What Was That Cephalopod I Just Ate?
Have you ever found yourself wondering about the species identification of the molluscan muscle in your mouth? The answer can be as slippery as the animal. Accurate seafood labeling is a constant problem, largely due to the length of the supply chain. Customers have to trust what the restaurant or supermarket tells them, and the buyers for those businesses in turn have to trust what their suppliers say. This game of fish telephone can go around the world, as globalization shuttles seafood between distant markets. Among seafood, cephalopod labeling is some of the least informative. Often there's no attempt to get any more specific than "squid" or "octopus", and even those terms seem dubious when you realize how often people mix them up. read more