SPURRED BY QUESTIONS about the healthfulness of high-fat animal products, Americans are eating more fish than ever before. Still, the high point for annual fish consumption recently was just over 16 pounds per person, compared to 84 pounds of chicken and 67 pounds of beef. Moreover, what the increase reflects is that people who have always eaten fish are simply eating more, while those who didn’t eat fish still don’t.¹

Pity them! Not only is fish good for you—low in fat and cholesterol for those who are concerned about heart disease (and who isn’t?) and full of high-quality proteins, vitamins, and valuable trace minerals like selenium, copper, and zinc that are hard to get from other sources—it’s also just plain good. And fish is quick and easy to prepare. As Mediterranean cooks know well, fish and seafood generally benefit from the simplest preparations—poaching, steaming, roasting, or grilling, whether whole fish, boneless fillets, or steaks. The sauce for the fish is most often prepared apart, whether a plain and delicious mix of good olive oil, lemon juice, and a sprinkling of fresh herbs or a slightly more complex combination like Lebanese samki harra (this page), made with chopped garlic and cilantro and flavored with hot chilies and cumin.

The supply of fresh seafood in American fish markets and supermarket fish counters has improved enormously in recent years, especially with the development of farm-raised fish like catfish, tilapia, and salmon. Don’t be put off by fish labeled “fresh-frozen.” That may seem an anomaly, but if the fish is handled correctly and flash-frozen at sea or on shore soon after it is caught, fresh-frozen can be even better than many so-called fresh varieties, which may have been carried at sea, iced down in the hold of the fishing vessel, for as long as 10 days before reaching port. (Be sure to ask if the fish has been frozen, especially if you’re not planning to use it right away. If it has been thawed at the fish market, which often happens, you will not want to refreeze it without cooking it first.)

It may come as a surprise to learn that a good deal more than half of all the seafood consumed worldwide comes from fish farms. Shrimp, salmon, sea bass, Arctic char, sea bream, turbot, mussels, oysters and clams, and fresh water species such as tilapia and catfish are among the species you may find at your supermarket or neighborhood fishmonger. Much has been written about the merits and especially the relative safety of eating farmed fish. Whether wild or farmed, however, it’s important to understand that, with the exception of some sport fish caught in contaminated inland waters, most seafood is safe to eat under most conditions, fully as safe as other sources of protein in our diets, including beef, pork, chicken, eggs, and butter. And seafood of all kinds is an important contribution to a healthy diet. Drs. Eric Rimm and Dariush Mozaffarian from the Harvard School of Public Health surveyed two decades of scientific studies on the subject of seafood safety and contamination. “The benefits of eating fish,” they argued incontestably in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “greatly outweigh the risks.”

A report published a few years back in the journal Science reached the alarming conclusion that toxin levels in farmed salmon were far in excess of those in wild salmon and pose a definite health risk. But Dr. Mozaffarian pointed out that levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenols) and dioxins in fish are low, “similar to other commonly consumed foods such as beef, chicken, pork, eggs, and butter.… [T]he possible health risks of these low levels … are only a small fraction of the much better established health benefits of the Omega-3 fatty acids. [F]or farmed salmon, the cardiovascular benefits are greater than the cancer risks by a factor of at least 300:1. With the exception of some locally caught sport fish from contaminated inland waters, the levels of PCBs and dioxins in fish should not influence decisions about fish intake.”

The authors blame the media for “greatly exaggerating the unsubstantiated claim of a health risk from fish.” Rather, they concluded, a far greater health risk comes from not eating fish.

Despite the claims of environmentalists (and I consider myself a dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist on all issues but this one), farmed salmon is just as safe as wild salmon, it has a similar content of omega-3 fatty acids and, if raised in an environmentally sustainable manner, as much farmed salmon is, it is an optimal source of seafood.

