Fish School : Seafood Seminar: A Day at the Markets : Shopping: Buying fish intimidates even experienced cooks. That’s why we asked for expert advice.

Everybody who has ever bought a fish knows that you are supposed to look for bright eyes, red gills and firm, shiny flesh. And everybody who has ever bought a fish in Los Angeles knows that this advice is useless. When was the last time you actually bought a fish in your supermarket that had eyes and gills? What do you do when all you’ve got to choose from is fish that’s already cut and wrapped up in plastic? Why doesn’t anybody tell you how to buy a fillet of fish?

We decided to ask an expert--a man who can look at a fish from 10 feet and tell you not only what it is, but also what’s wrong with it.

Julia Child calls Jon Rowley “the fish missionary.” His Seattle company, Fish Works, teaches chefs how to buy the very best. That’s all very well when you’re able to walk into wholesale markets and start poking at the products, but most of us don’t have that luxury. So we asked Rowley to get real.

“Come to the supermarket,” we said, “and show us how to pick great fish.”

The fish missionary was undaunted. “Sure,” he said. We expected to take Rowley to a couple of supermarkets, feed him lunch and wave goodby. We had not reckoned with a man who is by fish obsessed. We started out at 10 in the morning; by 6 p.m. we had visited seven stores and examined hundreds of fish. We were exhausted; Rowley was ready to keep going. He was deeply disappointed that we didn’t have time to drive to Cerritos, to Glendale, to Montebello.

Supermarket No. 1--a major chain in a low- income, ethnically diverse neighborhood.

Standing in the parking lot, Rowley looks around, notes the trash on the ground and says: “There are a few things you should look for the minute you walk into a store. First, notice the smell: No matter how much fish is being sold, the store should not smell fishy. If it does, leave. Second, it should be antiseptically clean. The glass should glisten. The stainless steel should be spotless. The ice should be fresh and sparkling. And there should be no ice on top of the cut fish fillets--melting ice seeps into the fillets and leaches flavor out. Finally, look at the labels: Are they correct, or is the store mislabeling the fish?”

The morning sun is beating down and our small group is standing in the parking lot, scribbling furiously. A homeless man comes over, looks hopefully at us, then wanders off in disgust as Rowley leans into his subject.

“Yesterday,” he says, his voice managing to combine both incredulity and indignation, “I went to a very fancy Westside store. I asked where the oysters were from and the guy behind the counter said, ‘Up north.’ But he was wrong: They were East Coast oysters. It’s a whole different species--you can tell by the shells.” He shakes his head in dismay. The lecture is over. We walk into the supermarket.

This market turns out to have a large and very busy fish counter. Dozens of kinds of fish fillets are attractively draped over a bed of crushed ice while crabs skittle happily through the waters of a fish tank and a single, enormous lobster luxuriates in another. “We had three of these guys a few days ago,” confides the fish man, holding up a five-pound lobster for our inspection. “We sold the other two, and this one will be gone by tonight. Seventy-five dollars--we sell a lot of lobster here.”

The store seems to sell a lot of everything; the fish is beautifully arranged, and there’s a great deal of it. So why is Rowley scowling? “It’s eye-catching,” he admits, “but ice doesn’t refrigerate upward. The cut fillets are exposed to the air. Unless the fish moves really fast, it’s better in a refrigerated case. And there’s just too much here to move really fast.”

He motions at different fish, pointing out their attributes. “See that catfish--look at the shine. See how much light it’s reflecting? That’s very good. It looks healthy, it must have been recently killed. That fish has a good aspect.” Before the day is over, we will have come to appreciate what Rowley calls “aspect.” That is his description of the translucent luminosity you see only in really fresh fish.

But luminosity is not everything. The shiniest fish in the case is labeled “turbot,” and although it looks wonderful, Rowley frowns at it. “Arrowtooth flounder,” he says dismissively. “That’s a fish that has no redeeming social value. Cook it and it turns to mush. It looks cheap at $3.19 a pound, but you’ll be sorry if you buy it.”

