Worms In Swordfish

I’ve read about this problem both here and elsewhere. I’ve never encountered it until today.

Bought a beautiful piece of swordfish, got it home and had to cut two big pieces of worm out of it. Disgusting. Even writing this my stomach is doing back flips even though the fish was good after the surgery. Eeeeyewww.

Dude I used to covet swordfish. But after reading Bourdain and his insistence that the worms in swordfish could curdle your intestines(purely from a pro chef perspective!), I have abstained. It is not such a loss, but made so much easier when reading instances such as your own.

As soon as I read about it, I couldn’t consider eating it ever again, no matter how much I liked it before. No freakin’ way.

What no photos?

No, I couldn’t bring myself to photograph that.

You should have quick fried the worms as an app.

+1

After I read about it from Bourdain Ive never eaten one since

Extra protein!

used to love swordfish. About 10 yrs ago, we bought 2 beautiful swordfish steaks from a top Southern California seafood purveyor–Santa Monica Seafood. Took them home and marinated them, flipped them over a few minutes later to see dozens of previously invisible worms coming out between the meat fibers, obviously pissed off about the marinade. Took the steaks back to SM Seafood where the salesman tried to tell me they were “tendons.” I tried to explain to him that, as a surgeon (or even as a person with an IQ above 80), I know the difference between tendons and live, squiggling worms . . . haven’t eaten swordfish since.

alan

LOL! When he was trying to pass the story, I’m sure there was an audible D’oh! when he heard you tell him you were a surgeon.

Sort of reminds me of the day in the supermarket when I overheard a woman ask the butcher (the butcher - wtf?) if mozzarella di bufula was actually made from buffalo milk. He told her it wasn’t.

I felt compelled to chase her down the frozen food aisle and explain.

Yeah, because it’s made from bufala milk, not buffalo milk. Dah. The feminine tense - bulls don’t give milk.

Well, then there’s also the issue of bison v. water buffalo.

And manatee - the sea cow.

Worms can be found in many fish so why abstain only from swordfish?

A dietitian friend was told by the instructor of a food safety course that up to 25% of the protein in fish sticks is permitted to be from worms. I have no way of verifying this, but I also have no reason to believe she made it up.

Calling Dr. Peter Cyzryca!!!

A few years ago, for fun, I took a foraging course. The last class we ate a cake with worms. The beasties were put in corn starch for a while to clean out the dirt. After that they are pure protein. No taste at all, IIRC. Of course it was a white cake, so they were obvious to all…

[Take that, Bob, Todd and Alan!]

F’in gross. I could never eat swordfish.

Now fried chicken feet, pig kidney, or cow stomach…yummy!

j/k. I can’t eat that stuff either. I gotta turn in my asian card…