Buying fish in Spain

This past weekend I went shopping for fish. Lately, I´ve been on another one of my health kicks and have decided to try and eat more bio- and eco-friendly products. Thus, when I went to the seafood section at Alcampo supermarket in La Cañada I was a bit confused when I started to read the labels to figure out where the fish was actually coming from.

Most of us can read on the label that a fish is imported from Tanzania, the Northeast of the Atalantic or brought in locally from Spain. But I noticed another curious print on the label - Método de Producción or Method of Production. Hmmm...this was interesting. There were four tick boxes to choose from:

* Pescado Extractiva
* Criado Agricultura
* Pescado en Agua Dulces
* Marisqueo

I figured out that the Pescado en Agua Dulces probably meant that it was a fresh water fish. That was a good sign, but didn´t see any available. The next one was Marisqueo and I was told that this identified a shellfish.

What I was more curious about was the difference between Pescado Extractiva and Criado Agricultura. I was told that the Extractiva fish meant that it came directly from the sea or ocean. Yay! What I was looking for. The Criado Agricultura meant that the fish is farm bred.

Fresh fish from the sea was what I was looking for! So I asked the vendor which ones were from the sea. He pointed out all the red skinned fish such as Palometa (pompano) and Breca (bleak or bray). The problem here is that the natural fish from the sea was three to six times more expensive than the farm bred fish. Oy vei! I decided to give it a go and chose a small fish, because I was promised that I would notice a whole world of difference in taste and quality. I´m trying the fish tonight so I hope he is right.

What I´ve figured out is that there is certainly a price to pay when going eco.