A word about shellfish and cholesterol: despite the bad rap they used to get, most mollusks and crustaceans are low in cholesterol. (Errors in measurement by food scientists led to the mistake.) Clams, mussels, and scallops have fewer than 35 milligrams of cholesterol in 100 grams (about 3½ ounces) of raw fish (the yolks of large eggs have 225 milligrams each); lobster has 95 milligrams, shrimp (America’s favorite seafood after canned tuna) 150, and squid 230. But even with squid’s relatively high count, many nutritionists recommend it except for people on rigidly low-cholesterol diets. The reason? Squid, like most other seafood, is very low in fat. Only 13 of the 92 calories in a 3½-ounce serving of squid come from fat, and the small amount of fat is made up partly of omega-3 fatty acids, which may be valuable in combating heart disease.

Although some of the health benefits attributed to fish may simply be the result of eating less meat (every time you eat a portion of fish, you eat one less of meat), there is considerable evidence that fish is more healthful in and of itself. One major reason, scientists believe, is the presence of polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids, which interfere with the formation of blood clots and help to prevent the buildup of plaque in blood vessels. Blood clots and plaque are initial steps in the progression of atherosclerosis, which, if uncorrected, can lead to heart disease.

Omega-3 fatty acids in fish may also act against inflammatory and immune reactions, which characterize diseases like arthritis and psoriasis; and there is growing evidence of their positive role in the prevention of certain cancers, as well as improving blood sugar control in type 2 diabetes. DHA, one of the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, is crucial for brain development. (Didn’t your mother tell you that fish was brain food? And of course, as in so many other things, she was right!)

The fish richest in omega-3 fatty acids are those denizens of deep, cold waters that carry fat in their muscles, especially Atlantic salmon, mackerel, herring, bluefish, albacore, and bluefin tuna. Swordfish is also a good source of omega-3 fatty acids. White-fleshed fish like cod, haddock, halibut, and snapper, because they don’t carry fat in their muscle tissue, are not great sources of omega-3 fats, but they should not be avoided for that reason. On the contrary: as very-low-fat sources of protein, they should be a significant part of the diet.

Much traditional advice to the buyer of seafood is old-fashioned—look for rosy gills, we are told, or clear eyes or shiny skin. Professional chefs in fancy restaurants may have that luxury, but the rest of us seldom get to look at gills, eyes, or skin these days because fish usually comes to us already cut into fillets or steaks, rarely as whole fish. I rely on my nose to tell me when fish is fresh and when it is not. It’s pretty infallible. If you do make a mistake, don’t be afraid to take the offending beast right back to the person you bought it from and ask for a refund. You may not get it, but you will have made your point.

Many of the species traditionally used in the Mediterranean are rarely available here—or there, for that matter—but fortunately fish recipes and preparations are highly adaptable. In the recipes that follow I have suggested a number of different varieties where it is appropriate. I often substitute haddock, cod, halibut, or snapper, even farm-raised catfish or salmon, in Mediterranean recipes, and they work just fine. Salmon, especially, although not a traditional Mediterranean fish, is appearing in Mediterranean markets at a rapidly increasing rate, primarily because of the marketing skill of Norwegian aquaculturists. Monkfish, widely available in American fish markets, is always an appropriate choice for Mediterranean preparations, and bluefish and mackerel, if they are small, can be substituted for sardines—though if you have access to fresh sardines, snap them up and rush them home as quickly as you can. To my mind, there’s no better fish in the world than a sparkling-fresh sardine, wrapped in a grape leaf blanket with its little head poking out and grilled over charcoal embers.

For more delicious seafood recipes, see here in the chapter on soups for Mediterranean seafood soups.

¹ When the first edition of this book was published in 1994, the consumption statistics for fish and beef, at 14.8 and 63 pounds respectively, were not hugely different from today. Both fish and beef have increased slightly. What has changed enormously is U.S. consumption of chicken, which has nearly doubled, from 46 pounds in 1994 to 84.3 pounds in 2005. Overall, it seems that in that period Americans have greatly increased their consumption of all animal-derived protein. We’d be much better off converting at least half of that to vegetables.