Something is fishy! Mislabelled fish draws attention to identity and accuracy of human palates

Just when you thought that issues of origin and ethnicity were confined to pre-election identity politics, there’s news that fish aren’t spared the chicanery either. Recent investigations using DNA-based technology have revealed widespread deceit in the labelling of fish, including some 38 varieties of fish being passed off as snapper in Britain, and 58% misrepresentation of roasted fish fillets from 30 local Chinese brands. In one instance, the fraud even jumped species with frozen prawn balls being found to be pork in Singapore.

While this proves the existence of endemic ‘fish laundering’ — passing off unknown or inferior fish as prized varieties — such successful scams do say something about the average human palate’s powers of discernment as well.

The questions raised by as much as 40% of fish products reportedly being mislabelled either in markets or restaurants around the world go beyond fraud to deeper concerns about identity. It is one thing to rail about lower-rated Japanese scallops being passed off as coveted king scallops, or escolar as tuna. But what should be deemed to be the provenance of Russian sturgeon being farmed in China? The implications are grave, not just for palate and pocket, but also for making us worry that fish being sold as hilsa could be — horror of horrors — something helse.