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After being loaded onto the cart, the fish are brought to a lab inside the NOAA building, where they are left to thaw overnight before being inspected. The lab is cool and crowded with refrigerators and processing equipment. Not surprisingly, it smells like fish.
While the recent arrivals begin to defrost, we are led to a black counter on the other side of the lab where two workers from NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center are preparing a cobia, also known as lemon fish or ling fish, that was caught a few days ago for inspection.
Wearing latex gloves, they carefully remove a filet from one side and place it into a Pyrex bowl for the sensory team. Then they remove a filet that is carefully wrapped and then prepared for shipment to the Seattle lab for chemical analysis.
By the time it gets there, the results from the sensory test will be known. If it passed the sniff test, it will undergo chemical testing; if not, it doesn't.
Onward to the sniffing station.
Click here to read the next post in the series: No spicy food, but deodorant is OK
Leave a Comment:
This "fish sniffing" profession would potentially seem to be wide open to pressures coming from the Seafood Industry itself. With Industry survival on the line, they're not going to take kindly to the sniffer that puts the nix their fish. Further, let a little time pass and the likelihood of under-the-table payments to okay a shipment would be a growing, ever present danger.
Who ever is handling these blogs put my previous message up before it was completely edited. Let the blogger (me) hit the button before you put it up!