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Comment by armchairhacker | Hacker News Reader

Honestly I would love to buy ground haddock or salmon at the supermarket. Especially if they can produce it cheaper than frozen fish.

But why haven’t fish sausages etc. been created before? I imagine there are logistic challenges and reasons why ground fish is kind of a dumb idea especially vs. frozen fish. Like i bet ground salmon would go bad much quicker than frozen salmon, and it wouldn’t get a nice texture and cook nice like ground beef or turkey.

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Fish sausages have been created before. They are pretty common here. I live in the Northeastern US, and big regional grocer here carries a couple different types. Most of the local sausage shops have an offering or two as well. Fish sausage is big in Asia too, they have all sorts of fish balls and even NOODLES. Both are essentially a firm fish sausage without a casing.

There's an Ashkenazi Jewish dish called Gefilte fish that's a fish sausage. I doubt it's uniquely Jewish, so it's definitely a thing.

We've been trying to get rid of it for 100 years, my heart goes out to anyone just inventing it.

No. It's the best part of passover, with tons of horseraddish, yum.

I'll agree with you on horseradish anyway.

Indeed, it seems fish sausages are part of many cultures: in France, it's called "Quennelles de poisson" which is much fatter and more consistent...

https://www.marmiton.org/recettes/recette_quenelle-lyonnaise...

This seems quite similar to fishcake. Maybe the difference is having a casing?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishcake

Yup there are also related fish ball products

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_ball

Both delicious. Fish balls should be heated in a white sauce (based on the “sauce” from the package) and served with potatoes and with a sprinkle of curry on top. Fish cakes are best sautéed in butter and eaten on the go imo, but you can also serve it in a brown sauce and of course with potatoes.

Fish doesn’t seem to preserve that well. Even smoked salmon only lasts a little while. This doesn’t prevent you from making fresh sausage, but the fresh sausage market is not very big.

Growing up with parents that were small scale fishermen, I grow up recognizing that the store bought fish taste and smell was actually just fish that people hasn't manage well enough to keep fresh. Most of the catch we got was actually alive when we came back from the lake, and then generally imminently gutted, fillet, and put in the freezer.

Smoke salmon is an other thing that really should not be in fridge temperature for more than a few days, I would say max 5-7 days from when it was smoked. Smoked salmon freeze well through, and one can also grind up smoked salmon that has been frozen to make quite nice Pâté and other dishes. Naturally, if the fish was mishandled before it was smoked then the result is likely to be bad also.

Fish at the supermarket is really hard to determine how long it been unfrozen, or how many times the fish got thawed and refrozen during processing, or if all the people involved between has been handling the fish with the care needed to not allowing the rotting process from starting.

One interesting thing is that Chinese supermarkets, even the ones in the US, tend to keep fish in water tanks, to be processed by the fishmonger.

I've heard that these water tanks are often diseased fish or contain antibiotics. Is this true?

I doubt it. I've eaten it weekly for much of my life.

At the very least, I doubt it's anything much worse than the fish on a fish farm get.

I’ve done my share of fishing and can’t say they smell much better even though the taste sure is.

> Fish doesn’t seem to preserve that well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_and_salted_cod

I've cooked this (baccala/salt cod) at least a year old and it was fine, I would reckon that it'd be fine for multiple years if kept cool (in refrigeration).

If you have had fake crab on a sushi roll, you have pretty much got 90% of the way there.

I will say that I don't think the spice blends used in a western sausage would do particularly well in fish. When you see fish balls or fish cakes in Asian cooking they're seasoned differently, light and a bit sweet.

>But why haven’t fish sausages etc. been created before?

Apparently they have been. Google fish sausage or seafood sausage. There's a ton of recipes and there's other vendors selling them. To be honest I hadn't heard of them until now but it seems to be a thing.

It’s a characteristic of the food industry, which is shaped by business practices where big names will only sell their (fish finger) product next to acceptable other products that don’t challenge their brand, in combination with the high bar of meeting food regulations to protect consumers which makes it hard to invent processed food and of also getting consumers to try new food things. Not many people are food adventurous especially for fish type produce which is high risk.

What makes fish type produce high risk? Given that fish don't share as much biology with us as mammals do, I thought that there are far fewer fish parasites that can both survive cooking, and are harmful to humans.

Is the concern here that fish spoils faster?

I think that the concern is more about consumers and risk aversions.

Fish, particularly anything with "fishy" taste, is looked down upon in some cultures. It's also not really cheaper than other kinds of meat, so you kind of get the worst of both "a lot of people have a dislike of fish" and "it's expensive".

Try a Korean grocer for fish sausages. They seem to be a popular thing there. I've bought some before in London - tasty but quite "processed".

Fish sausage is already pretty popular. McDonald's Filet-o-fish, salmon cakes, fish sticks etc are all _roughly_ sausage. I suppose it depends on how strongly you feel about the casing part of the sausage definition, but for my money "ground up meat (and binders) in a shape" captures the essence of sausage well enough.

Filet o Fish isn’t ground up.

It tastes like it is. ;-)

Isn't it? Perhaps it has been too long but I recall it being a fish patty, definitely could be my memory failing me.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it's probably as processed and 'ground up' as fish could possibly be

Your the bearer of false news. It’s literal filets of fish.

Just bite into it and look at the cross section. You are out of your mind

I’ve had fish cakes before, especially in Japanese and Chinese soups. Not sure why nobody made the leap to sausage.

I would also love a ground fish option, even if it's frozen. Fish burgers can be phenomenal when done right! I usually settle for canned, but the canning process definitely seems to have a pretty pronounced effect on flavor.

I wonder how palatable the structure, mouth feel and bite is. Seasoning is unlikely to be issue, but the rest are quite critical for sausage eating experience.

They do exist. Fish sticks are fish sausages. You can buy actual sausage shaped fish sausages at any asian market as well.

Surimi already exists & is quite common for ground fish

they sell ground fish at every Danish supermarket

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