May 14, 2021 • 47 mins
This small, prolific type of tuna is common in two very different preparations: canned, and raw in poke. Anney and Lauren reel in the biology and history of skipjack tuna.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I Heart three D Audio. This episode is brought to
you an I Heeart three D audio For maximum effect.
Headphones are recommended. Hello, and welcome to save our production
(00:30):
of I Heart Radio. I'm Annie Read and I'm Lauren
vocal Bum And today we have an episode for you
about skip Jack Tuna and it's a very special episode
because it's savor in three D. Yes. Um, we are
pretty huge nerds about this, about all of all of
(00:50):
this surround sound audio technology that is happening in podcasting
right now, and so when they asked if we wanted
to do something with it, we said yeah, um. And furthermore,
we we we landed on skip Jack Tuna. Well a
because I'm a foolish human and wasn't thinking about how
(01:11):
intensive the episode was going to be. Um, but b uh,
we realized that we have all of this amazing audio
that we captured when we were in Hawaii and that
that can be processed into a three D sound experience,
and we wanted to bring you to Hawaii. Yes, we
also wanted to bring us to Hawaii because we miss it,
(01:34):
but both of those things just in here. What did
I do to deserve to Marine Creatures show in a
matter of weeks. It's fantastic. The oceans are strange places,
you guys. Indeed, UM and so so right, so so
(01:55):
we're going to have a few UM of these three
D clips interspersed through out the episode and UM as specifically,
the the audio that that Andrew producer Andrew wanted to
pull was from the poke a Battle that we attended
on Oahu, UM, which we talked about extensively in our
Hawaii mini series UM. But as as a quick reminder,
(02:18):
so so there was we went to this UM event UM,
this poke a Battle event at a food land UM
which is a local grocery chain which does have a
poke a deli counter. But but this in particular was
like seven chefs battling for the crowd's favorite poke A
of the day UM, with the winner to receive five
(02:40):
thousand dollars to donate to a Hawaii charity of their choice. UM.
This was the second annual one that we were attending
in twenty nineteen UM. Unfortunately they couldn't do one last year.
And right we were ostensibly there to conduct an interview
with Denise and Roy Yamagucci, Denise being the CEO of
the Hawaii Food and Mind Festival, among other things, um
(03:02):
Roy being a chef and restaurant tour and a contestant um.
But yeah, it was such glorious madness um that Andrew
and Dylan wound up just just hanging out capturing a
lot of sound. Yeah, it was a It was a
very memorable experience. And there was just so much going on.
And I remember being shocked that this was an event
(03:27):
at a grocery store and people were so excited about it.
There were just all these sounds happening, like bells ringing,
and hundreds of people in these huge lines exactly exactly,
and we were looking around like, well, we've got to
go over there and record that, Sally, We've got to
go over there, and and yeah, trying to conduct this
(03:48):
interview and it was just this lovely, lovely chaos. Yeah.
So if you have headphones, get them on because because
here is our our first three D udio clip from
that event, and we're back into the world of two D.
(04:34):
Although I don't know that that actually applies an audio,
but that's what we're going with. Sure. Yeah, yeah, still
working out the terminology. It's cool, Yes, yes, it's just
I will say Tuna is one of my very favorite foods.
I know. I said that in my random mismash when
Richard Blaze asked me when we were on food Court
and he was like, what are your favorite foods? And
I was like, it's peanut butter and tuna and kale,
(04:55):
which is a very strange assortment. Um. And that does
make me feel torn a lot about the tuna, because yeah,
there are a lot of issues around it. Interesting to me,
I've never had tuna casserole or a tuna sandwich. You've
never had a tuna sandwich? No, Um, I wonder if
(05:16):
it was a mayo issue. But also I do think
there was a lot of judgment about like the smell
of a tuna sandwich, at least where I because I
had a friend who really loved tuna sandwiches and she
could never convince me to eat them, and I felt
like it was just like not cool to family. It
(05:38):
was one of my childhood staples for sure. Um. I
still have a couple of cans of tuna. I don't
have anything to And you don't have to mix it
with mayo. You can mix it with you know, like
like yogurt or sour cream or something like that. But Okay,
all right, maybe I will try it out. My friend
too who ate the tu new sandwiches when I was
(06:00):
growing up. She's still one of my best friends, and
she also always has a can of tuna on hand. Yeah.
But a friend of mine in high school she introduced
me to sushi and sashimi I never had until then,
and most of the stuff she picked for me to
try was tuna based, and I just fell in love. Yeah, yeah,
(06:22):
oh no, absolutely, I oh yeah, I love a tuna
um in all preparations all the time. I prefer I
generally prefer it raw, generally prefer fish in its raw
form um. But but yeah, it's just it's just tasty. Yeah,
I also prefer it ron. We've been we've been lamenting
about our pok cravings which won't be stated here associated
(06:48):
here as they were in Hawaii and to the level
we now know exists. Yeah, yeah, it's um there. There
just really is something about the freshness um and uh
and and simplicity of operation that you can get out there.
I want to go back right now someday, Lauren, someday,
(07:09):
and you can see our pok and fishing industry episodes
from our wah who mini series that we did for
more about that and our experiences with that. Um. And
also you can see Lauren and I are thirteen Days
of Halloween episodes which were done in this three D
audio if you're really into this three D audio. And
(07:29):
both of them are related to food ish, they're like
a jasp years is more directly related to food. Mine
is about guts. But that that's that that is food related. Sure, yeah,
I think so, I think so. But all right, let's
get to our question. Yes, skip jack tuna, what is it? Well,
(07:57):
the skip jack tuna is a small kind of corpedo
shaped tuna. Um. There's some debate about whether it belongs
in its own genus or not, but I've mostly seen
it as its own genus katsu wolnus polamus. It's also
called benito, lesser tunny, victor fish aku um in Hawaiian u, katsu,
(08:17):
and watermelon. That is quite a range of names. Uh,
also lesser tuni and get out here. But at least
there's victor fish to build that out right right. I
like the two of them right next to each other.
I believe it's it's lesser in that it's a smaller
version of other species. And genuses of tuna, um and
(08:42):
watermelon comes in because of the pattern ng on their bellies.
So um. These are smooth fish, not very scaly, with
silver bellies that are striped long ways with with black
or gray he's the watermelon yeah um, and then a
dark blue purple black coloration along their upper backs. Um.
Like many birds. Many fish to up light coloration on
their bellies and dark coloration on their backs, so they
(09:03):
blend in with the bright light of the surface or
sky when you look up at them from below, and
then have a darker back to blend in with the
depths or the ground when you look down at them
from above. They can grow skip jack tuna to be
about four ft long a little bit over a meter
in a way up to seventy pounds. They're typically less
than half that, more like a quarter of that. However,
(09:27):
they hang out in the open ocean called the pelagic
zone in tropical and subtropical parts of the Pacific, Atlantic
and Indian oceans, and uh migrate in schools of thousands
a fellow skip jack plus big eye and yellow fin tuna.
They'll even school with like sharks and whales. They're they're
just they're just buddies. They're just friends, want to hang out. UM.
Their habitat around the globe forms a band sometimes called
(09:50):
tuna alley. I just really like that. Um. They hang
around the surface during the day, but can dive some
eight D defeat that's two sixty at night. They can
partially regulate in this conserve body temperature in cool water.
Tuna are predators in their ecosystems, and skip Jack can
(10:10):
eat up to a quarter of their own body weight
every day in other animals UM, pretty much whatever they
can catch up to an including other tuna. Tuna are cannibals. Yikes, yep,
so tuna alleys dangerous. Yeah, yeah, you don't wanna, don't
don't don't want to meet that tune in a dark alley?
No no, um uh. Sometimes they breed seasonally, but others
(10:34):
will breed year round UM. Female skipjack can produce and
release eggs up to two million a year UM, and
then males release sperm to fertilize them, and then those eggs,
when once fertilized, will hatch like within a day. They'll
grow to maturity in about a year UM. Left to
their own devices, skip Jack live about seven to twelve years.
It's caught by small and industrial fishers alike, using everything
(10:57):
from hand lines that catch a single fish at the
time to these a purse scene, which is a type
of large net that looks kind of like a purse
hence the name the capture whole schools at once UM.
Because it lives midwater column fishing, it doesn't disturb the
ocean bed, which is environmentally good. UM bycatch can be
a problem with those purse scene, especially when used with
(11:20):
objects that are meant to attract like lots of fish,
but that is regulated UM and although it is very
heavily fished, it's not considered overfished. UM. That's definitely being monitored,
and it's always kind of a situation where it's like, well,
it's not being over fished right up until it is,
and so watching out for that line can be difficult.
