- Chef, restaurateur, and environmental activist Andrew Zimmern shares some of the most common myths about seafood that he’s witnessed among American home cooks.
- Zimmern hopes to show consumers that seafood is more affordable and easy to cook than they may realize, encouraging them to cook sustainable, delicious fish at home.
- In addition to debunking myths, the chef shares some tips for finding better, less expensive fish yourself.
How often do you cook seafood? For many American households, serving seafood may feel like a special occasion, something you splurge on or are too intimidated to cook. If you cook seafood in the United States, the odds are high it’s shrimp, salmon, or tuna, the most popular aquatic proteins by quite a wide margin.
While all three are delicious and an important part of our food system, there’s a wide world of seafood beyond these options that’s underexplored by most American home cooks and often misunderstood.
While developing his comprehensive, mission-driven tome, Hope in the Water: The Blue Food Cookbook — Delicious Seafood Recipes for a Sustainable Future, Emmy- and James Beard Award-winning chef Andrew Zimmern hoped to do more than just provide excellent recipes for his readers. (Although he certainly accomplished that with over 145 versatile recipes included among its pages.)
Along with his co-author and seafood expert Barton Seaver, Zimmern aimed to show American consumers that the food from our oceans is more accessible, delicious, and easy to prepare than many of us have imagined — and that you can enjoy these benefits while making smart choices that protect aquatic ecosystems.
Per Zimmern, learning more about great seafood starts with unlearning the myths that have been implicitly taught to us over the years. We sat down with the acclaimed chef, restaurateur, and environmental activist to talk about some of the biggest seafood myths he’s witnessed and why they aren’t true.
Myth: Wild-caught seafood is always better
Cooking seafood starts with buying it, and when perusing grocery store selections, it’s become an almost default assumption that wild-caught ingredients are better than options like farmed fish. Not only do higher prices for wild-caught seafood often put it out of reach for home cooks, but this presumption is also simply not true.
Dismantling the overemphasis on wild-caught proteins is about more than just accessibility. Zimmern explains that you’re not necessarily getting a more sustainable or delicious option, even if you can splurge on wild-caught seafood, telling Food & Wine, “The question people need to be asking is, ‘Where’s [this seafood] from? How is it handled?’
“There are wild fisheries that are not sustainable, that we shouldn’t be eating from… There are also farmed resources that are poorly managed, where the fish are not kept well or they’re engaged in bad business practices.” Zimmern’s book outlines some of the organizations that consumers can look to — like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) — for confirmation that either wild or farmed fisheries have met strict quality standards.
If you’re intimidated by the prospect of researching every piece of seafood you buy, focus on where you shop. Zimmern emphasizes that many supermarkets are paying closer attention to quality sourcing and sustainability these days, including major chains such as Whole Foods and H-E-B.
Find a local purveyor, regional chain, or grocery giant that consistently meets the seafood standards you’re looking for, then trust them to do their job. If you have questions about sourcing, go to the fishmonger behind the seafood counter; that’s what they’re there for.
Myth: Fresh is always better than frozen
The more approachable price point of frozen fish — and the ability to store and use it at a moment’s notice — make it a better choice for many households. Despite the common perception that this means it’s a lower-quality ingredient, this is far from the truth.
Zimmern details that “Badly handled fish is bad fresh, and it’s bad frozen. Well-handled fish is great when it’s fresh, and it’s great when it’s frozen. And in fact, it’s cheaper when it’s frozen… I think what’s really important, especially when it comes to frozen fish, is that we realize that that’s often where some of the great deals are.”
If you love salmon, the chef emphasizes that some fisheries in the Pacific Northwest “have so much invested in the wild and farmed salmon communities that they are doing the best job I know of of processing and freezing salmon… It’s miraculous.”
For one of the most affordable options, look for frozen tilapia, a delicate fish that’s often unfairly maligned. Zimmern explains that “[one of] the largest producers of farmed tilapia, a company called Rainforest Tilapia, has a phenomenal product. Tilapia is white-fleshed, very mild-tasting, and stands up to other flavors. My family loves tilapia piccata, just in a simple lemon sauce with capers. It’s less expensive than ground beef.”
Some “fresh” fish you’ll spot in supermarkets has been previously frozen and thawed, or refrigerated for several days, which means frozen fish may actually be fresher. To spot better frozen fish, look for labels indicating it was flash-frozen, and pick proteins that are effectively processed, vacuum-sealed, and free of freezer burn.
Myth: Seafood is too expensive
When Zimmern says frozen tilapia can be less expensive than ground beef, he isn’t exaggerating. Let’s say I get a pack of Great Value frozen tilapia fillets from my nearest Walmart; the fish is sustainably sourced, Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certified, and each fillet is individually vacuum-sealed. At $4.44 per pound, it also costs notably less than the average price of ground beef in the U.S., which rings in at around $6.54 per pound right now.
Most importantly, Zimmern wants people to know that buying less expensive fish doesn’t mean sacrificing flavor. However, it might require getting familiar with some seafood you haven’t cooked before. To find great fish that fits within your budget, the chef and cookbook author points out that “the most important thing you can do is create a relationship with the person behind the counter at the supermarket or fish store….
“It’s uncomfortable, but the minute you have a relationship with someone and then you say, ‘I’m on a budget, but I’d like to buy more seafood here; what do you recommend? And by the way, I want to make sure it’s sustainably sourced and it’s good for me and the planet,’ They will recommend stuff to you. They want your business.”
Interactions like these might require stepping outside your comfort zone. But as Zimmern notes, it becomes easier once you build a relationship with your fishmonger and supermarket employees. They can likely advise you on how to cook different proteins, too.
To support flexibility like this, The Blue Food Cookbook includes recipes that are easily adaptable to a variety of seafood, depending on what options are available to you. So we’ll all be set up to enjoy more seafood in 2026 and beyond.
