Sometimes when seafood has fermented or not been salted at all, in street food, it tastes sweet. It shouldn’t, because usually fermented fish tastes bitter, but after a while, it begins to taste sweet.
Why? What’s the chemical change that makes this happen?
Lots of very northern fermentation methods make it taste this way, but why?
Two things:
- Litmus scale
- Fermentation
If you buy seafood that you expect was cought that day, versus a day before. They will taste wildly different.
A shrimp caught on Monday will taste sweeter by Thursday in most people’s cases.
If you are high on the Litmus scale though, you may taste more sugars than Alkaloids, making things taste sweeter.
Is that because it’s starting to turn by then, or some other change? I know some chemicals change kinda quickly. Do some acids start turning into sugars, or do the fish wind up frozen or being marinated or injected something?
Thank you for answering!
It depends. The fishing industry and seafood isn’t exactly my are of expertise in this arena, but there’s a reason why fishing boats with freezers are more sought after than just “catch of the day” types. The latter has variances in time to market which may impact the freshnwss and taste, even if only by a difference of a day.
Seems lots of seafood just spoils really fast, which makes sense if you take into account the density of the meat. Things like Tuna or Salmon steaks are dense, and therefore would spoil slower than something like a whitefish or shrimp perhaps.