Populations in the Atlantic have been on the decline but
(11:43):
currently seems stable in the Pacific, and overfishing of larger
species of tuna is actually kind of helping because there's
less predation from those over fished species, so ecosystems m hey,
we're a food show. Purportedly, the meat of skip jack
(12:06):
tuna is um. This deep scarlet red and slightly translucent.
When it's raw, it's just it looks like little gemstones.
When it's cut into little poke a cubes goodness, Um,
it cooks down to like an opaque light gray UM.
It's firm and distinctly tuna. Eat it's it's the strongest
tasting of the tuna, especially when cooked, and its flavor
(12:29):
is a savory and meaty and fishy and a little
briny when it's raw and then takes on yeah, more
of a fishy flavor when cooked. It is often canned
um and sometimes labeled as light tuna. I don't think
that has anything to do with like the fat content
or caloric content, but rather the color of the tuna. Um.
(12:51):
It can also yeah, be eaten fresh, either raw or
cooked in a variety of ways, or dried um, eaten
as a sort of jerky, or used as a season
ng um. The row are eaten too and uh. Although
most of this is talking about like like steaks of tuna. UM.
The bones and surrounding me are also used primarily in
cuisines where they're caught um either grilled or or used
(13:14):
in soups and stews. All kinds of things right, And
that was honestly a surprise to me researching this is
that whole like light tuna thing. I didn't realize that
the same tuna that is ink is the yes can Yeah,
no idea, but it is very much so, uh it is.
We're We're about to get into the numbers in a second. Um,
(13:36):
it was. It was a total surprise to me. Absolutely.
Well what about the nutrition, Well, it depends on how
you prepare it, but skip check tuna into itself is
pretty good for you. It's a very lean protein, so um,
it'll fill you up and help keep you going. Pair
it with the vegetable and a little bit more fat
for more staying power. Um. Mercury and other contaminants in
(14:00):
fish is still a whole other episode unto itself. But skipjack,
being smaller and younger when they're caught than other species
of tuna, do tend to be lower in contaminants. So
we do have some numbers for you. Oh gosh, we do. Okay, yes,
So of the fifteen types of tuna, skip jack is
(14:21):
the smallest as in size, commercially exploited variety, and the
most abundant because it's so small. Um. Even though it's
fished the most, it's total market value is about the
same as the larger yellow fin tuna, which is fished
like half as much. Right. People's love of skip jack
(14:42):
tuna has increased over the last several decades, especially I
mean in the United States, UM, about three hundred thousand
metric tons were caught in nineteen fifty in that number
was one million, six hundred seventy four thousand, nine hundred
seventy metric times. Yep. These days skip jack tuna. They
(15:03):
make up about of world consumption of tuna. Americans account
for about four hundred thousand metric tons across all species
of tuna annually. In half of the almost seven million
ton global harvest of tuna and similar species was skip jack. Yeah,
as some numbers put skipjack as high as being six
(15:26):
of all legally caught tuna. Um and ent of it
goes to canned tuna, right uh yeah, And most estimates
suggest that six of all canned tuna in the US
is skip jack. From nine two thousand, the most popular
seafood in the US was tuna, which surprised me was shrimp.
(15:48):
We need to return to shrimp one day. Oh yeah,
I have questions, yes, um, but yeah, most of this
tuna eaten from a can. At the height of canned
tunas populator of American households kept at least one can
in stock. Today, though Europe has the largest share of
(16:08):
the global market of canned tuna over as of nineteen.
That same year, the global market for cantatuna was worth
eight point two billion dollars day. However, since two thousand,
demand for cantuna has been steadily dropping due to concerns
around mercury, poisoning dolphin bycatch, rising price, and pivoting interests
(16:32):
towards fresh while the American demand for cantuna has decreased
even with COVID nineteen. Stockpiling products like tuna in a bag,
perhaps to appeal to people who don't own can openers,
um has been They have been introduced in a variety
of flavors. For example, Starkist offers bacon ranch spicy Korean,
(16:55):
among at least seventeen other flavors. Bacon ranch tuna questions
many questions, many, Well, it's sure okay. According to an
article from Hakai magazine, possibly hakaie Um, the skip jack
tuna caught in just the western Central Pacific in just
(17:22):
if you took all those fish and you'll line them
up nose to tail, they would circle the planet twelve times.
That means, to put it another bizarre way, Um, according
to this article, if you could lie them in a
straight line all the way up into space, uh, they
(17:42):
would touch the boon and then stretch another eight kilometers
pasted it. I don't know why you would do that.
I'm trying to figure out what we could do with
this tower of tuna. It's it's like a space cell
later but it's just fish. Um, I'm not I'm not
(18:03):
entirely sure why. It sounds like a bizarre thing that
they would have you do in like Katamara Domincy, like
in some kind of side side level. But yeah, that's
a lot of tuned. Yeah the point, they're being a
lot and we do have quite a lot of history
(18:25):
for you. We do. But first we've got a quick
break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So humans that live
near bodies of water have been eating fish for just
(18:46):
about forever. Some researchers, to your eyes that our ancestors
were eating fish and shellfish two million years ago. Yeah,
yeah again, kind of like with blue rab. I couldn't
find many specifics of skip jack tunas evolution and role
(19:07):
in the human diet, but I, you know, a long
time I would say skip jack tuna has played a
vital role in foundational dishes and some regions like Japan,
where records show it was served in the third century
h c e. At the Yamato Imperial Court. Tuna is
(19:28):
a key ingredient and some versions of the Japanese soup
stock dashi, as well as dried benito, which are definitely
other episodes. Was about to say, probably as though I
had not already done all the reading for this and
decided that that was a different episode, right right, but
very very briefly, yeah, yeah. Um. Some of the very
(19:49):
first records of precursors to bonito and Japan date back
to the seven hundred eighteen euro Code, which described a
similar item as quote seasoning from fish that has been
boiled and dried hard. The first records of smoke dried
benito surfaced in sixteen seventy four. A well known legend
(20:10):
posits that this was sort of an accidental discovery of
a fisherman who were shipwrecked and decided to smoke some
skip jack tuna over a wood fire and found the
taste much improved. In seventeen seventies, some people figured out
that smoke dry skip jack tuna could be even further
improved by growing mold on it. The popular story behind
(20:31):
this one is that it was also an accidental discovery,
perhaps after our emergence, product of skip jack molden during shipment,
or a wholesaler hesitated to throwout molded skip jack tuna.
But yes, future episode. Skip Jack was so plentiful in
the waters around Japan that for a long time it
was viewed as a quote common fish. In the eleven hundreds,
(20:55):
a monk wrote that the poor tossed out the heads
of skip Jack, I guess, implying even the poor Yeah,
right um. However, that perception shifted by the sixteen hundreds
to eighteen hundreds somewhere in there, when the skibjeck tuna
was prized and highly sought after in Japan. The so
called first catch or hotsu getsuo in late spring or
(21:18):
early summer was the crim dollar crime. That is what
you wanted. There was even a saying quote, I'd be
willing to pawn my wife for a taste of hotsu
getsuo wow. Like yeah. Indigenous Hawaiians commonly ate the skibjet,
tuna or aku whole raw, dried or cooked. And there
(21:41):
are a bunch of Hawaiian legends involving aku um in
one chief and his people while first traveling to the
islands by canoe um we're caught in a storm, but
saved by school of aku that calmed the waters around them,
and that therefore, for a few days a year, eating
aku was prohibited. Now, let's talk briefly about Maryland state boat,
(22:05):
the skip Jack. I know, Maryland, you've got a lot
of official state symbols. Although I did look it up,
seventeen other states have state boats, so you know, not
that uncommon. Sure, yeah, yeah, but you've got a dinosaur
and a boat. You've got a crustacean. I don't know,
(22:26):
you've got a lot going on. Good for you. But
this boat was first recorded in Maryland in the nineteenth
century and it was a motorless boat used for dredging oysters.
It's still used in the chest Peak Bay to this
day because of restrictions oyster fisheries have around power boats.
Maryland designated it the state boat in nine Yeah um yeah,
(22:50):
but yes. The food show the skipjack tuna and skip
jack mackerel and skip jack herring perhaps um, with their
reputation for speed, are believed to be the inspiration behind
the name of this boat. Okay. According to a story
collected by Jack Twyo los Sega and apologies if I
mispronouncing that passed on to him by his father. There's
(23:13):
an American Samoa and legend about the origins of a
type of skip jack tuna with a round hole in
its belly, and the legend goes as follows quote and
ancient times there was a magic fishook that fish are
attracted to. It would catch any fish. This fishhook was
granted to a man in Fiji, and it was stolen
by two demigods. They brought it to Samoa and it
(23:34):
again got stolen, and it was given as a gift
to a woman called Sina. Sina gave it to her
son Kokugu, but it got lost, so Cina went out
looking for the hook and left her son while the
boy was left on shore in Savive. When Sina found
the hook again, she brought it back to her son.
