessert one night or split open and drizzled with honey.

I have been buying California rice for two or three years now to avoid rice from the South, where it is sometimes grown on old cotton fields laced with arsenic, which was used to kill the boll weevil, a beetle, according to Consumer Reports. The problem is many bags of rice don't specify where it is grown. That's not the case at H Mart in Little Ferry, which has a large selection of California rice in all sizes, but it can be expensive, especially after a price spike last year.

Yesterday, I picked up a 20-pound bag of Kokuho yellow rice that was over a price sign of $19.99, one of the lowest I saw, and it rang up as $12.99 (it was on sale). The reference to yellow rice may have something to do with the yellow seal on the bag. The rice looked the same as other brands when we prepared it.

Some tunas should only be eaten raw

 After my bad experience cooking bluefin tuna yesterday, I've decided that some tunas are suited only for eating as sushi and sashimi. See earlier post, "Pushing and shoving for giant bluefin tuna."

And in view of dwindling supplies, I may swear off eating the sushi, too. See the following link on rejection of a proposed fishing ban:
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8362168.stm

 
Not only was cooking the giant tuna's collar a mess, I don't like the smell of the oil that came out of the fish in great abundance. Now I have a container of leftover, cooked fish I'm not sure I want to eat, because of the way it smells. This was nothing like the small, grilled collar of yellow tail, or hamachi, I have tried in Japanese restaurants. I've never seen cooked bluefin tuna on a menu, perhaps because it is too expensive.

Michael, the narrator during Sunday's "cutting performance" at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater, said he is a commercial fisherman who catches bluefin tuna with rod and reel, and enjoys a raw meal of it two or three times a week, without concern about mercury. But he seems to have incomplete knowledge about mercury in fish, believing the deeper the fish swims, the greater the mercury, when most experts say the biggeest fish have the most mercury, which is said to be especially harmful to young women and children. He said he believes swordfish has more mercury than giant bluefin tuna.

He called the species giant bluefin tuna, while others refer to it as Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Pushing and shoving for giant bluefin tuna

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Hundreds of Mitsuwa Marketplace customers watched in awe today as more than a dozen workers reduced a giant bluefin tuna caught off the coast of Spain to sushi and small blocks of sashimi.

The narrator, a Long Island commercial fisherman named Michael, said the dressed fish -- minus head, tail and innards -- weighed 680 pounds, the largest ever at the Edgewater Japanese supermarket's annual "cutting performances." The total weight was around 1,000 pounds.

Michael is clearly fascinated with this magnificent creature and he pointed out how the giant tuna can retract its fins into "pockets" for further streamlining. This tuna was caught by rod and reel as it was gorging itself  in preparation for migration to warmer waters, so it was near its maximum weight. It was then bled and immersed in icy water before being flown to the U.S.

They grow so large, the Japanese refer to them as "swimming buffalo," he said.

Michael said giant bluefin tuna -- the biggest tuna species --  contain beneficial Omega-7 fatty acids and that pieces of oh-toro, well-marbled belly meat, are sold in Manhattan sushi restaurants for $12 to $16 a piece. At last year's performance, the oh-toro cost about $60 a pound and I bought a quarter pound  for about $15. The price this year was $62.99 a pound, and I had to take more than a half pound for about $33.


As the fish was being cut into smaller pieces, weighed, labeled and wrapped, people in the crowd started pressing forward and reaching over others for packages from individual workers, signaling a breakdown of the system where people lined up to make purchases. I even saw one worker give free, unwrapped fish to people he seemed to know. Michael said that on Saturday, when two giant bluefin tunas were cut up, he witnessed a shoving match between two men.

Also this year, one section of the tuna's large collar was offered for sale, and I grabbed it for $30. They gave it to me in a large garbage bag with a price label affixed. The piece was about 21 inches long and weighed close to 9 pounds, but when I got it home, it didn't fit into my pan. I roasted it for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees and I've never seen fish give up so much oil, which dripped onto the bottom of the oven and started smoking.

I ate some of the medium- to dark-red flesh raw before putting the collar into the oven. When cooked, it was a little easier to remove the meat and I harvested about two pounds. The kitchen was a mess, with oil and bits of fish, cartilage and skin all over the place. Buying the collar turned out to be a mistake. Luckily, the harried cashier rang it up for 30 cents, instead of $30.

Sushi with cracked pepper, olive oil and kimchi

I continue to work my way through that great block of smoked-mackerel sushi from Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater. See post, "Back in the food-shopping game."

Yesterday, I opened the two packets that came in the box and looked over the inserts from Komego, all in Japanese, which I don't read. I poured the cracked peppercorns and extra-virgin olive oil in separate dishes. This is different. I've always associated sushi and sashimi with soy sauce and wasabi.

This fatty, Omega-3 rich mackerel with rice is good enough on its own, but takes on extra dimensions when dipped first in the oil and then pungent cracked pepper.This morning, I had two more slices and paired one with

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crunchy cabbage kimchi before popping it into my mouth. Delish.

Is your sushi fresh or frozen?

Bluefin-tuna sushi, front, and cooked eel at Hiura in Fort Lee (2013).

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor


You might be surprised to learn the pristine slice of fish that melts in your mouth at a good sushi parlor had been frozen, along with all the other raw fish you eat.

Consumer Reports On Health urges sushi- and shashimi-lovers to "make sure that the fish was frozen before serving, because that kills the parasites sometimes found in fish. (The Food and Drug Administration requires restaurants to take that step, though enforcement can be lax.)"

It says you should prepare sushi at home only using frozen fish.

In other words, it is illegal for a U.S. restaurant to serve fish raw unless it has been frozen first. The publication echoed an article about sushi I read in 2004 in The New York Times' Dining In/Dining Out section, "Sushi Fresh from the Deep ... the Deep Freeze."

The June 2009 Consumer Reports newsletter also says consumers "should choose pieces made with low-mercury fish, such as salmon or shrimp," though doesn't mention that the vast majority of salmon served as sushi is artificially colored farmed fish. 

Tuna and mercury

Tuna, also a popular fish for sushi, has a high mercury content.

I try to limit my raw tuna consumption to the once-a-year carving of giant (frozen) bluefin tunas at Mitsuwa Marketplace, the Japanese supermarket in Edgewater. 

Last year, I purchased a quarter of a pound of the best belly meat ($60 a pound) and enjoyed seven slices of meltingly beautiful, marbled fish at home.

I like raw fluke and other "white" fish as sushi and sashimi. 

Hiura Restaurant

My favorite Japanese restaurant for sushi is Hiura in Fort Lee, a small, family run BYO. Though expensive, the sushi, sashimi, sea urchin, fish eggs and cooked dishes have never disappointed.

If you are going to buy sushi at the supermarket, H Marts in Englewood, Little Ferry and Ridgefield have their own sushi sections and a fourth market from the Korean chain is slated to take over the space once occupied by Kings in Fort Lee. 

Avoid the stuff sold in ShopRite. The sushi at the new Whole Foods Market in Paramus is excellent, but prices are high, compared with H Mart.