Now he turns to something labeled “red ocean perch,” a beautiful fish with mottled red skin. “That,” he says happily, “is a very good buy at $5.39. It’s short-spine thornyhead--fishermen call them ‘idiots’--and they’re hard to find because the big ones are all sold to Japan.” Rowley asks the fish man to pick up a fillet and turn it over. He looks closely, nods. “See how white the flesh is?” he asks. “This is a fish that doesn’t show bruising.”

He points to the thresher shark, sitting right next to the thornyhead. “That,” he says, “is a badly bruised fish. It looks like it died under a lot of trauma. See the color, see how pink it is? It would taste cleaner if it had white-looking meat. All that pink is contusions--the fish are caught in nets and thrash around until they die, so blood gets into the meat. Before they outlawed long-line thresher shark fishing, the fish had a whole different look to it; it was gorgeous.”

Now Rowley is pointing at one fish after another, talking about “bad death.” This is something we’ll hear a lot about as the day goes on. “It’s one of the real problems,” he says. “These fish are caught in gill-nets, and they’ve died hard. They are not going to taste very good. See that red snapper--the flesh does not naturally have that red tint, it should be white. That’s just blood.” He finds pinkish catfish fillets that he doesn’t much like either; they too have died a bad death.

The worst buy in the case? Rowley doesn’t hesitate. “The butterfish at $5.39 a pound,” he says. “Those are fillets of immature black cod. There should be a law against harvesting these fish so young; when the fish gets larger it has a high oil content and it’s really excellent. But these small ones have not become what they will be, and they are not good eating. What a waste of a magnificent resource!”

Salmon is another matter. In general, Rowley says, the percentages are with you when you buy salmon. Americans like it, so salmon sells quickly, and since it is a farmed fish it can be raised and killed properly and delivered promptly. Indeed, as we walk into store after store, we will find salmon that is luminous and clear and looks very delicious.

But now Rowley is moving away from this fish display and over to the refrigerated case. He picks up the packages of pre-wrapped and priced fish. “People think that this is the old stuff that they couldn’t sell over there,” he says, pointing back toward the pretty fish on ice, “but it isn’t always. Look at this stuff!” He picks up a package, poking it and stroking the plastic wrap. He is holding a piece of halibut. “See how much better the fish in the case is than that fish over there?” What he is holding does indeed have white flesh, a luminous aspect and no spots of blood. “The case is colder, and the fish isn’t exposed to air. It’s much better off here.”

Supermarket No. 2--a different chain, just across the street.

Walking through the produce department is very encouraging; it’s huge and fragrant and the fruits, vegetables and herbs are gorgeously displayed. There’s even a carpet on the floor. So we are unprepared for the disaster in the fish case. The best of the fish look desiccated; the worst look downright disgusting. Not surprisingly, there is nobody buying fish.

“According to the government,” says Rowley, “fish is considered ‘wholesome’ so long as it is ‘not toxic.’ And most of this fish is in tough shape.”

He points out that the squid is purplish pink--an indication of age, it should be gray instead--and the trout have dull skin and sunken eyes. “In general,” he hastens to add, “the eyes are not an indication of much. With some species of fish--such as quillback rockfish--the eyes go cloudy very quickly. With trout, the fish will taste terrible long before the eyes get cloudy.” One doesn’t like to think what this says about the age of these particularly unappealing trout.

Rowley pounces on the Eastern oysters. “Where are they from?” he asks the woman behind the counter. “I have no idea,” she replies, “and I wouldn’t even want to start lying to you.”

Rowley smiles and says softly: “Can you check the box?” If Rowley has a motto, it is “Don’t Be Shy.” The woman disappears into a door behind the counter. “By law,” says Rowley, “the store is required to have the shipping bills, which tell you when and where the mollusks were harvested. But most of them don’t, so you have to ask to look at the box they came in.” The woman returns. “Someplace in Mexico,” she says cheerfully. Rowley shudders. “That would mean they’re from the Gulf,” he mutters.

“The salmon looks OK,” one of our group pipes up. “Does it?” asks Rowley. “Look again.” We peer into the fish case. The fish does seem to be a bit fatty. “Yes,” says Rowley, “look more closely. Do you notice anything about the fat?” We peer at the fish. The fat seems to be floating on the surface of the fish. “Right!” exclaims Rowley, as if we have just passed an important exam. “It’s meat fat. A lot of supermarkets don’t separate the fish and meat departments. That fish was cut on a meat table.”

