{"id":427,"date":"2008-01-10T18:12:52","date_gmt":"2008-01-10T23:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/2008\/01\/10\/new-york-state-raids-chinatown-restaurants-for-illegal-fish\/"},"modified":"2008-01-10T18:12:52","modified_gmt":"2008-01-10T23:12:52","slug":"new-york-state-raids-chinatown-restaurants-for-illegal-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/10\/new-york-state-raids-chinatown-restaurants-for-illegal-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"New York State raids Chinatown restaurants for illegal fish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.villagevoice.com\/news\/0802,dwoskin,78815,2.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/blackfishoneastbroadwaychinatown.jpg\" alt=\"Blackfish in New York City\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Chinatown\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth Dwoskin has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.villagevoice.com\/news\/0802,dwoskin,78815,2.html\">fascinating article<\/a> this week in the Village Voice about New York State inspectors going around to Chinese restaurants fish tanks looking for illegally undersized tautog fish. (It&#8217;s illegal to catch one less than 14 inches long, but small fish are often considered more tender by the Chinese diners).<\/p>\n<p><!--more--> Here are some key graphs:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Two decades ago, the tautog, or black fish, was hardly a popular fish, but it has become one of the most expensive and frequently harvested fish in the region. At the same time, there has been a drastic decline in many fish populations across the Atlantic Coast. The shortage has leftfisherman\u00e2\u20ac\u201dincluding lobstermen on the Long Island Sound\u00e2\u20ac\u201dscrambling to regain their livelihoods.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Today, live tautog can fetch more than $10 per pound in Chinatown, making it one of the five most expensive fish, says LaCroix. In the early 1980s, the fish went for &#8220;next to nothing,&#8221; says Christopher Vonderwiedt, a project coordinator for the commission.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">But one of the factors that is creating this demand for fish is the Chinese adoration of fresh seafood, as in was-alive-until-you-picked-it-out-in-the-tank live seafood. My friends in China are like, why do Americans like their fish cutup into anonymous little patties?<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">And the Americans are like, why do the Chinese like their fish whole &#8212; with eyeballs and bones.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">From the Chinese perspective, the fish meat near the bones are the most tender. From the American perspective, those bones get stuck in your teeth and throat.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elizabeth Dwoskin has a fascinating article this week in the Village Voice about New York State inspectors going around to Chinese restaurants fish tanks looking for illegally undersized tautog fish. (It&#8217;s illegal to catch one less than 14 inches long, but small fish are often considered more tender by the Chinese diners).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese-food"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2pydS-6T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fortunecookiechronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}