# Kudoa?



## Lucretia (Jul 26, 2012)

Was fixing some halibut for dinner last night, and came across something strange. It was some we'd picked up at the farmers' market a couple weeks ago and tossed in the freezer as soon as we came home. When it was thawed, there were several spots in the fish, about pea-to marble sized, that had turned to goo. Based on what I could find on line, I think the fish was infected with kudoa--does that sound right to you guys? We cut out the nasty bits and cooked it extra done (hate to do that!) and aren't dead this morning, so guess that's a good sign.


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## tk59 (Jul 26, 2012)

That's pretty gross. I'm impressed you ate it. Around here, I'm the one that gets to eat all the questionables.


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## mhlee (Jul 26, 2012)

I just read about Kudoa - I didn't know that was the scientific name of the parasite but it sounds right. 

I've seen this often in farmed Atlantic Salmon and something similar in Yellowfin Tuna. Did you happen to check to see if those soft spots existed before you froze it?


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## Andrew H (Jul 26, 2012)

Could it have just been frozen / thawed / frozen / thawed one too many times?


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## mhlee (Jul 26, 2012)

I doubt it. Mutiple freezing and thawing actually reduces moisture in fish; the goo that Lucretia is describing is different. In my experience, as fish gets older it will tend to tear along its natural muscle structure. Similarly, if a piece of fish is thawed and re-frozen, it will be dry - you can actually see the surface of the fish almost become leathery in texture. Even when fish goes bad, it doesn't turn into "goo." 

I remember one time circa 1994/1995 receiving an entire box of fresh/never frozen filleted farmed Atlantic Salmon. Every single fillet had pockets of pus or goo - we had to return the entire box. You could stick your fingers in the pockets in the flesh and feel the goo/pus.


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## Eamon Burke (Jul 26, 2012)

Yep, that's bad. When we were telling customers at the sushi bar why it's ok to eat raw fish, because we carefully inspect it, these spots are what we were referring to, but couldn't describe because people were eating, lol. That is the main thing we found, especially if we got Salmon from True World. The stuff looked like swiss cheese sometimes, really gross.


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## mhlee (Jul 26, 2012)

Weird. True World is considered one of the best fish wholesalers; they're also one of the main exporters to the US that get fish directly from Tsukiji. 

The Atlantic Salmon that had all the soft spots was from, IIRC, Chile. The worst though is when you see tuna with these soft spots. It's such a waste.


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## Lucretia (Jul 26, 2012)

We didn't check closely before freezing it, but it looked fine. This is from a pretty reliable seller, 1-2 days after being caught. They package it well, and it went directly in the freezer. No refreezing. Fish colored "pus" is about the right way to describe it. Never seen anything like it before--it wasn't _quite_ swiss cheese, but close, and it was strange enough looking that it sent me online to try to figure it out before eating it. Kudoa parasites sounded right, and since freezing & cooking kills them and they aren't harmful to people, I just cut out the nasty bits, cooked it done, and covered it with hollandaise and toasted pine nuts.

It sounds like the decomposition occurs after death of the fish due to enzymes produced by the parasite. The vendor may think he's selling perfect fish, only to have the consumer receive slimy mush. Nasty, nasty stuff.


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## Eamon Burke (Jul 26, 2012)

mhlee said:


> Weird. True World is considered one of the best fish wholesalers; they're also one of the main exporters to the US that get fish directly from Tsukiji.



They are also one of the few that would deliver on the weekend, so when we used them, it was to place a last minute order with a company we barely used. Surely they gave us the worst of the worst. My old boss wasn't the nicest guy to the suppliers.


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