History of seafood

[1] Isotopic analysis of the skeletal remains of Tianyuan man, a 40,000-year-old modern human from eastern Asia, has shown that he regularly consumed freshwater fish.

[2][3] Archaeology features such as shell middens,[4] discarded fish bones and cave paintings show that sea foods were important for survival and consumed in significant quantities.

[5] The Egyptians had implements and methods for fishing and these are illustrated in tomb scenes, drawings, and papyrus documents.

Saltwater fish discovered in excavations include sea bream, grouper, meager and gray mullet.

[8] Remains of Nile Perch from Egypt have been found, and these must have been smoked or dried, before being imported through the trade network that connected ancient Near Eastern societies.

However, even in the later Persian, Greek and Roman periods, the cost of preserving and transporting fish must have meant that only wealthier inhabitants of the highland towns and cities could afford it, or those who lived close to the sources, where it was less expensive.

A stele of the late 3rd century BCE from the small Boeotian city of Akraiphia, on Lake Copais, provides us with a list of fish prices.

Among those that could was the formidable and potentially toxic Mediterranean moray, a valued delicacy which were reared in ponds at the seaside.

At a certain time this fish was considered the epitome of luxury, above all because its scales exhibit a bright red color when it dies out of water.

At the beginning of the Imperial era, however, this custom suddenly came to an end, which is why mullus in the feast of Trimalchio (see the Satyricon) could be shown as a characteristic of the parvenu, who bores his guests with an unfashionable display of dying fish.

Over the course of two to three months, in an enzymatic process stimulated by heating, usually by exposure to the sun, the protein-laden fish parts decomposed almost entirely.

The resulting mass was then filtered and the liquid traded as garum, the remaining solids as alec - a kind of savoury spread.

Garum, supplied in small sealed amphorae, was used throughout the Empire and totally replaced salt as a condiment.

The original idea that carp could be cultured most likely arose when they were washed into ponds and paddy fields during monsoons.

[17] The Chinese politician Fan Li was credited with authorship of The Fish-Breeding Classic,[18] the earliest-known treatise on fish farming.

[19] The ban had a productive outcome, because it resulted in the development of polyculture, growing multiple species in the same ponds.

The original type of sushi, nare-zushi, was first developed in Southeast Asia and then spread to southern China before its introduction to Japan sometime around the 8th century AD.

Haya-zushi was assembled so that both rice and fish could be consumed at the same time, and the dish became unique to Japanese culture.

When Tokyo was still known as Edo in the early 1800s, mobile food stalls run by street vendors became popular.

After the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923, nigiri-sushi chefs were displaced from Edo throughout Japan, popularizing the dish throughout the country.

"Fish" to the medieval person was also a general name for anything not considered a proper land-living animal, including marine mammals such as whales and porpoises.

A wide range of mollusks including oysters, mussels and scallops were eaten by coastal and river-dwelling populations, and freshwater crayfish were seen as a desirable alternative to meat during fish days.

[28] According to the King James version of the bible, it is alright to eat finfish, but shellfish and eels are an abomination and should not be eaten.