This is not the most appetizing thought. We turn to go. “You sure I can’t help you with something?” the fish woman calls after us.

Supermarket No. 3--in the same chain as Supermarket No. 1, but in an upscale area.

The display here is very similar to the one in Supermarket No. 1, although there are some fancier, high-priced fish on display. Laid out across the ice are tuna, yellowtail and swordfish. None of them, however, find much favor with Rowley.

“That tuna looks like trouble to me. See how some of it is brown and some of it is red? That’s an indication that it has been through temperature fluctuation. And tuna should always be covered with plastic wrap, not exposed to air. Tuna oxidizes when it comes into contact with the air, it turns brown, but it’s a different brown.” But what really troubles Rowley is an opalescence, a sort of rainbow, on the flesh. “That’s an indication that it could give you scombroid poisoning,” he says.

The yellowtail he finds “wet, but not shiny” (this is not good). And the swordfish looks old. “See how brown that blood from the circulatory system is?” he says, pointing. “It should be bright and red. I wouldn’t buy that.”

Once again Rowley moves to the wrapped fish in the meat case. Once again he finds it more impressive than the fish on ice. “This true cod,” he says, “is a truly beautiful piece of fish. Look at that aspect! See how it shines! Look at the contrast of the translucent white and the bright red.”

He is pawing through the packages, picking up one piece of fish after another. He holds up a piece of cod, but this one looks dull, a bit brown around the edges. He compares it to the first piece. “Don’t they look different? This cod could have been caught hundreds of miles from that one, and it could have been bought from a different source. It’s all been stirred up, mixed together and then sent out. Just because it’s being sold in the same store, don’t assume that it all comes from the same place. You really have to look to see that you’re buying the best there is.”

And there is a lot here that is far from the best. In some cases we find old fish and new fish packed together. In others we find packages filled with water; this really annoys Rowley. “Never buy a piece of fish in a watery package,” he says. “Really good fish has no drip.”

There’s a lot of water floating around the bottom of the scallop package too, but there’s something else about these mollusks that Rowley doesn’t like. They are white around the edges. “These scallops have been steamed open, which has cooked the edges,” he says. “You don’t want that--you’re getting part raw and part cooked flesh. Scallops should be clear and translucent throughout, never opaque.”

He thinks the halibut is tired, the mahi-mahi isn’t really mahi-mahi and the tuna downright scary. Would he buy anything here? “That cod in the refrigerated case,” he says, “will eat great.”

Two fish stores.

When Rowley sees a fish store, he comes to a screeching halt. Although we had specifically asked him to show us how to buy fish in supermarkets, he is incapable of passing a place that sells fish without going inside. In the first store he complains that there is a strong fish smell and the glass in the case is not clean. He is also unhappy with the way the fish have been cut. “The knife work is sloppy,” he says, pointing out that one steak is one-half inch taller on one side than the other, which will make it very difficult to cook.

Then he asks about something marked “fresh halibut.” The man behind the counter says it is from Alaska. Rowley nods pleasantly, but back on the street he says: “The season in Alaska isn’t open yet. It’s from Canada. I wish people wouldn’t lie.”

In the next store, Rowley is particularly upset by the paucity of ice (“with whole fish you have to keep the ice coming through the fish, which keeps the bacteria away”), and the number of fish that have bruises that show as blood beneath the skin. “Bad death,” he keeps muttering under his breath.

A large Chinese supermarket.

We are very proud to be showing off this store: Its tanks are filled with fish, with crabs, with shellfish, and its endless refrigerated cases are filled with an enormous variety of seafood. But we are hardly in the door before Rowley starts frowning.

He is standing by the display of mollusks. Water runs and bubbles over living oysters, Manila clams, little neck clams and mussels. It looks wonderful; Rowley looks sad. “Putting all these mollusks in a closed system is dangerous,” he mutters. “If any one of these dies--or if there is one bad oyster--it will contaminate all the others. And it’s so unnecessary. The best storage for live mollusks is just to put them in a refrigerator. These shellfish keep well--Manila clams will keep for a week, and those littleneck clams are good for two.”

