The Irish diet when it comes to white fish has been utterly predictable, but such species are increasingly in short supply and many cannot be easily farmed. The search for fish not subject to highly restrictive EU quotas has never been so intense.
The fishing industry is showing considerable interest in sourcing and evaluating under-utilised species for the manufacture of consumer fish products. Against this background, the Marine Institute and Teagasc joined forces in an attempt to fill the information gap, particularly in relation to consumer preference.
The institute's Fisheries Research Centre at Abbotstown, Co Dublin, sourced 23 non-quota species in two deepwater surveys of the eastern slopes on the Rockall Trough north-west of Ireland. Teagasc's National Food Centre in Dunsinea, Co Dublin, subjected them to taste panel, physical, chemical and microbial analysis.
The taste panel results were perhaps most remarkable. Each fish was evaluated in the form of fillets, breaded nuggets and fish cakes. "Twenty of the species were of acceptable eating quality, but 15 were preferred to cod" in any of the three forms, explained Dr Martine Brennan of NFC department of consumer foods who carried out the evaluations with Dr Ronan Gormley.
Taste panellists preferred six under-utilised species to cod as fillets, 10 as nuggets, and eight as fish cakes. Based on these tests the best species were orange roughy (which is already popular in parts of the US), black scabbard (which goes down well in Portugal) and morid cod. The least favoured fish were rabbitfish, the birdbeak dogfish and flying squid.
Heavy-metal analysis was carried out on the species, she added, because this is an indication of cleanliness. Many of the fish are long-living and colonise the deep ocean where heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury can accumulate. But the NFC analysis showed very low levels, in fact much lower levels than routinely found in fin-fish, Dr Brennan confirmed; further indication of their suitability for exploitation.
The NFC is concentrating on "flavour accessibility" and product versatility, while the Fisheries Research Centre is looking at "fishability", the ease with which these species may be caught.
"Four or five other European countries are fishing from them. There is a view that Ireland should be as well. There are no quotas to restrict fishing of these species so their commercialisation can lead to expansion of the Irish fishing industry," she noted.