She swam all the way in went into the creek
where the rock is and couldn't find her son. She
(23:56):
thought the son had drowned and died. She was so
heartbroken that she died. I know her son was just
mucking around in the ocean. The sun came back and
found the mother and the hook. He was also heartbroken,
and he committed the tuna to pay tribute to the mother.
So every so often a special tuna will roll around
(24:17):
where the rock is and it leads the tuna. Now,
I never heard of this, This tuna with the hole
in it. Um, gotta have a good legend there. There
There are a lot of legends around special fish hooks.
I think with the skipture, I ran into a couple
(24:37):
others and I and I couldn't quite get a handle
on what they were trying to put forth, and I
eventually just gave up. I was just like, well, mysteries, mysteries, history,
another day, another day, we're through cho It's true, It's true. Well,
i's got a The Disney movie has a magic cook.
But it's been a while since I've seen that, so
(24:58):
I can't add anything more than that. I just know
there's fish involved. The first records of skip jack tuna
off the western coast of Australia popped up in nineteen
But now, let's talk for a second about the rise
of cantuna in the US, something that was really precipitated
(25:20):
by the collapse of California's offshore sardine fisheries. And that
sentence makes me want to do an episode on sardines immediately, right,
but gosh, okay, but please go ahead, okay. So these
people in this business, in this industry, we're looking for
a replacement for these sardines. So fishers pivoted towards other
(25:42):
species of fish, first albacoretuna and then two more abundant
species like yellow fin and skip jack. Most Americans at
the time did not eat fish, and what fish they
did eat was mostly salmon. Or even if they did
eat fish, they didn't eat much. Fish. On top of that, too,
was considered a trash fish. Pardon me, I know, but
(26:07):
the signature sardine packer out of San Diego, or that is,
who is often credited with being the first to switch
from sardines to albacore in nineteen o three. The first
tuna canary in that city, San Diego, opened in nineteen eleven.
According to a blog post on the San Diego Food
System Alliance website, quote in the ensuing half century, the
(26:29):
city would earn its title as the tuna capital of
the world. By the nineteen sixties, San Diego's third largest
industry would be tuna, proceeded only by the Navy and aerospace. Catching, canning,
and marketing of tuna would employ up to forty thousand
San Diegans um And yeah, not all of that tuna
(26:51):
was skip jack, but still a lot of this burgeoning
American tuna industry was informed by the influx of Japanese
and Portuguese immigrants in that area. In the nineteen fifties,
most commercial tuna harvesting moved from a baiton hook model
to yes this mechanized purse sign method, and this did
(27:12):
lead to increased product and increased profits. Americans liked cantuna
for several reasons. It was viewed as a cheap, healthy, filling,
mild protein, the chicken of the sea, as the marketing
goes to reassure Americans leery of that fishy taste. By
(27:35):
the nineteen fifties, the worldwide catch was around six hundred
and sixty thousand tons. In nine, report from the National
Marine Fisheries Service are the inn m f S stated
consumers acceptance of cantuna suit led to the development of
fishing fleets in both San Diego and San Pedro. San
(27:55):
Diego became the major base for the fleet, a position
it continues to hold through nineteen Tuna passed salmon as
America's most popular seafood choice in nineteen fifty. It's estimated
that prior to nineteen seventy of tuna eaten in the
United States was canned tuna. Wo right, this is this,
(28:19):
This is something I again, I had no clue about.
I suppose I could have guessed due to you know,
the way that the way that industrial chilling and freezing
and shipping has developed over the past you know, seventy years.
But goodness, my graciousness, my gracious indeed, I mean, and
(28:40):
this availability of cantuna allowed space for several dishes to
be created, including tuna salad. Oh yeah, so meat often ham, lobster,
and or chicken and mayonnaise based salads were popular in
the American colonies from the get go, particularly among German immigrants.
(29:02):
Also a separate episode, but for our purposes, these salads
would UM often get editions of scraps about to go
to waste like celery and then served on lettuce, which
makes me laugh because again, the word salad and all
that it can entail is hilarious to me. It's it's
honestly very upsetting when you're just trying to google stuff,
(29:24):
it's true, or when you're trying to order from a
menu and the menu was not extremely clear. Yes, but
I love that there was this like meat mannaise salad
served on lettuce, salad on salad, salads all the way down.
Oh yeah, I love good salad. As more and more
women started spending time in the public sphere at museums
(29:45):
and restaurants, towards the end of the eighteen hundreds, some
restaurants revamped their menus with women in mind for ladies
lunches or luncheons, which I didn't deep dive this, but
according to like a really superficial skimming of websites, luncheon
is legit just a more elegant word for lunch that
(30:06):
was given to um. Yeah, but I don't know for
sure if that's true, but maybe we'll return to that episode.
But yeah, these restaurants wanted to offer things that women
ate at home, like these salads um though made fresh
as opposed to with scraps, and often these were fish again,
(30:27):
usually salmon or shellfish salads, and as more women started
working in offices with limited lunch hours, restaurants started serving
these salads between bread for something quick and convenient. The
tuna didn't enter the mix until the twentieth century, with
the debut of canned tuna. By the nineteen thirties and forties,
(30:49):
American cookbooks might suggest tuna salad as an alternative to
chicken or turkey. From a nineteen thirteen edition of the
Christian Science Monitor, quote, in California, the tuna is being
introduced generally in the best restaurants, not only because it
is new, but because people are beginning to value it
for what it is. Tuna salads are getting to be popular.
(31:11):
The housekeeper can prepare the fish in a dozen different ways.
All right, true, It's all true, sure, from Lara Shapira's
book Perfection Salad. These salads were for women who quote
wanted a career and needed a cause, but they weren't
(31:32):
interested in breaking very many rules, reordering society or challenging men.
On their own turf. But they really wanted was access
to the modern world, the world of science, technology, and rationality.
And they believe the best way for women to gain
that access was to recreate man's world in woman's sphere.
I want to read that book. I gotta say, yeah.
And I think I think we talked about it in
(31:55):
Our Aspects episode. I think we did. I think we did.
And now let's talk about tuna casserole, which again I've
never had, but I knew about because my mom made
chicken casserole and after I left, she told me that
they made it with tuna, and that she never used
(32:16):
tuna because she didn't think her kids would like it.
Oh huh, okay, yes, But so at its core, this
is a mixture of cantuna, cream of mushroom soup, and noodles. Uh.
And this was another recipe thought up in the US
after the introduction of cantuna. The first recorded recipe came
(32:38):
out of Washington State in nineteen thirty This first recipe
used a white sauce um, but after cream of mushroom
soup came out, most recipes used that instead. Beginning in
nineteen thirty four, during World War Two, tuna casserole became
popular in Australia thanks to shortages, often supplemented by canned foods.
(33:02):
Local versions made after the war frequently used homemade white
sauce and sometimes skipped out on the noodles entirely. I
would love to hear from Australian listeners about this because
I read it seems like it's still popular. Huh. You know, Um,
I think that, Yeah, tuna noodle casserole isn't unpopular in
(33:25):
the United States. Um, but yeah, it's not something I
have a lot of personal experience with either. My my
parents didn't make it for me when I was growing up,
and so I never really acquired a taste for it. Um.
But let us know, listeners, Yes, skip jack tuna are occur.
