The Everywhere Fish
How a seafood no one knew invaded our menus
“Socrates,” I asked, “how do you tell a wild sea bass from a farmed sea bass?”
We were at a restaurant northeast of Athens. A grilled, whole European sea bass (a.k.a. branzino, a.k.a. loup de mer) lay on a plate before us. Socrates Panopoulos, a hatchery manager of the Greek-owned Selonda company, let his junior scientists answer first.
“The liver,” one biologist proposed. “If the liver is dark red, it means the fish is eating a low-fat diet and is probably wild.”
“But Kostas,” Panopoulos replied, “they have taken out the guts. What are we to do?”
“Maybe the otolith?” another scientist suggested.
“Ah,” Panopoulos said, “the otolith.”
He worked a knife into the fish’s head and removed the pearly ear bone. Then, using his glass as a primitive magnifying instrument, he counted the otolith’s layers, which accrue like rings in a tree.
“I see four,” Panopoulos said, “and they are uneven. This fish is four years old and wild.”
That the fish before us was indeed wild is a rarity in modern Greece. Never common, wild European sea bass are today one of the more overfished creatures in the Mediterranean. So rare that when you want to say you “hit…
