The Food:  Seafood

Seafood is very much a part of Italian cooking, more so in fact, than meat, especially in the southern regions and/or coastal regions.  Italians, in Italy, are able to eat so well, because they have a varied diet, and that includes eating fish, not just pasta.  Many Italians eat fish at least 3 times a week.  Even those who have come to the US and kept the traditions of the old world, never eat meat on Fridays (whether or not it is Lent), but ever.  They will have linguine with clam sauce, homemade pizza and/or tuna with pasta or some other form of fish.

Seafood was also originally something the peasants who lived on the coast ate.  They almost always ate seafood because it was readily available and came fresh daily.  Whereas, the more wealthier families on the inland and in the mountains ate meat.  Seafood almost never made it fresh into these inner regions, so the wealthy never really ate it.

Many people do not like the idea of fish, I think because it is misunderstood, and the timing of how to cook it always is a mystery for some.  Salmon can take a half hour, but thinner fish can only take a few minutes.  Calamari can take either a couple minutes or a couple of hours (depending on which dish you are using it in).  Cook it for too short of time, and you have raw fish (not a good thing and potentially dangerous to one's health in some cases), cook it for too long, and you have something that tastes like rubber.  How do you know?  First of all, there are many good, comprehensive cookbooks out there that tell you all you need need to know about fish, seafood, shellfish and how to cook it, how to store it, how to buy it fresh.

Of course, there is an easier way:  Just ask your local supermarket or fish store merchant!  Often, they are very knowledgeable about how old the "fresh fish" are, when it came in, when you should use it by, and how you should cook it (if you are baking it, they will tell you just by looking at the piece of fish, 350F oven for 15 minutes, etc.) -- of course, there is this website and many others as well.  But, you should get used to fish, it's better for you and your diet.

Cleaning Seafood
You can ask your local seafood merchant to clean the fish for you.  They should do it at no extra charge, but they will weigh it first, charge you per pound, then clean it out, so remember, you most likely be charged by the pound for it before they clean out the organs.  Many supermarkets will also steam a lobster, crabs, shrimp for you, again at no additional charge.  Quite frankly, I buy my shrimp deveined, but with the shells still on, as often they add flavor and preserve the freshness.  If it is seabass, I have it scaled and cleaned.  Lobster and shrimp are easy enough to cook, once they turn bright red, they are done cooking, usually within a few minutes, certainly less than 10.

Seafood Do's
DO ask how long to cook a certain type of fish for and at what temperature.  Even if you become an expert, as the old story goes "ask 5 chefs how to boil water and you will get 6 different recipes".  It is true of any advice when it comes to cooking, the more you ask, the more you will actually learn, even if you get conflicting advice.  Naturally do not ask the same guy the same question week after week, but if there is a different person working that day or you are at a different market, you can benefit from asking their advice.

DO ask if the seafood has been previously frozen, and if you can freeze "fresh" seafood if you buy too much of it.  Many times, seafood can look very fresh, but also come in off the trucks frozen, and you may not be able to re-freeze it again, so either buy what you need, or if it is on sale and you buy too much, ask if you can freeze unused portions, and for how long.  Also ask how long something may take to thaw.

Slime is your friend a slimey flesh on a fish lets you know that it is still fresh

Seafood Dont's
DO NOT buy seafood from someone that is not willing to clean it free of charge.  Go someplace else.  Why? These people have no concern for customer satisfaction, and those who are not willing to take the time, are also not willing to take the time to rotate their stock and/or advise you if something has been sitting there more than a few days. They are obviously only interested in sales, and quite frankly, you don't need to get sick, nor do you need to do business with a business that does not care about the customer.

DO NOT buy "fresh" seafood that is pre-packaged in plastic wrap and dated/weighed/labelled and ready for purchase like you might some meats.  Always buy your fish as fresh as you can, and learn to talk to your fish merchant or fish "monger" as they are often called.  You CAN however, buy frozen bags of baby lobster tails, shrimp, and other such items, as the companies that package them have gotten packaging down to a science.  I myself, will buy baby lobster tails frozen (often they are much cheaper and do the job well for sauces), ready to thaw and cook, but that is different than buying them "fresh" that has been packaged by a supermarket.

DO NOT buy seafood, especially shellfish that has been sitting around.  If it is on sale, ask why, don't be afraid, sometimes they are just trying to get rid of it.  The last time I bought mussels "on sale", sure I paid a dollar less, but almost half of them were bad and I am lucky I did not get sick.

DO NOT use grated cheese on any of your fish dishes, whether or not it contains pasta, or vegetables.  Cheese has a very salty, distinct taste to it, in addition to being made from milk, which often takes away from the taste of the fish.

Common and/or Indigineous to Italy & Italian Cooking
Italian-American
Rarely/Never Used in Italian Cooking

Anchovy/Anchovies
Aragosto (Lobster)
Baccala  (Salted Codfish) - From the North Atlantic American waters, but it was carried back on boats and the Italians have since made it their own
Blue Fish
Calamari (Squid)
Carp
Catfish
Caviar
Cockles - baby clams
Cod
Crab
Crawfish
Cuttlefish - found in the Adriatic sea and some places in Australia, it is very similar to calamary, except it is much larter.
Flounder
Fluke - Looks similar to flounder, but has no teeth and is a bottom feeder
Gamberi (Shrimp)
Halibut
Lobster (Aragosto): More than half the lobsters eaten in the US come from Maine. European Lobsters are more elegant than American lobsters and are actually have a blue pigment to them.  Something very interesting about lobsters.  Lobsters shed their shells, when they do, they "bulk up" on seawater, they swell up then grow another shell.  The problem is, when you cook them, they shrink to their actual size and the water comes out, so you want to choose your lobster carefully.  A 5 pound lobster is about 20 years old.  
Mitili (Mussles)
Manila Clams
Monkfish "Poor man's lobster"
Orange Roughy
Oyster - Oysters change their own sex each year, in many ways they are a perfect food, they require no cooking, they make their own sauce,
Red Snapper
Roe
Sarde (Sardines)
Salmon
Sea Bass
Scungilli (Octopus)
Skate
Swordfish
Tiliapia (St. Peter's Fish)
Trout
Tuna
Vognole (Clams)

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