In this case accounted for six of the commercial fish
(33:46):
landings in Hawaiti. Eaton still primarily caught using the poll
on line method by number dropped to four point five cent,
and part of this job had to do with what
some call a color laps in the production of US
canned tuna. The Canary Hawaiian Tuna Packers closed in night
(34:07):
four in nineteen sixty three. Synopsis of technical and biological
data for skip jack tuna were compiled for the Pacific, Indian,
and Atlantic oceans as well as the Mediterranean. See for
the u N's Food and Agricultural Organization, the f a
O sponsored event that they were having, the World Scientific
Meeting on the Biology of Tunas and related species always
(34:31):
have the most scinct names. I guess it's to the
point though, alright it is. Yeah. Meanwhile, Um, it was
the arrival of increasing numbers of Japanese tourists to Hawaii
in the nineteen seventies that played a major role in
making tuna the protein of choice for ok and that
(34:54):
in turn would lead to changes in how the entire
fishing industry works in Hawaii because as technology advanced, and
thanks to the increasing popularity of tuna, hand line fishing,
which is this method of deep sea fishing that goes
back to ancient Hawaiians, became a commercially important method in
the nineteen seventies. Um, it's environmentally valuable because it lets
(35:16):
you catch just specifically the fish that you want without
by catch, because you're, yeah, just dropping that vertical line
down into the water, catching a single fish on that line,
and pulling it up either manually or mechanically. Yes, and
you can again see the episode we did in our
walking mini series on the fishing industry in Hawaii. But
(35:41):
speaking of perhaps it's time for another Yes, it's prettical
m okay, and welcome once again back to the world
(36:13):
of two d Not as exciting as the pok battle. Fewer,
fewer bells, yes, a little bit less crowded, sort of calmer,
right right, but a fond memory nonetheless. As the popularity
of canned tuna grew in the U s, fisheries had
(36:34):
to bolster their supply with imports from Japan, South Korea,
and Thailand. In the International Trade Commission estimated Americans accounted
for one third of all tuna consumption and half to
two thirds of canned tuna consumption. Soon after that, as
health and environmental concerns around tuna filtered to the American
(36:57):
public at large, those number started to drop. After reports
of dolphins dying as a result of the tuna industry
in the nineteen eighties, some consumers started boycotting the can stuff,
and to assure the public, some companies started selling quote
dolphins safe tuna. In the nineties, Uh yeah, I remember
(37:18):
that was goodness. Um catches of all tuna species globally
peaked in And this is outside the scope of this episode,
but I was curious about the history of eating fish
in the United States because I feel like, for a
long time, in my neck of the woods, which if
you've somehow missed, it is Georgia and not coastal Georgia
(37:41):
like interior. Yes, Georgia, Yeah, exactly. Um, people didn't like fish.
Usually they would say something about the smell as why
they didn't like it. And then I feel like it
became a health thing and it was really in vogue,
and now it's much more popular. Um. And this is
all anecdotal, This is just my experience. I generally liked
(38:01):
it from a young age because my mom did grow
up with access to waters and she did fish and crab.
But I also avoided tuna sandwiches because I thought i'd
be made fun of, like I said, and I did
look it up, and of course people have researched this.
Some of the first commercial industries in the U S
colonies were fish industries, but fish wasn't necessarily held in
(38:26):
the highest esteem, partly because of the settlers. Uh you know,
they're mostly Protestants. Um. Or otherwise not Catholic, and I
was kind of like famously what they said they were
um and seafood, which could be eaten on religious days
that prohibited the eating of meat, and the Catholic religion.
(38:47):
That meant it was associated with Catholicism. Seafood was associated
with Catholicism um through various ways of immigration, popularizing fish,
and a push during the World Wars to eat fish
and sit of meat, and therefore associating fish as a
food for victory. Americans attitudes toward fish did change, however,
(39:08):
once the wars ended, it was seen as more of
this food of sacrifice. It wasn't until the nineteen seventies
and eighties, when Japanese immigrants introduced sushi to the mainstream,
that Americans decided fish was once again worth eating. For
comparison at his peak, annual American seafood consumption has only
(39:30):
reached about fifteen pounds of person, which is very recent,
I believe, compared to about two pounds of beef, chicken, turkey, lamb,
and pork. The US is still the second largest consumer
of seafood in the world, behind China and before Japan.
Some speculate more modern reasons for Americans low rate of
fish consumption has to do with mix and often confusing
(39:53):
messaging around sustainability and health. So yes, that's a whole
it could be a whole different episode by just curious
about kind of the ups and downs there. Yeah, yeah, no,
And and that's super interesting. Um I I guess I
it's it's it's strange to hear that because to me,
(40:14):
seafood is like fancier than most other types of proteins. Um,
it's sort of like special occasion. Um. Even even something
like I don't know, like I didn't grow up eating
stuff like a like catfish at home, but like to me,
if I see it on the menu, I'm like, oh,
And I know that other people are like that's a
trash fish, like that's a bottom feeder, tastes like mud.
(40:37):
But I'm like, no, fancy day catfish. Oh man, Um,
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a good
point because I know I've said, especially in the Red
Lobster episode, that was our fancy restaurant, but almost all
of us got shrimp. Yea, the seafood right too fishy anyway,
(41:02):
So many paths we could follow from this episode yes, yes,
but for now, that is what we have to say
about the skip check tuna. It is um and we
do have some listener mail for you, but first we've
got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor.
(41:29):
We're back, Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you, and we're
back with listen. I'm interested to hear how that one
turned out. So I really like went with it motion
(41:50):
wise and got pretty far away from the microphone. So yeah,
and I and I wasn't my my internet connection did
the thing where it was like, oh man, Lawrence taking noise,
I'm just gonna cut off Annie's audio. So in the
middle of it, I was like, I don't know where
your voice is going. That's it's pretty cool, pretty cool.
Always an adventure technology, y'all. I love it. Mm hmmm
(42:13):
um bob root When Annie said she never tried root beer,
I felt shocked. Like Lauren, I grew up on the
stuff and love it. It's definitely my favorite soda. However,
living in China all these years, it has been difficult
insofar as root beer is a rarity here the Chinese
hated you asked her info from overseas listeners on the subject,
(42:37):
So here you go. Anytime I found it and offered
them a taste, they have all, save one individual, hated it,
the claim being that it tastes like Chinese medicine. What's
worse is when I was living in Macau and working
with other pilots from all over the globe, they all
seemed to think the same. I couldn't believe my ears.
(42:58):
Root beer is great. The game Macau and Ju High
it was not so bad. I could often go across
the river to Hong Kong and bring some home from there.
I was so happy when I found IBC there, but
was perfectly happy with hires, R, A and W. For
many years. Since moving north to Beijing, I've only been
able to get root beer on trips home. But now,
(43:20):
in the same week that I heard your episode just
days before, in fact, I was able to order some
packets of D I, Y and W root beer mix,
and it's great. I'm so happy. I just carbonate a
bottle of cold water with my soda stream type device,
then add two packets of the mix and woila. I
have A and W root beer and I'm so happy.
(43:41):
It's sugar free to boot. This is great. This is
like a much larger scale version of our regional things
that we talked in the US from people in different
parts of the world about root beer and their thoughts
about root beer. But I'm very happy you're able to
make your own. If you can't find it, at least
(44:03):
you can make it. Yes uh uh, Rachel wrote, I
don't really have insight into why pork broth isn't more
popular in the US, but I work for a food manufacturer,
and many years ago we used to make what I
referred to as the unholy trinity of ham, clam, and
pork stocks. Many of our products are kosher, so I
(44:24):
suspect the reason we no longer make them is the
amount of effort it took to keep these separated and
to properly clean all of the blending, processing and packaging
equipment after The Other thing that may or may not
contribute to their rarity is the flavor of the product
we were making. I don't think I ever tasted the ham. Uh.
The clam tasted how you would expect clam stock to taste,
(44:45):
but the pork pork stock of the Brandon formula that
we made tasted exactly like burnt popcorn. I have no
idea why, and it wasn't a bad flavor, just very
very strange. It's very very strange. Burnt popcorn broth is
(45:08):
a confusing phrase. It is it is that reminds me.
This is such a specific story. But once I asked
for soup. I was like nine years old and I
asked for soup and my dad was very tired, and
it was probably ten PM, and he was like really frustrating,
like okay, and he gets out a can of Campbell
(45:30):
soup and he opens it up and he pours it
into our big bowl of burnt It was popcorn, but
it was just like the burnt corn curl that was
left and he poured it in there and he handed
handed it and I looked in it as like what
And then he looked down and he was like, don't
tell your mother about He's just on auto pilot. Oh
(45:57):
did you eat it? Anyway, We'll just put us in
another bowl. Eat it up. It's gonna be fine. I
love bird popcorn. Oh goodness, yes, well anyway, Um, Tank
to both of those listeners for writing, UM, we do
(46:19):
want to say we have one more very special three
D clip for this very very special three D episode.
Um and stay and stay tuned after the credits roll.
This is like an m CU post scene. Awesome. It's
so yes, Yes, stay stay tuned and and immerse yourselves
(46:40):
back in that hectic and wonderful Pokey battle scene. Yes,
please do that. It is a delight. We think you'll
love it. And also if you would like to contact
us that you can. Our email is Hello at savor
pot dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Facebook, Instant Graham, and Twitter at savor
(47:01):
pod and we do hope to hear from you. Savor
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, you can visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan
Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
we hope that lots more good things in three D
are coming your way. This episode was brought to you
(47:51):
in i Heeart three D Audio. To experience more podcasts
like this, search for i Heeart three D audio in
the I Heart Radio app
I Heart three D Audio. This episode is brought to
you an I Heeart three D audio For maximum effect.
