What’s In a Name: On the Mixed Up Names in Alaska Seafood

I am a lover of words. So, I keep a running list of the names Alaska has given its seafood that don't quite mean what they say. I don't think of them as misnomers so much as inheritance — an accumulation of generations of Alaskans each perhaps taking their best guess at what to call something, in the moment, with the language and instincts they had. The result is less a taxonomy than a kind of folklore, full of transpositions and borrowed resemblances and names that stuck simply because they felt right.

Take Dungeness crab and snow crab. Both, reassuringly, are crabs. But red king crab isn’t a crab at all. It’s a decapod that’s more closely related to the hermit crab — it’s not considered a “true” crab. And yet in the kitchen, we often utilize Dungeness, snow, and king crab as if they’re interchangeable, three flavors of the same idea, encased in their shells and waiting to be cracked open.

Cod has its own multifaceted case of mistaken identity. Only one fish in Alaska gets to call itself a true cod: Pacific cod. Lingcod isn't a cod at all — it’s a type of greenling, and as a whole fish it has a slightly menacing, cartoonish look, all teeth and attitude. Though once it's filleted, it suddenly resembles Pacific cod enough to earn the comparison. You can cook it much the same way, though I'd argue lingcod has a more delicate texture that sets it apart.

As for sablefish, it’s also known as black cod — but it, too, is not a cod. It spent years known as black cod simply because it resembled Pacific cod in shape, but with a different color. The name made sense for fisherpeople who were harvesting it, but not for consumers, who thought they were getting another type of lean, mild cod with black cod. Black cod, though mild, is quite rich. So, somewhere in the early 20th century, someone renamed the fish sablefish, as a way to disentangle it from expectations. The name, in my opinion, better reflects its buttery, almost dessert-like qualities.

The spot prawn might be my favorite case of all, because it isn't a prawn — it's a shrimp, just the largest species of shrimp we have in Alaska, which earned it a slightly grander title along the way. Some vendors call it spot shrimp, which somehow feels less accurate, owing to this crustacean’s delectable, almost lobster-like qualities.

And then there's keta salmon — also called chum, also called dog salmon — which we don't currently offer, but which has long been an essential species of wild salmon along the Pacific coastline. At first glance, its many common names seem to diminish its importance. "Chum" makes it sound like a bait fish, but “chum” is simply an anglicization of an Indigenous term meaning "marked," a reference to the stripes the fish develops as it spawns. And "dog salmon" may stem from its common use as a nutritious protein for sled dogs, or from the canine-like teeth this species develops during spawning. It’s still not clear to me which explanation is the right one — or if there’s perhaps another layer of etymology that I’ve not yet discovered.

I've come to think these scrambled names are a reflection of how Alaska seafood contains multitudes, in not just its abundance and variety, but also in its relationships to the communities that it has supported and shaped over generations.

P.S. In last week’s newsletter, I shared a story about an Alaskan entrepreneur who is working to bring an educational board game called Blue Salmon: 100% Fish to classrooms in Alaska and beyond. To help fund her project, we’re inviting you to make a donation to AlaSkins Discovery — we’ll match you on it! Every donation made to AlaSkins Discovery through October 31st will be matched dollar-for-dollar by Wild Alaskan Company, up to a total of $5,000. Please donate here: AlaSkins Discovery Donation Link.

Live Wild, 

Monica

Pictured above: Multitudes of rockfish, drawn by my sister Dana. The illustration is Dana’s recreation of a rockfish species identification poster that’s hung up in the Home Port Seafoods office in Bellingham, WA. It might look familiar to you if you have Eat Wild: Cooking at Home with the Seafood of Alaska, as it’s one of the many fish pics that we included in the cookbook. 

There are dozens of types of rockfish in the rockfish (Sebastes) family, some of which have “rockfish” as part of their common name, while others don’t. But there are also unrelated species of fish around the world that share the moniker “rockfish.” Can you guess what these disparate species have in common? (Spoiler: They are typically found around rocks!)