Shrimp Tariffs

quote:

Originally posted by Lone Star

My husband worked with couple of guys who shrimped on the weekends who are now retired. Back when they were shrimping we would go down and buy a cooler full of shrimp for about 2.00 a pound (head on).

Ah. Now there's the best reason for buying local shrimp--THE HEADS. Can't get Asian shrimp with heads as far as I know, but those heads are essential for the best-ever shrimp creole such as Paul Prudhomme's recipe because they make the richest possible shrimp stock. Without that stock, the creole isn't the same.

I went to my local food market and checked out their shrimp. Everything they had was farm raised Thailand products. Most of it was about $8.00 a pound no matter what the size was. I have not been to Walmart and I will check out our quality market called "The Fresh market" which tends to be a bit upscale. I think Walmart may sell local farm raised shrimp. I am not sure but I seem to recall that local farm raised shrimp obtained their fry from other aquaculture sources in the USA but I believe they may have originated in Asia

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Shrimp war breaking out ??

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=awttb8x3NMGQ&refer=canada

Hmmm. Looks like we need to focus on the "real" forthcomming battle:



Minced fish vs. whole fish in our taste of Americana folklore; fish sticks...





snicker

I'm not looking forward to the tariffs. I like buying my U15 at Costco for less then $10 a Lb.

MikeS.

I was in my local Ralph's Market last night buying some shrimp. Interestingly, the package specified "Mexican Shrimp". Seems they want people to know they are not selling the Asian imported product.

Well here's a new one: shrimp farms in . . . ARIZONA. Who'd have guessed: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/12/05/build/business/46-shrimp-famers.inc

So in AZ (and other places?) shrimp are farmed in fresh water? I thought that there were freshwater and saltwater shrimp with the freshwater also being called prawns. Now I know better. Thanks for the info.

quote:

Originally posted by tmiles

So in AZ (and other places?) shrimp are farmed in fresh water? I thought that there were freshwater and saltwater shrimp with the freshwater also being called prawns. Now I know better. Thanks for the info.

In the SF Bay Area, the big fat critters known in the East as "shrimp" are called "prawns". Being native to the East myself I always thought that sounded pretentious. "Shrimp" here are those little things that sometimes come in cans and are called "bay shrimp" in some places.

quote:

Originally posted by BT

quote:

Originally posted by tmiles

So in AZ (and other places?) shrimp are farmed in fresh water? I thought that there were freshwater and saltwater shrimp with the freshwater also being called prawns. Now I know better. Thanks for the info.

In the SF Bay Area, the big fat critters known in the East as "shrimp" are called "prawns". Being native to the East myself I always thought that sounded pretentious. "Shrimp" here are those little things that sometimes come in cans and are called "bay shrimp" in some places.

Probably akin to the "bay scallops" over here... Never mind. I guess I will stick to my canned smoked herring. Fresh seafood still rather expensive in my area (which is of rather a strange nature, anyway...)

Heck, be a commerical shrimp business can't be all bad! It made Forest Gump a millionare

Heck, be a commerical shrimp business can't be all bad! It made Forest Gump a millionare

Ya, well after them Tsunamis, and alot of them "Shrimp Farms" being wiped out, might need Forest Gumps money to buy a pound!

31 to 40 size was on sale locally yesterday @ two 1lb packages, frozen for $13.99. This is the same sale that they have run once a month or so for the past couple of years. Must be still plenty stockpiled in the supply pipeline.

I think that something should be done to protect domestic industry of any kind when a foreign country is truly "dumping" product here in the states. No way can you compete against that.
However, I have noticed that most of the time when a product becomes tarrif protected the domestic producers IMMEDIATELY raise their prices to the tarrif ceiling. Prime example, crawfish. I would routinely buy good WILD crawfish for 50 cents a pound live. When the tarrif went into effect the prices for domestic skyrocketed.

As far as the taste of a good GOM shrimp vs. farm raised? No comparison. The farm raised just dont have the same taste or texture.

A tarriff on Chinese and Vietnameze shrimp is fine with me. A point that no-one has addressed is the fact that both are government operated. They may have a company name as a front, but both countries control the market, and thus the selling price. They can afford to sell their shrimp below their cost because of government subsidies.

Here's more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/04/13/FDGFOC461B1.DTL

It has been back in the news over the last few days. Wave damaged countries need to export shrimp for the jobs and foreign exchange. We want to give aid, but want them to keep their shrimp. This is a regional and bipartisan matter. Sen Breaux (D), and Gov Bush (R) are in agreement on this issue.

I had a parishioner whose uncle died after eating Chinese crawfish that had been treated with antibiotics. As far as protective tariffs are concerned, I'll object to them when we stop subsidizing tobacco farmers. We already have them on sugar, where they have had the effect of raising the price by 250%! I don't have a problem, actually, with paying more for a superior product. The analogy is (Grampy, are you listening?) gin, where the cost is a near-exact barometer of quality. I drink Tahqueray #10 in martinis, Gordon's in G & T.

Also, several LA distributors of imported crawfish were recently caught selling underweight packages. Tha hasn't seemed to be a problem with locally caught critters.

quote:

Originally posted by garryd451

Heck, be a commerical shrimp business can't be all bad! It made Forest Gump a millionare

No, it made Forest Gump (fictionally of course, and well after the fact) able to buy stock in Microsoft, which made him a millionaire.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick F.

I had a parishioner whose uncle died after eating Chinese crawfish that had been treated with antibiotics. As far as protective tariffs are concerned, I'll object to them when we stop subsidizing tobacco farmers. We already have them on sugar, where they have had the effect of raising the price by 250%! I don't have a problem, actually, with paying more for a superior product. The analogy is (Grampy, are you listening?) gin, where the cost is a near-exact barometer of quality. I drink Tahqueray #10 in martinis, Gordon's in G & T.

Also, several LA distributors of imported crawfish were recently caught selling underweight packages. Tha hasn't seemed to be a problem with locally caught critters.

OOPS!!!!

Sorry Rick. The last I served you and Bushie was Canadian Windsor. I did not know your favorite flavor was not what I had.

Regardless, I hope both of you enjoyed

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN