The arrowtooth flounder is the most common food fish in the Gulf of Alaska. It looks something like a halibut. And it tastes, well, not like a halibut. "Inedible'' is the word the Alaska Department of Fish and Game once used to use to define the arrowtooth as table fare.
And yet, one of the great dreams of the commercial fishing business in the 49th state has always been to make marketable what fisheries managers call the Gulf's huge "biomass" of arrowtooth. The Fishery Industrial Technology Center in Kodiak, a division of the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, spent years trying to figure out a way to make the flesh of the arrowtooth mimic the firm, flaky texture of always tasty halibut when cooked.
The center met with little success. Nonetheless, arrowtooth is now in a market near you. The Wal-Mart Supercenter off Dimond Boulevard in Anchorage stocks it in the freezer case, and it appears arrowtooth is available in Wal-Marts across the country. The reviews coming in from the few Wal-Mart customers who have posted comments online are not good.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Alaska Dispatch