Totally gross but true... While preparing a favorite baked salmon dinner for my Dad and I tonight...

F

florisandy

Well-known member
and much to my horror... I started to quarter a pound of farm-raised salmon that I bought today at a local supermarket only to find that there were heavy deposits of blood underneath the skin. They were rather large and unappealing deposits I might add...

"What the heck is it??" I asked myself! I've never seen such an abnormality in salmon nor any fish that I've purchased. I immediately called the supermarket and they could not answer to the strange malformation. They did however, volunteer to ask that I return the farm-raised salmon for a refund. I just wondered if any of you have seen salmon fillets, center cut, where there were big blobs of blood right underneath the skin and if so, what the heck is it???

This is darn right scary! I do know that farm-raised seafood is not the greatest nor healthiest stuff from the sea and, if only eaten occasionally, shouldn't pose a problem to our health, but this was bizarre and I'm hoping someone here can explain this. I know about the "blood" line in certain fish but this was a substantial mass of blood in a one-pound center cut salmon fillet.

I would appreciate your feedback before returning the salmon to the supermarket tomorrow so that I can talk intelligently - if that's the case!

 
I forgot to mention that when I first saw the window display of salmon fillets,

there was a large cut turned skin-side up with what I would call a couple of blemishes (i.e. like the scales got scraped naturally). I've never seen upsidedown fish fillets with blemishes on the skin atop a pile of seemingly good looking salmon fillets right side up (flesh side up). When I ordered a pound of center cut, he picked up the skin-side up fillet and did his thing and laughed that it came to .99 lb. when I had asked for a pound, as if his cutting skills were right on target within an ounce.

Why was that large piece of blemished skin-side-up fish over the top of flesh-side up fillets to begin with??

Sorry, but I'm very suspicious and have googled here tonight with no luck about blood-clotted salmon fillets.

Thanks for listening!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peach_Melba

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Peach_Melba.jpg

 
Hmmm, I've never gotten any like that. I've been told to hold grouper up to the light to look for

parasites, though.

Do you think perhaps the salmon was injured/bruised before it was harvested?

 
I closed my eyes while clicking on this so I could post that I'm afraid to read this. Just got

started enjoying baked teriaki salmon at our sushi restaurant. Don't want to get scared off now.

 
Sandy, I have seen bloody spots on tuna, because they are caught with a gaffe.

I can't imagine what could cause them in salmon.

 
Don't open if squeamish. I have an associate in the seafood biz. He said...

The farm raised salmon are prone to disease infestations, since they keep the fish in crowded enclosures that allow infectious diseases to pass quickly throughout the stock.

Parasites often attach themselves to the exterior skin and commence to feed on the hosts blood, like a leach. Pockets of blood appear under the skin wherever the parasites attach.

He can't be sure, of course, but that sounds like the culprit.

Michael

 
Thanks Michael! Here's what happened when I returned the salmon today...

I went to the customer service counter and insisted on seeing the manager who oversees the seafood department. He was very apologetic and said that the clerk should have seen the blood clots and offered to get me a new cut. I declined and said I would go to another supermarket. He seemed to think it was the blood line.... He also said the reason that the salmon fillet was skin side up on the rest of the large fillets was to retain the color (farm raised and color enhanced).

I drove a couple of miles further down to another supermarket to get a pound of salmon to replace the one I had returned. I told the seafood clerk there what had happened and asked him if he knew what it might have been. He said that he is not aware of salmon having a blood line nor has he seen anything like that.

Michael, thanks so much for this information. I will call the manager I spoke to yesterday and tell him about what you've posted. If that piece of salmon was infected, it was laying atop others! That is sooo not good!

 
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