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PRIMARY SOURCE
Domestic: Alaska, West Coast, New England. Imported: Iceland, Canada,
Norway, Russia, China.
SEASON
West Coast and New England: Year-round, but heaviest landings in
spring and summer. Alaska: Jan.-April, Sept.-Nov.
FISHING METHOD
Trawl, longline and pot.
DEFECTS
° Grayish flesh color and blood spots indicate bruising and
mishandling.
° Bones in boneless fillets.
° Freezer burn in frozen fillets.
° Soft texture in fish that have been actively feeding on capelin
or sand eels.
° Breading and batter should be uniform and intact.
SELLING POINTS
• The best quality cod is an excellent value, which is increasingly
served in white tablecloth restaurants.
• From a culinary standpoint, cod is an exceptionally versatile
fish that can be used in almost any recipe
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SCIENTIFIC NAME: Gadus macrocephalus
(Pacific), Gadus morhua (Atlantic)
MARKET NAME(S): Cod, True cod, Gray cod,
P-cod, Scrod (East Coast term for small cod 1 ?-2 ? lbs.), Bacalao
(salted cod).
SIZE RANGE: To 70 lbs., but typically 5 to 25 lbs.
YIELD: Whole to H&G: 56-75%; H&G to skinless, boneless
fillets (v-cut) 22-45%; H&G to skinless, boneless fillets (j-cut)
26%.
PRODUCT FORMS:
FRESH: Skinless fillets, pinbone-in and boneless (v-cut and j-cut).
FROZEN: Skinless, boneless fillets, graded 4/8, 8/16, 16/32 32/up
in 3X15-lb. shatterpacks; Skinless, boneless, IQF loins and fillets;
various breaded and battered portions.
STORAGE & HANDLING: Fresh cod held at
32° in ice has a shelf life of up to seven days. Frozen fillets
held at -5 to -15°F will last a year.
COOKING SUGGESTIONS
Cod is a mild-tasting fish, widely popular throughout North America.
It can be used in a huge variety of preparations suitable for anything
from “fish ‘n’ chips” stands to white tablecloth
restaurants. Since it has a delicate flavor, cod can be served with
a wide variety of flavorful sauces. Try baking, frying, poaching
or broiling — but don’t barbeque cod. Its flaky texture
will fall apart easily.
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Cod
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Cod is the king of whitefish,
a species over which wars have been fought and trading fortunes made
for hundreds of years. Today, cod is as popular as ever. Salt cod
remains a staple food in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Brazil, while
fresh and frozen cod, is widely consumed throughout North America,
Europe and Japan, where its flaky white flesh has an almost universal
appeal.
Found throughout the North Pacific and North Atlantic, cod is the
world’s second largest whitefish resource after Alaska pollock.
In most years, cod landings average between 1.5 million and 2 million
metric tons (compared to 3 to 4 million metric tons for Alaska pollock).
The cod resource is far larger in the Atlantic, where catches are
normally about four times higher than in the Pacific. If the quality
is equal, for all practical purposes, the two species are identical
from a culinary standpoint.
The Alaska fishery is by far the most important cod fishery in the
Pacific. Alaska fishermen catch between 250,000 and 300,000 tons of
cod each year, about 60% of which is caught by freezer longliners
and the rest by trawlers and pot boats. Factory trawlers produce FAS
(frozen-at-sea) fillets, while shore plants in Alaska produce frozen
fillets.
Off the West Coast, where Pacific cod is often called “true cod”
or “gray cod” or “P-cod,” less than 1,000 tons
of cod are caught each year as a bycatch in the trawl fisheries for
rockfish and flatfish.
While almost all the West Coast cod catch is marketed as fresh fillets,
the Alaska catch is almost always frozen, although some fresh cod
fillets are air freighted from Alaska to markets in the "Lower
48", where cod is a favorite fish.
Alaska longliners freeze H&G cod, much of which is shipped to
processors in New England who slack out the fish and fillet it, a
process that is known as “refreshing.” (Refreshed fillets
are also commonly soaked in a sodium tripolyphosphate solution.)
There can be significant quality differences with cod, depending upon
the time of the year the fish is caught. In the spring, for example,
when cod are feeding heavily on small, oily fish like capelin, their
flesh is noticeably softer. Quality is also a function of how the
fish was handled. As a rule, the best fresh cod comes from short trips
on boats that gut, bleed and ice their fish. The best frozen cod is
normally FAS fillets. Be aware, though, that how a fish was caught
and processed is not a guarantee of quality.
Large quantities of imported frozen cod fillets are sold in the U.S.
each year. In 1998, for example, more than 30,000 tons of cod fillets
were imported, with Iceland the leading supplier followed by Canada,
Norway, Russia and China. While most of these imports are single-frozen,
increasing volumes of double-frozen fillets are also imported.
Except for the case of China, which produces only double-frozen cod
since the country has no cod fishery, imported cod fillets can be
either single or double frozen. Although they can be very good quality,
double-frozen cod fillets sell at a significant discount to single
frozen, so relying on country-of-origin alone to distinguish between
single and double-frozen product is a mistake.
Before the development of freezers, most cod was salted. Even today,
the market for salted cod, which is called bacalao, is very large
in countries like Brazil, Portugal, Spain and Italy.
Traditionally, cod was the fish of choice for fish blocks that are
used to make fish sticks and fish sandwiches at fast-food restaurants.
As cod prices have increased, however, Alaska pollock has replaced
cod in these applications. |
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The
Pacific Advantage
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We
stock frozen-at-sea (FAS) cod fillets, the preferred product
form.We’re a vertically integrated processor.Partnerships
with other primary processors allow us to spec product higher
than industry standards. Strategic alliances with primary producers
mean we always have competitively priced product available.We
always market our cod by origin (i.e., Alaska cod, B.C. cod,
Russian Pacific cod, etc.). |
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