You’ve seen this market from the inside for decades. What’s the single biggest change in Indianapolis seafood since your dad’s era?
The biggest change is the variety that’s available now. And the expectations for freshness are different now than they were 30 or 40 years ago. It used to be that people’s idea of “fresh” in the Midwest was Gorton’s Fish Sticks. Nowadays, we can get pretty much anything from anywhere.
How does most seafood get to Indianapolis now?
For some domestic stuff, such as from the East Coast, you’re still able to get it trucked in within a day. But air is definitely the biggest way. When you’re talking about getting Ora King Salmon from New Zealand, they’re not throwing that on a boat.
What fish really defined earlier eras here?
My dad was actually the first person in the city to sell orange roughy. Tilapia was another one. We were one of the very first outlets, at 56th Street Fish Market, to bring in tilapia. The dark side of a fish becoming a big hit is that you’ll then see a lot of commodity-driven farms get into it. They can take a really good product and turn it into something that’s maybe not that great.
Any perennial winners?
Salmon’s always been the No. 1 fish. But nowadays, you’ve got products like Ora King Salmon or Superior Fresh. Superior Fresh puts out, in my opinion, the best Atlantic salmon that you can buy. It’s raised indoors in Indiana and Wisconsin.
How have your customers changed?
The amount of knowledge they possess has grown, thanks to things like the Food Network and the internet. There’s just so much information out there now. Customers can find out whether something they heard about is really the best choice for them.
Are there fish you just don’t see anymore?
We used to always carry blacktip and mako sharks, but you just can’t get those now. Beluga caviar has a lot of restrictions. Even king crab has issues. Three out of the prior four fishing seasons were either cut heavily or completely cut off. This could be caused by ocean temperature fluctuations or something equally unpredictable. You just never know. Also, East Coast fish. We used to always have croakers, spots, and butterfish. And boneless herring. We had lists of customers we’d call every time we got it in. But I haven’t seen that product in 20 years.
Any specific fish varieties that could be the “next big thing”?
It blows my mind that someone hasn’t figured out a way to market Asian carp. It’s a highly invasive species, but it’s actually really good. I’ve had some myself. They were charging $13 a pound, which isn’t bad at all, even with a retail markup. But you can’t call it carp, because no one will pay that kind of money for carp. It really needs a new name. They did that with Chilean sea bass, which used to be called Patagonian toothfish. It’s strange that some marketing guy hasn’t figured this out and come up with something to call Asian carp that doesn’t include the word “carp.”