Headphones are recommended. Hello, and welcome to save our production
(00:30):
of I Heart Radio. I'm Annie Read and I'm Lauren
vocal Bum And today we have an episode for you
about skip Jack Tuna and it's a very special episode
because it's savor in three D. Yes. Um, we are
pretty huge nerds about this, about all of all of
(00:50):
this surround sound audio technology that is happening in podcasting
right now, and so when they asked if we wanted
to do something with it, we said yeah, um. And furthermore,
we we we landed on skip Jack Tuna. Well a
because I'm a foolish human and wasn't thinking about how
(01:11):
intensive the episode was going to be. Um, but b uh,
we realized that we have all of this amazing audio
that we captured when we were in Hawaii and that
that can be processed into a three D sound experience,
and we wanted to bring you to Hawaii. Yes, we
also wanted to bring us to Hawaii because we miss it,
(01:34):
but both of those things just in here. What did
I do to deserve to Marine Creatures show in a
matter of weeks. It's fantastic. The oceans are strange places,
you guys. Indeed, UM and so so right, so so
(01:55):
we're going to have a few UM of these three
D clips interspersed through out the episode and UM as specifically,
the the audio that that Andrew producer Andrew wanted to
pull was from the poke a Battle that we attended
on Oahu, UM, which we talked about extensively in our
Hawaii mini series UM. But as as a quick reminder,
(02:18):
so so there was we went to this UM event UM,
this poke a Battle event at a food land UM
which is a local grocery chain which does have a
poke a deli counter. But but this in particular was
like seven chefs battling for the crowd's favorite poke A
of the day UM, with the winner to receive five
(02:40):
thousand dollars to donate to a Hawaii charity of their choice. UM.
This was the second annual one that we were attending
in twenty nineteen UM. Unfortunately they couldn't do one last year.
And right we were ostensibly there to conduct an interview
with Denise and Roy Yamagucci, Denise being the CEO of
the Hawaii Food and Mind Festival, among other things, um
(03:02):
Roy being a chef and restaurant tour and a contestant um.
But yeah, it was such glorious madness um that Andrew
and Dylan wound up just just hanging out capturing a
lot of sound. Yeah, it was a It was a
very memorable experience. And there was just so much going on.
And I remember being shocked that this was an event
(03:27):
at a grocery store and people were so excited about it.
There were just all these sounds happening, like bells ringing,
and hundreds of people in these huge lines exactly exactly,
and we were looking around like, well, we've got to
go over there and record that, Sally, We've got to
go over there, and and yeah, trying to conduct this
(03:48):
interview and it was just this lovely, lovely chaos. Yeah.
So if you have headphones, get them on because because
here is our our first three D udio clip from
that event, and we're back into the world of two D.
(04:34):
Although I don't know that that actually applies an audio,
but that's what we're going with. Sure. Yeah, yeah, still
working out the terminology. It's cool, Yes, yes, it's just
I will say Tuna is one of my very favorite foods.
I know. I said that in my random mismash when
Richard Blaze asked me when we were on food Court
and he was like, what are your favorite foods? And
I was like, it's peanut butter and tuna and kale,
(04:55):
which is a very strange assortment. Um. And that does
make me feel torn a lot about the tuna, because yeah,
there are a lot of issues around it. Interesting to me,
I've never had tuna casserole or a tuna sandwich. You've
never had a tuna sandwich? No, Um, I wonder if
(05:16):
it was a mayo issue. But also I do think
there was a lot of judgment about like the smell
of a tuna sandwich, at least where I because I
had a friend who really loved tuna sandwiches and she
could never convince me to eat them, and I felt
like it was just like not cool to family. It
(05:38):
was one of my childhood staples for sure. Um. I
still have a couple of cans of tuna. I don't
have anything to And you don't have to mix it
with mayo. You can mix it with you know, like
like yogurt or sour cream or something like that. But Okay,
all right, maybe I will try it out. My friend
too who ate the tu new sandwiches when I was
(06:00):
growing up. She's still one of my best friends, and
she also always has a can of tuna on hand. Yeah.
But a friend of mine in high school she introduced
me to sushi and sashimi I never had until then,
and most of the stuff she picked for me to
try was tuna based, and I just fell in love. Yeah, yeah,
(06:22):
oh no, absolutely, I oh yeah, I love a tuna
um in all preparations all the time. I prefer I
generally prefer it raw, generally prefer fish in its raw
form um. But but yeah, it's just it's just tasty. Yeah,
I also prefer it ron. We've been we've been lamenting
about our pok cravings which won't be stated here associated
(06:48):
here as they were in Hawaii and to the level
we now know exists. Yeah, yeah, it's um there. There
just really is something about the freshness um and uh
and and simplicity of operation that you can get out there.
I want to go back right now someday, Lauren, someday,
(07:09):
and you can see our pok and fishing industry episodes
from our wah who mini series that we did for
more about that and our experiences with that. Um. And
also you can see Lauren and I are thirteen Days
of Halloween episodes which were done in this three D
audio if you're really into this three D audio. And
(07:29):
both of them are related to food ish, they're like
a jasp years is more directly related to food. Mine
is about guts. But that that's that that is food related. Sure, yeah,
I think so, I think so. But all right, let's
get to our question. Yes, skip jack tuna, what is it? Well,
(07:57):
the skip jack tuna is a small kind of corpedo
shaped tuna. Um. There's some debate about whether it belongs
in its own genus or not, but I've mostly seen
it as its own genus katsu wolnus polamus. It's also
called benito, lesser tunny, victor fish aku um in Hawaiian u, katsu,
(08:17):
and watermelon. That is quite a range of names. Uh,
also lesser tuni and get out here. But at least
there's victor fish to build that out right right. I
like the two of them right next to each other.
I believe it's it's lesser in that it's a smaller
version of other species. And genuses of tuna, um and
(08:42):
watermelon comes in because of the pattern ng on their bellies.
So um. These are smooth fish, not very scaly, with
silver bellies that are striped long ways with with black
or gray he's the watermelon yeah um, and then a
dark blue purple black coloration along their upper backs. Um.
Like many birds. Many fish to up light coloration on
their bellies and dark coloration on their backs, so they
(09:03):
blend in with the bright light of the surface or
sky when you look up at them from below, and
then have a darker back to blend in with the
depths or the ground when you look down at them
from above. They can grow skip jack tuna to be
about four ft long a little bit over a meter
in a way up to seventy pounds. They're typically less
than half that, more like a quarter of that. However,
(09:27):
they hang out in the open ocean called the pelagic
zone in tropical and subtropical parts of the Pacific, Atlantic
and Indian oceans, and uh migrate in schools of thousands
a fellow skip jack plus big eye and yellow fin tuna.
They'll even school with like sharks and whales. They're they're
just they're just buddies. They're just friends, want to hang out. UM.
Their habitat around the globe forms a band sometimes called
(09:50):
tuna alley. I just really like that. Um. They hang
around the surface during the day, but can dive some
eight D defeat that's two sixty at night. They can
partially regulate in this conserve body temperature in cool water.
Tuna are predators in their ecosystems, and skip Jack can
(10:10):
eat up to a quarter of their own body weight
every day in other animals UM, pretty much whatever they
can catch up to an including other tuna. Tuna are cannibals. Yikes, yep,
so tuna alleys dangerous. Yeah, yeah, you don't wanna, don't
don't don't want to meet that tune in a dark alley?
No no, um uh. Sometimes they breed seasonally, but others
(10:34):
will breed year round UM. Female skipjack can produce and
release eggs up to two million a year UM, and
then males release sperm to fertilize them, and then those eggs,
when once fertilized, will hatch like within a day. They'll
grow to maturity in about a year UM. Left to
their own devices, skip Jack live about seven to twelve years.
It's caught by small and industrial fishers alike, using everything
(10:57):
from hand lines that catch a single fish at the
time to these a purse scene, which is a type
of large net that looks kind of like a purse
hence the name the capture whole schools at once UM.
Because it lives midwater column fishing, it doesn't disturb the
ocean bed, which is environmentally good. UM bycatch can be
a problem with those purse scene, especially when used with
(11:20):
objects that are meant to attract like lots of fish,
but that is regulated UM and although it is very
heavily fished, it's not considered overfished. UM. That's definitely being monitored,
and it's always kind of a situation where it's like, well,
it's not being over fished right up until it is,
and so watching out for that line can be difficult.
