At one time, not all that long ago, people visited the seashore and found the experience good. The sea water was considered a cure for many ailments, and what came out of the sea was wholesome and good for you. Seafood didn't travel well (remember Ben Franklin's observation that fish and visitors stink after three days.) The only good way to transporting seafood was well iced or preserved as smoked or canned seafood. The first instances of wide-spread seafood troubles were primarily red-tide and other fouling of waters that were confined to local waters.

Frozen seafood is a relatively modern invention although, personally, I prefer the "fresh" taste that IQF (individually quick frozen) seafood has when processed on board the large commercial vessels that go out for weeks at a time.

So What Happened?

Basically, one can trace most of the current seafood problems back to sustainability issues. I remember when the Jersey Blue Crab became, for all intents and purposes, extinct back in the late 1950's. It was but one of a log line of extinctions or near extinctions of seafood species which increased in numbers of occurrences as time went on. The nearly five hundred year old cod fishing that took ...