Neither is he particularly impressed by the live crabs in the tank. “With crabs, just being alive doesn’t mean much. Once you put them in a tank, they start losing their fat. With a crab, you can’t tell what’s inside until you get into it. So you have to ask how often the crabs come into the store, and then you just have to buy one and see.” On top of that, he says, these crabs are too small. “I like them over two pounds, because the meat/shell ratio is better.”

Rowley inspects the trays filled with sheephead (“mushy when they’re steamed”) and catfish. And then he says something very surprising: The dead catfish looks nice, and he’d buy that instead of one swimming in the tank. “I have the hardest time convincing people of this,” he says, “but fish can be too fresh.” And then, to convince us , he picks one of the dead catfish and has the man behind the counter snag a living one from the tank. The man holds up the wriggling fish for his inspection, picks up a club and dispatches it with one efficient blow. Later, Rowley will cook both fish to prove his point.

Now he moves on to the other fish. He sees a lot he likes: a “shiner” that flashes and sparkles (“local surf perch,” he says, “very nice”), lovely yellow pike and clear-eyed striped bass. He points out that what is marked “King Salmon” is not in fact, King Salmon, but a very large Atlantic salmon from a fish farm.

There are shrimp in six sizes; Rowley approves of their color, which is uniform. “Nicely handled,” he says. He points out that some of the shrimp still have their heads and some don’t. “If the shrimp is dead, it’s better without its head. Shrimp have an enzyme sac in their head, and as soon as the shrimp dies, the enzyme goes through the meat and makes it mushy.”

As we wait to pay for our purchases, Rowley looks back toward the fish counter and says he was surprised to find such nice fish here outside of the tanks. “It’s all iced down, and normally you don’t see much ice in Chinese markets,” he says. “The way the Chinese tend to preserve fish is to keep them alive; it’s basically their refrigeration.”

A large Japanese supermarket.

Rowley has been looking depressed all day, but now he starts to smile. “Take a deep breath,” he says. “This is the first store we have visited where there is no fish odor. That’s how it should be whenever you shop for fish.”

There is not a whole fish in sight--not a single piece of ice--and every bit of fish has already been wrapped in plastic. But Rowley walks through the store saying, “There’s not much here I wouldn’t buy. Look at this fish; it just has an aspect to it. Everything has been harvested according to a program; all these fish have died well.”

He is suddenly buoyant and happy, pointing out one wonderful piece of fish after another; he wants to buy it all. “Try this,” he urges, pointing out a beautiful piece of black cod. “And this,” he says, pointing to saury, a Japanese pike. Before we have finished he has urged us to buy almost every piece of fish in the store. “The perfect breakfast,” he says, noticing a particularly beautiful piece of thornyhead.

Indeed, we do not find anything brown or old or dry. This is all clear, luminous fish, and where there are spots of blood, they are red. Just as we are about to leave he spots a piece of large black cod (a mature version of the despised butterfish) and urges us to add it to our purchases. “You just don’t see bad fish in Japanese markets.”

Then he quickly adds a disclaimer: “Of course, with fish, every day is another day.” He finds a few pieces of fish that aren’t up to snuff and notes, “You can’t completely trust any market; you have to use your own eyes.”

By now our car is filled with fish and the rush hour traffic is buzzing past. Rowley is ready to keep going, but the rest of us are exhausted. “Have I told you anything you didn’t know?” he asks as he folds himself into the seat. It is a genuine question; Rowley’s knowledge of fish is so encyclopedic that he assumes everyone else has it too. And it occurs to us that, in a way, we do.

The big thing we’ve learned is that when it comes to buying fish, you can trust yourself. Good fish looks good. The real secret to buying fish--in a fish market or a supermarket--is to look hard and ask a lot of questions.

FISH TIPS

Mahi-Mahi:

Flesh is luminous and reflects light.

Markings are bright red.

Flesh should not be darkened or opaque.

Brown marks are a sign of age.

Halibut:

Fish is clear, luminous and white.

These red marks are bruises, which will not taste clean.

Swordfish:

Flesh is luminous and reflective.

Trust yourself: you can tell which one is good.

Circulatory markings should be bright red; brown is a sign of age.

Whole Fish:

The eye myth: A clear eye does not necessarily indicate freshness.

Flesh should be firm and elastic to the touch.

Skin should reflect the light.