Populations in the Atlantic have been on the decline but
(11:43):
currently seems stable in the Pacific, and overfishing of larger
species of tuna is actually kind of helping because there's
less predation from those over fished species, so ecosystems m hey,
we're a food show. Purportedly, the meat of skip jack
(12:06):
tuna is um. This deep scarlet red and slightly translucent.
When it's raw, it's just it looks like little gemstones.
When it's cut into little poke a cubes goodness, Um,
it cooks down to like an opaque light gray UM.
It's firm and distinctly tuna. Eat it's it's the strongest
tasting of the tuna, especially when cooked, and its flavor
(12:29):
is a savory and meaty and fishy and a little
briny when it's raw and then takes on yeah, more
of a fishy flavor when cooked. It is often canned
um and sometimes labeled as light tuna. I don't think
that has anything to do with like the fat content
or caloric content, but rather the color of the tuna. Um.
(12:51):
It can also yeah, be eaten fresh, either raw or
cooked in a variety of ways, or dried um, eaten
as a sort of jerky, or used as a season
ng um. The row are eaten too and uh. Although
most of this is talking about like like steaks of tuna. UM.
The bones and surrounding me are also used primarily in
cuisines where they're caught um either grilled or or used
(13:14):
in soups and stews. All kinds of things right, And
that was honestly a surprise to me researching this is
that whole like light tuna thing. I didn't realize that
the same tuna that is ink is the yes can Yeah,
no idea, but it is very much so, uh it is.
We're We're about to get into the numbers in a second. Um,
(13:36):
it was. It was a total surprise to me. Absolutely.
Well what about the nutrition, Well, it depends on how
you prepare it, but skip check tuna into itself is
pretty good for you. It's a very lean protein, so um,
it'll fill you up and help keep you going. Pair
it with the vegetable and a little bit more fat
for more staying power. Um. Mercury and other contaminants in
(14:00):
fish is still a whole other episode unto itself. But skipjack,
being smaller and younger when they're caught than other species
of tuna, do tend to be lower in contaminants. So
we do have some numbers for you. Oh gosh, we do. Okay, yes,
So of the fifteen types of tuna, skip jack is
(14:21):
the smallest as in size, commercially exploited variety, and the
most abundant because it's so small. Um. Even though it's
fished the most, it's total market value is about the
same as the larger yellow fin tuna, which is fished
like half as much. Right. People's love of skip jack
(14:42):
tuna has increased over the last several decades, especially I
mean in the United States, UM, about three hundred thousand
metric tons were caught in nineteen fifty in that number
was one million, six hundred seventy four thousand, nine hundred
seventy metric times. Yep. These days skip jack tuna. They
(15:03):
make up about of world consumption of tuna. Americans account
for about four hundred thousand metric tons across all species
of tuna annually. In half of the almost seven million
ton global harvest of tuna and similar species was skip jack. Yeah,
as some numbers put skipjack as high as being six
(15:26):
of all legally caught tuna. Um and ent of it
goes to canned tuna, right uh yeah, And most estimates
suggest that six of all canned tuna in the US
is skip jack. From nine two thousand, the most popular
seafood in the US was tuna, which surprised me was shrimp.
(15:48):
We need to return to shrimp one day. Oh yeah,
I have questions, yes, um, but yeah, most of this
tuna eaten from a can. At the height of canned
tunas populator of American households kept at least one can
in stock. Today, though Europe has the largest share of
(16:08):
the global market of canned tuna over as of nineteen.
That same year, the global market for cantatuna was worth
eight point two billion dollars day. However, since two thousand,
demand for cantuna has been steadily dropping due to concerns
around mercury, poisoning dolphin bycatch, rising price, and pivoting interests
(16:32):
towards fresh while the American demand for cantuna has decreased
even with COVID nineteen. Stockpiling products like tuna in a bag,
perhaps to appeal to people who don't own can openers,
um has been They have been introduced in a variety
of flavors. For example, Starkist offers bacon ranch spicy Korean,
(16:55):
among at least seventeen other flavors. Bacon ranch tuna questions
many questions, many, Well, it's sure okay. According to an
article from Hakai magazine, possibly hakaie Um, the skip jack
tuna caught in just the western Central Pacific in just
(17:22):
if you took all those fish and you'll line them
up nose to tail, they would circle the planet twelve times.
That means, to put it another bizarre way, Um, according
to this article, if you could lie them in a
straight line all the way up into space, uh, they
(17:42):
would touch the boon and then stretch another eight kilometers
pasted it. I don't know why you would do that.
I'm trying to figure out what we could do with
this tower of tuna. It's it's like a space cell
later but it's just fish. Um, I'm not I'm not
(18:03):
entirely sure why. It sounds like a bizarre thing that
they would have you do in like Katamara Domincy, like
in some kind of side side level. But yeah, that's
a lot of tuned. Yeah the point, they're being a
lot and we do have quite a lot of history
(18:25):
for you. We do. But first we've got a quick
break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So humans that live
near bodies of water have been eating fish for just
(18:46):
about forever. Some researchers, to your eyes that our ancestors
were eating fish and shellfish two million years ago. Yeah,
yeah again, kind of like with blue rab. I couldn't
find many specifics of skip jack tunas evolution and role
(19:07):
in the human diet, but I, you know, a long
time I would say skip jack tuna has played a
vital role in foundational dishes and some regions like Japan,
where records show it was served in the third century
h c e. At the Yamato Imperial Court. Tuna is
(19:28):
a key ingredient and some versions of the Japanese soup
stock dashi, as well as dried benito, which are definitely
other episodes. Was about to say, probably as though I
had not already done all the reading for this and
decided that that was a different episode, right right, but
very very briefly, yeah, yeah. Um. Some of the very
(19:49):
first records of precursors to bonito and Japan date back
to the seven hundred eighteen euro Code, which described a
similar item as quote seasoning from fish that has been
boiled and dried hard. The first records of smoke dried
benito surfaced in sixteen seventy four. A well known legend
(20:10):
posits that this was sort of an accidental discovery of
a fisherman who were shipwrecked and decided to smoke some
skip jack tuna over a wood fire and found the
taste much improved. In seventeen seventies, some people figured out
that smoke dry skip jack tuna could be even further
improved by growing mold on it. The popular story behind
(20:31):
this one is that it was also an accidental discovery,
perhaps after our emergence, product of skip jack molden during shipment,
or a wholesaler hesitated to throwout molded skip jack tuna.
But yes, future episode. Skip Jack was so plentiful in
the waters around Japan that for a long time it
was viewed as a quote common fish. In the eleven hundreds,
(20:55):
a monk wrote that the poor tossed out the heads
of skip Jack, I guess, implying even the poor Yeah,
right um. However, that perception shifted by the sixteen hundreds
to eighteen hundreds somewhere in there, when the skibjeck tuna
was prized and highly sought after in Japan. The so
called first catch or hotsu getsuo in late spring or
(21:18):
early summer was the crim dollar crime. That is what
you wanted. There was even a saying quote, I'd be
willing to pawn my wife for a taste of hotsu
getsuo wow. Like yeah. Indigenous Hawaiians commonly ate the skibjet,
tuna or aku whole raw, dried or cooked. And there
(21:41):
are a bunch of Hawaiian legends involving aku um in
one chief and his people while first traveling to the
islands by canoe um we're caught in a storm, but
saved by school of aku that calmed the waters around them,
and that therefore, for a few days a year, eating
aku was prohibited. Now, let's talk briefly about Maryland state boat,
(22:05):
the skip Jack. I know, Maryland, you've got a lot
of official state symbols. Although I did look it up,
seventeen other states have state boats, so you know, not
that uncommon. Sure, yeah, yeah, but you've got a dinosaur
and a boat. You've got a crustacean. I don't know,
(22:26):
you've got a lot going on. Good for you. But
this boat was first recorded in Maryland in the nineteenth
century and it was a motorless boat used for dredging oysters.
It's still used in the chest Peak Bay to this
day because of restrictions oyster fisheries have around power boats.
Maryland designated it the state boat in nine Yeah um yeah,
(22:50):
but yes. The food show the skipjack tuna and skip
jack mackerel and skip jack herring perhaps um, with their
reputation for speed, are believed to be the inspiration behind
the name of this boat. Okay. According to a story
collected by Jack Twyo los Sega and apologies if I
mispronouncing that passed on to him by his father. There's
(23:13):
an American Samoa and legend about the origins of a
type of skip jack tuna with a round hole in
its belly, and the legend goes as follows quote and
ancient times there was a magic fishook that fish are
attracted to. It would catch any fish. This fishhook was
granted to a man in Fiji, and it was stolen
by two demigods. They brought it to Samoa and it
(23:34):
again got stolen, and it was given as a gift
to a woman called Sina. Sina gave it to her
son Kokugu, but it got lost, so Cina went out
looking for the hook and left her son while the
boy was left on shore in Savive. When Sina found
the hook again, she brought it back to her son.
