February 5 - Market Day: Mahi-mahi

My favorite fisherman's toy box.

By Magdalena I. García

Who can resist a fish with such a melodic name and colorful skin? Mahi-mahi was my catch at Fresh Farms Market this week. It was on sale: $3.99 per pound for nice, thick steaks. Since I love to learn about food, I came home and did a little research. It turns out that mahi-mahi is the Hawaiian name for dolphin fish or dorado, a creature I’ve been waiting to get my hands on for almost 20 years.

In late May of 1990, my husband and I took our first vacation together. We travelled to Miami, Florida, where A. went fishing with a friend and caught a dolphin fish. Or so he tells me. It was a big one, of course, although I never got to see it. I know what you’re thinking; sounds like a classic case of the fisherman’s creed: “Early to bed, early to rise, fish all day, make up lies.” But that’s not the case at all. It was raining heavily when A. left in the early morning, and it wasn’t until he came home pale, cold, and nauseous that we confirmed he had been out fishing under a tropical depression: the first one of the 1990 Atlantic hurricane season. Regardless, he caught a dolphin fish, but he was so sick from the boat’s motion in huge wages that he gave it to the boat captain, curled up in his friend’s car, and went home to bed.

The other thing I learned during my quick research is that the Monterey Bay Aquarium—which we visited a couple of years ago—classifies mahi-mahi, when caught in the US, as a “Good Alternative.” The other two possible environmental impact categories are “Best Choice” and “Avoid,” the latter being the classification applied to imported mahi-mahi. You can learn more about this by visiting: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx.

Over the years, I’ve seen mahi-mahi offered on restaurant menus, and may have even ordered it. In fact, I remember having dorado for dinner in Puerto Rico. But I never realized it was dolphin fish. Makes me wonder about other areas of life where I might not be connecting the dots.