I can't imagine that. I could see it with its head and fins, but not insides. hm.

I agree with Rob... I have always seen fish sold gutted. Out of curiosity, do they gut it before weighing it to establish the price?

Alexa

I buy mackerel that way, and bought a tuna that way. With those fish, you remove the loins in quarters and never even bother gutting the fish - the innards stay attached to and are discarded with the skeleton.

Come to think of it, most of the fish at the Asian markets are completely whole, that is ungutted. They will gut them for you, if you wish.

Here's the story. I was hungry for fish and it was so cold outside that I didn't feel like driving to one of the fish markets so went to Wegmans grocery store to see what they had in stock.

They had beautiful-looking whole branzinis/levarakis/spigolas. I asked for a small one and the clerk asked, "Do you want me do cut the head off or anything?" to which I replied "no" because there weren't any scales to be removed. He weighed it and wrapped it up.

It wasn't until I removed it from the fridege about 6 hours later that I realized it wasn't gutted. I never thought to look when I was in the store.

So I took it back and the woman now in the seafood department came to the service desk and offered to gut it for me and told me that their customers liked them whole. I explained that I liked them whole too but expected them to be properly cleaned before they went on display. She still never got my point but they ended up refunding my money and I bought some other fish instead. I checked and the red snappers and other varieties of whole fish in the case were gutted but all those branzinis were still sitting there with their bellies intact.

Alexa, all the fish markets and stalls where I shop weigh a whole fish first and charge that price before removing any parts or filleting it but the fish has always been gutted before I select it.

It's not a local fish so who knows how long ago they'd been caught.

The fish that are caught on the deep-sea trawlers are bled but not gutted and flash-frozen or iced for maximum freshness.

Gutting the fish and then freezing on board ship results in degradation of quality and the risk of contamination.

(We have friends who are commercial fishermen.)

Carol

I'm with you Ruthanna. I would not buy any fish that had not been cleaned properly. I can see Carols point too. But from experience I know when I catch fish they taste best when iced down immediately and cleaned as soon as I get home.

I think you're right, Jim. In the best of all worlds where fish is caught by the consumer, your method is best. That's what we do.

But in commercial circumstances, opening the cavities of fish out at sea on a trawler just doesn't result in optimal quality or cleanliness.

Carol

That makes sense, Carol. Good to know. And I doubt that there are inspections out at sea.

We always filet & never gut the fish we catch. Handling dead fish is enough to express fish poop out of 'em so I can fully understand why it would be best for the fish to be left intact so the meat doesn't get contaminated.

The fish are sold here whole in seafood stores. After you pay, they will gut, clean and scale the fish for you.

However, I don't ask them to gut the fish for me, just scale.

There is a little peanut size organ, I think it's the bile gland, if it is damaged and the juice leaks out, the fish is no good. The bile juice is extremely bitter.

dcarch

Thanks for your input. Now I'm wondering why my usual fish markets gut them before they put them in the cases.

Many Asian markets sell whole fish, guts and all. They're often flash frozen at sea, and some asian soups and stuff use certain organs, but it just seems to me that gutting and washing it before freezing would improve the quality and healthfulness.

You can tell if the fish is fresh by inspecting the eyes and gills, then they can gut and clean it for you.

We have a fresh bream in the fridge bought this morning. I will gut it myself later for dinner. Filleted or pre gutted fish lose flavour fast imo. Either I do it myself or have the fishmonger do it AFTER I've chosen it, as Islay says. As well as checking gills and eyes, intact natural slime is a good sign. Since the guts deteriorate first, removing them means they can get away selling older fish.

"Either I do it myself or have the fishmonger do it AFTER I've chosen it, as Islay says."

That's what we do, if it's not already done (well, more accurately DH guts and cleans it...), but as mentioned above, look for signs of freshness regardless of whether it's already gutted or not.

^^ Oh that looks delicious!

Flora - yum!!!

Flora, how did you cook the bream?

Baked on a bed of onions and fennel. Bits of lemon, capers, olive oil and white wine.

Yum!