She swam all the way in went into the creek
where the rock is and couldn't find her son. She
(23:56):
thought the son had drowned and died. She was so
heartbroken that she died. I know her son was just
mucking around in the ocean. The sun came back and
found the mother and the hook. He was also heartbroken,
and he committed the tuna to pay tribute to the mother.
So every so often a special tuna will roll around
(24:17):
where the rock is and it leads the tuna. Now,
I never heard of this, This tuna with the hole
in it. Um, gotta have a good legend there. There
There are a lot of legends around special fish hooks.
I think with the skipture, I ran into a couple
(24:37):
others and I and I couldn't quite get a handle
on what they were trying to put forth, and I
eventually just gave up. I was just like, well, mysteries, mysteries, history,
another day, another day, we're through cho It's true, It's true. Well,
i's got a The Disney movie has a magic cook.
But it's been a while since I've seen that, so
(24:58):
I can't add anything more than that. I just know
there's fish involved. The first records of skip jack tuna
off the western coast of Australia popped up in nineteen
But now, let's talk for a second about the rise
of cantuna in the US, something that was really precipitated
(25:20):
by the collapse of California's offshore sardine fisheries. And that
sentence makes me want to do an episode on sardines immediately, right,
but gosh, okay, but please go ahead, okay. So these
people in this business, in this industry, we're looking for
a replacement for these sardines. So fishers pivoted towards other
(25:42):
species of fish, first albacoretuna and then two more abundant
species like yellow fin and skip jack. Most Americans at
the time did not eat fish, and what fish they
did eat was mostly salmon. Or even if they did
eat fish, they didn't eat much. Fish. On top of that, too,
was considered a trash fish. Pardon me, I know, but
(26:07):
the signature sardine packer out of San Diego, or that is,
who is often credited with being the first to switch
from sardines to albacore in nineteen o three. The first
tuna canary in that city, San Diego, opened in nineteen eleven.
According to a blog post on the San Diego Food
System Alliance website, quote in the ensuing half century, the
(26:29):
city would earn its title as the tuna capital of
the world. By the nineteen sixties, San Diego's third largest
industry would be tuna, proceeded only by the Navy and aerospace. Catching, canning,
and marketing of tuna would employ up to forty thousand
San Diegans um And yeah, not all of that tuna
(26:51):
was skip jack, but still a lot of this burgeoning
American tuna industry was informed by the influx of Japanese
and Portuguese immigrants in that area. In the nineteen fifties,
most commercial tuna harvesting moved from a baiton hook model
to yes this mechanized purse sign method, and this did
(27:12):
lead to increased product and increased profits. Americans liked cantuna
for several reasons. It was viewed as a cheap, healthy, filling,
mild protein, the chicken of the sea, as the marketing
goes to reassure Americans leery of that fishy taste. By
(27:35):
the nineteen fifties, the worldwide catch was around six hundred
and sixty thousand tons. In nine, report from the National
Marine Fisheries Service are the inn m f S stated
consumers acceptance of cantuna suit led to the development of
fishing fleets in both San Diego and San Pedro. San
(27:55):
Diego became the major base for the fleet, a position
it continues to hold through nineteen Tuna passed salmon as
America's most popular seafood choice in nineteen fifty. It's estimated
that prior to nineteen seventy of tuna eaten in the
United States was canned tuna. Wo right, this is this,
(28:19):
This is something I again, I had no clue about.
I suppose I could have guessed due to you know,
the way that the way that industrial chilling and freezing
and shipping has developed over the past you know, seventy years.
But goodness, my graciousness, my gracious indeed, I mean, and
(28:40):
this availability of cantuna allowed space for several dishes to
be created, including tuna salad. Oh yeah, so meat often ham, lobster,
and or chicken and mayonnaise based salads were popular in
the American colonies from the get go, particularly among German immigrants.
(29:02):
Also a separate episode, but for our purposes, these salads
would UM often get editions of scraps about to go
to waste like celery and then served on lettuce, which
makes me laugh because again, the word salad and all
that it can entail is hilarious to me. It's it's
honestly very upsetting when you're just trying to google stuff,
(29:24):
it's true, or when you're trying to order from a
menu and the menu was not extremely clear. Yes, but
I love that there was this like meat mannaise salad
served on lettuce, salad on salad, salads all the way down.
Oh yeah, I love good salad. As more and more
women started spending time in the public sphere at museums
(29:45):
and restaurants, towards the end of the eighteen hundreds, some
restaurants revamped their menus with women in mind for ladies
lunches or luncheons, which I didn't deep dive this, but
according to like a really superficial skimming of websites, luncheon
is legit just a more elegant word for lunch that
(30:06):
was given to um. Yeah, but I don't know for
sure if that's true, but maybe we'll return to that episode.
But yeah, these restaurants wanted to offer things that women
ate at home, like these salads um though made fresh
as opposed to with scraps, and often these were fish again,
(30:27):
usually salmon or shellfish salads, and as more women started
working in offices with limited lunch hours, restaurants started serving
these salads between bread for something quick and convenient. The
tuna didn't enter the mix until the twentieth century, with
the debut of canned tuna. By the nineteen thirties and forties,
(30:49):
American cookbooks might suggest tuna salad as an alternative to
chicken or turkey. From a nineteen thirteen edition of the
Christian Science Monitor, quote, in California, the tuna is being
introduced generally in the best restaurants, not only because it
is new, but because people are beginning to value it
for what it is. Tuna salads are getting to be popular.
(31:11):
The housekeeper can prepare the fish in a dozen different ways.
All right, true, It's all true, sure, from Lara Shapira's
book Perfection Salad. These salads were for women who quote
wanted a career and needed a cause, but they weren't
(31:32):
interested in breaking very many rules, reordering society or challenging men.
On their own turf. But they really wanted was access
to the modern world, the world of science, technology, and rationality.
And they believe the best way for women to gain
that access was to recreate man's world in woman's sphere.
I want to read that book. I gotta say, yeah.
And I think I think we talked about it in
(31:55):
Our Aspects episode. I think we did. I think we did.
And now let's talk about tuna casserole, which again I've
never had, but I knew about because my mom made
chicken casserole and after I left, she told me that
they made it with tuna, and that she never used
(32:16):
tuna because she didn't think her kids would like it.
Oh huh, okay, yes, But so at its core, this
is a mixture of cantuna, cream of mushroom soup, and noodles. Uh.
And this was another recipe thought up in the US
after the introduction of cantuna. The first recorded recipe came
(32:38):
out of Washington State in nineteen thirty This first recipe
used a white sauce um, but after cream of mushroom
soup came out, most recipes used that instead. Beginning in
nineteen thirty four, during World War Two, tuna casserole became
popular in Australia thanks to shortages, often supplemented by canned foods.
(33:02):
Local versions made after the war frequently used homemade white
sauce and sometimes skipped out on the noodles entirely. I
would love to hear from Australian listeners about this because
I read it seems like it's still popular. Huh. You know, Um,
I think that, Yeah, tuna noodle casserole isn't unpopular in
(33:25):
the United States. Um, but yeah, it's not something I
have a lot of personal experience with either. My my
parents didn't make it for me when I was growing up,
and so I never really acquired a taste for it. Um.
But let us know, listeners, Yes, skip jack tuna are occur.
