AMBER WAVES OF ... FISH?Smoked rockfish is a specialty seafood product that up till now, we’ve only seen processed and sold commercially out of Alaska, with their principle market being the Japanese. (We wouldn’t be surprised to hear however, that custom smokers in and around Tofino were making smoked rockfish to order for customers.)
Ocean Amber, however, is a new BC company that is attempting to make a go of marketing the product direct to consumers. Sisters
Sheryl and
Debbie Mann and their family are introducing the item to the public this weekend at the
EAT! Vancouver: Everything Food + Cooking Festival, and if you are attending you'll have the opportunity to try a slice.
Golden in colour around the exterior and creamy white inside, the fish has a light smoky flavour and a firm texture. It would make a much less expensive substitute for smoked salmon with scrambled eggs, bagels and cream cheese, or as the Mann family is showing it, simply as an hors d’oeuvre on a toothpick.
Defining what exactly a rockfish is however is a more complicated business. There are at least 50 subspecies of the fish, many of which are sold under their Latin names or more fanciful marketing nicknames. Although directly targeted elsewhere, in BC they have long been considered a by-catch product of some of the more commercially sought after species (such as ocean perch). Some rockfish are highly endangered and have had special marine conservations areas set up for them. However the family claims that all their fish boat hauls are carefully monitored and regulated (by
Department of Fisheries + Ocean Canada employees who are present at the time of the catch), and that only the species on the safe list are harvested.
If viable as a business and sustainable for the fish population, it could be a way to take some of the pressure off salmon and give chefs and seafood lovers a new product to experiment with.
The product is not yet in distribution via local grocery stores so retail price has yet to be determined. The website is under construction.