In this case accounted for six of the commercial fish
(33:46):
landings in Hawaiti. Eaton still primarily caught using the poll
on line method by number dropped to four point five cent,
and part of this job had to do with what
some call a color laps in the production of US
canned tuna. The Canary Hawaiian Tuna Packers closed in night
(34:07):
four in nineteen sixty three. Synopsis of technical and biological
data for skip jack tuna were compiled for the Pacific, Indian,
and Atlantic oceans as well as the Mediterranean. See for
the u N's Food and Agricultural Organization, the f a
O sponsored event that they were having, the World Scientific
Meeting on the Biology of Tunas and related species always
(34:31):
have the most scinct names. I guess it's to the
point though, alright it is. Yeah. Meanwhile, Um, it was
the arrival of increasing numbers of Japanese tourists to Hawaii
in the nineteen seventies that played a major role in
making tuna the protein of choice for ok and that
(34:54):
in turn would lead to changes in how the entire
fishing industry works in Hawaii because as technology advanced, and
thanks to the increasing popularity of tuna, hand line fishing,
which is this method of deep sea fishing that goes
back to ancient Hawaiians, became a commercially important method in
the nineteen seventies. Um, it's environmentally valuable because it lets
(35:16):
you catch just specifically the fish that you want without
by catch, because you're, yeah, just dropping that vertical line
down into the water, catching a single fish on that line,
and pulling it up either manually or mechanically. Yes, and
you can again see the episode we did in our
walking mini series on the fishing industry in Hawaii. But
(35:41):
speaking of perhaps it's time for another Yes, it's prettical
m okay, and welcome once again back to the world
(36:13):
of two d Not as exciting as the pok battle. Fewer,
fewer bells, yes, a little bit less crowded, sort of calmer,
right right, but a fond memory nonetheless. As the popularity
of canned tuna grew in the U s, fisheries had
(36:34):
to bolster their supply with imports from Japan, South Korea,
and Thailand. In the International Trade Commission estimated Americans accounted
for one third of all tuna consumption and half to
two thirds of canned tuna consumption. Soon after that, as
health and environmental concerns around tuna filtered to the American
(36:57):
public at large, those number started to drop. After reports
of dolphins dying as a result of the tuna industry
in the nineteen eighties, some consumers started boycotting the can stuff,
and to assure the public, some companies started selling quote
dolphins safe tuna. In the nineties, Uh yeah, I remember
(37:18):
that was goodness. Um catches of all tuna species globally
peaked in And this is outside the scope of this episode,
but I was curious about the history of eating fish
in the United States because I feel like, for a
long time, in my neck of the woods, which if
you've somehow missed, it is Georgia and not coastal Georgia
(37:41):
like interior. Yes, Georgia, Yeah, exactly. Um, people didn't like fish.
Usually they would say something about the smell as why
they didn't like it. And then I feel like it
became a health thing and it was really in vogue,
and now it's much more popular. Um. And this is
all anecdotal, This is just my experience. I generally liked
(38:01):
it from a young age because my mom did grow
up with access to waters and she did fish and crab.
But I also avoided tuna sandwiches because I thought i'd
be made fun of, like I said, and I did
look it up, and of course people have researched this.
Some of the first commercial industries in the U S
colonies were fish industries, but fish wasn't necessarily held in
(38:26):
the highest esteem, partly because of the settlers. Uh you know,
they're mostly Protestants. Um. Or otherwise not Catholic, and I
was kind of like famously what they said they were
um and seafood, which could be eaten on religious days
that prohibited the eating of meat, and the Catholic religion.
(38:47):
That meant it was associated with Catholicism. Seafood was associated
with Catholicism um through various ways of immigration, popularizing fish,
and a push during the World Wars to eat fish
and sit of meat, and therefore associating fish as a
food for victory. Americans attitudes toward fish did change, however,
(39:08):
once the wars ended, it was seen as more of
this food of sacrifice. It wasn't until the nineteen seventies
and eighties, when Japanese immigrants introduced sushi to the mainstream,
that Americans decided fish was once again worth eating. For
comparison at his peak, annual American seafood consumption has only
(39:30):
reached about fifteen pounds of person, which is very recent,
I believe, compared to about two pounds of beef, chicken, turkey, lamb,
and pork. The US is still the second largest consumer
of seafood in the world, behind China and before Japan.
Some speculate more modern reasons for Americans low rate of
fish consumption has to do with mix and often confusing
(39:53):
messaging around sustainability and health. So yes, that's a whole
it could be a whole different episode by just curious
about kind of the ups and downs there. Yeah, yeah, no,
And and that's super interesting. Um I I guess I
it's it's it's strange to hear that because to me,
(40:14):
seafood is like fancier than most other types of proteins. Um,
it's sort of like special occasion. Um. Even even something
like I don't know, like I didn't grow up eating
stuff like a like catfish at home, but like to me,
if I see it on the menu, I'm like, oh,
And I know that other people are like that's a
trash fish, like that's a bottom feeder, tastes like mud.
(40:37):
But I'm like, no, fancy day catfish. Oh man, Um,
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a good
point because I know I've said, especially in the Red
Lobster episode, that was our fancy restaurant, but almost all
of us got shrimp. Yea, the seafood right too fishy anyway,
(41:02):
So many paths we could follow from this episode yes, yes,
but for now, that is what we have to say
about the skip check tuna. It is um and we
do have some listener mail for you, but first we've
got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor.
(41:29):
We're back, Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you, and we're
back with listen. I'm interested to hear how that one
turned out. So I really like went with it motion
(41:50):
wise and got pretty far away from the microphone. So yeah,
and I and I wasn't my my internet connection did
the thing where it was like, oh man, Lawrence taking noise,
I'm just gonna cut off Annie's audio. So in the
middle of it, I was like, I don't know where
your voice is going. That's it's pretty cool, pretty cool.
Always an adventure technology, y'all. I love it. Mm hmmm
(42:13):
um bob root When Annie said she never tried root beer,
I felt shocked. Like Lauren, I grew up on the
stuff and love it. It's definitely my favorite soda. However,
living in China all these years, it has been difficult
insofar as root beer is a rarity here the Chinese
hated you asked her info from overseas listeners on the subject,
(42:37):
So here you go. Anytime I found it and offered
them a taste, they have all, save one individual, hated it,
the claim being that it tastes like Chinese medicine. What's
worse is when I was living in Macau and working
with other pilots from all over the globe, they all
seemed to think the same. I couldn't believe my ears.
(42:58):
Root beer is great. The game Macau and Ju High
it was not so bad. I could often go across
the river to Hong Kong and bring some home from there.
I was so happy when I found IBC there, but
was perfectly happy with hires, R, A and W. For
many years. Since moving north to Beijing, I've only been
able to get root beer on trips home. But now,
(43:20):
in the same week that I heard your episode just
days before, in fact, I was able to order some
packets of D I, Y and W root beer mix,
and it's great. I'm so happy. I just carbonate a
bottle of cold water with my soda stream type device,
then add two packets of the mix and woila. I
have A and W root beer and I'm so happy.
(43:41):
It's sugar free to boot. This is great. This is
like a much larger scale version of our regional things
that we talked in the US from people in different
parts of the world about root beer and their thoughts
about root beer. But I'm very happy you're able to
make your own. If you can't find it, at least
(44:03):
you can make it. Yes uh uh, Rachel wrote, I
don't really have insight into why pork broth isn't more
popular in the US, but I work for a food manufacturer,
and many years ago we used to make what I
referred to as the unholy trinity of ham, clam, and
pork stocks. Many of our products are kosher, so I
(44:24):
suspect the reason we no longer make them is the
amount of effort it took to keep these separated and
to properly clean all of the blending, processing and packaging
equipment after The Other thing that may or may not
contribute to their rarity is the flavor of the product
we were making. I don't think I ever tasted the ham. Uh.
The clam tasted how you would expect clam stock to taste,
(44:45):
but the pork pork stock of the Brandon formula that
we made tasted exactly like burnt popcorn. I have no
idea why, and it wasn't a bad flavor, just very
very strange. It's very very strange. Burnt popcorn broth is
(45:08):
a confusing phrase. It is it is that reminds me.
This is such a specific story. But once I asked
for soup. I was like nine years old and I
asked for soup and my dad was very tired, and
it was probably ten PM, and he was like really frustrating,
like okay, and he gets out a can of Campbell
(45:30):
soup and he opens it up and he pours it
into our big bowl of burnt It was popcorn, but
it was just like the burnt corn curl that was
left and he poured it in there and he handed
handed it and I looked in it as like what
And then he looked down and he was like, don't
tell your mother about He's just on auto pilot. Oh
(45:57):
did you eat it? Anyway, We'll just put us in
another bowl. Eat it up. It's gonna be fine. I
love bird popcorn. Oh goodness, yes, well anyway, Um, Tank
to both of those listeners for writing, UM, we do
(46:19):
want to say we have one more very special three
D clip for this very very special three D episode.
Um and stay and stay tuned after the credits roll.
This is like an m CU post scene. Awesome. It's
so yes, Yes, stay stay tuned and and immerse yourselves
(46:40):
back in that hectic and wonderful Pokey battle scene. Yes,
please do that. It is a delight. We think you'll
love it. And also if you would like to contact
us that you can. Our email is Hello at savor
pot dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Facebook, Instant Graham, and Twitter at savor
(47:01):
pod and we do hope to hear from you. Savor
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, you can visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan
Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
we hope that lots more good things in three D
are coming your way. This episode was brought to you
(47:51):
in i Heeart three D Audio. To experience more podcasts
like this, search for i Heeart three D audio in
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