Smith - American tuna : the rise and fall of an improbable food

American Tuna

CALIFORNIA STUDIES IN FOOD AND CULTURE
Darra Goldstein, Editor

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2. Eating Right in the Renaissance, by Ken Albala

3. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, by Marion Nestle

4. Camembert: A National Myth, by Pierre Boisard

5. Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety, by Marion Nestle

6. Eating Apes, by Dale Peterson

7. Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet, by Harvey Levenstein

8. Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America, by Harvey Levenstein

9. Encarnacins Kitchen: Mexican Recipes from Nineteenth-Century California: Selections from Encarnacin Pinedos El cocinero espaol, by Encarnacin Pinedo, edited and translated by Dan Strehl, with an essay by Victor Valle

10. Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and Its Wine, by Charles L. Sullivan, with a foreword by Paul Draper

11. Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World, by Theodore C. Bestor

12. Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity, by R. Marie Griffith

13. Our Overweight Children: What Parents, Schools, and Communities Can Do to Control the Fatness Epidemic, by Sharron Dalton

14. The Art of Cooking: The First Modern Cookery Book, by The Eminent Maestro Martino of Como, edited and with an introduction by Luigi Ballerini, translated and annotated by Jeremy Parzen, and with fifty modernized recipes by Stefania Barzini

15. The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them, by Susan Allport

16. Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food, by Warren Belasco

17. The Spice Route: A History, by John Keay

18. Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World: A Concise History with 174 Recipes, by Lilia Zaouali, translated by M. B. DeBevoise, with a foreword by Charles Perry

19. Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France, by Jean-Louis Flandrin, translated by Julie E. Johnson, with Sylvie and Antonio Roder; with a foreword to the English language edition by Beatrice Fink

20. The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir, by Amy B. Trubek

21. Food: The History of Taste, edited by Paul Freedman

22. M. F. K. Fisher among the Pots and Pans: Celebrating Her Kitchens, by Joan Reardon, with a foreword by Amanda Hesser

23. Cooking: The Quintessential Art, by Herv This and Pierre Gagnaire, translated by M. B. DeBevoise

24. Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century, by Laura Shapiro

25. Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making, by Jeri Quinzio

26. Encyclopedia of Pasta, by Oretta Zanini De Vita, translated by Maureen B. Fant, with a foreword by Carol Field

27. Tastes and Temptations: Food and Art in Renaissance Italy, by John Varriano

28. Free for All: Fixing School Food in America, by Janet Poppendieck

29. Breaking Bread: Recipes and Stories from Immigrant Kitchens, by Lynne Christy Anderson, with a foreword by Corby Kummer

30. Culinary Ephemera: An Illustrated History, by William Woys Weaver

31. Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar: Stories of Food during Wartime by the Worlds Leading Correspondents, edited by Matt McAllester

32. Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism, by Julie Guthman

33. Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics, by Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim

34. Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food, and South Asia, edited by Krishnendu Ray and Tulasi Srinivas

35. The Cookbook Library: Four Centuries of the Cooks, Writers, and Recipes That Made the Modern Cookbook, by Anne Willan, with Mark Cherniavsky and Kyri Claflin

36. Coffee Life in Japan, by Merry White

37. American Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food, by Andrew F. Smith

38 A Feast of Weeds: Foraging and Cooking with Edible Plants, by Luigi Ballerini, translated by Gianpiero W. Doebler

39. The Philosophy of Food, by David M. Kaplan

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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.
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2012 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Andrew F.

American tuna : the rise and fall of an improbable food / Andrew F. Smith.

p. cm. (California studies in food and culture ; 37)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-520-26184-6 (cloth, alk. paper)

1. TunaUnited StatesHistory. 2. Canned tunaUnited StatesHistory. 3. Fish as foodUnited StatesHistory. 4. Tuna fisheriesHistory. 5. Tuna fisheriesEnvironmental aspectsHistory. 6. Tuna industryHistory. 7. Cooking (Tuna) I. Title.

TX385.S65 2012
641.3'92dc23

2012000822

Manufactured in the United States of America

21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In keeping with its commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post consumer waste, recycled, de-inked fiber. FSC recycled certified and processed chlorine free. It is acid free, Ecologo certified, and manufactured by BioGas energy.

Contents

Preface

Tuna histories usually begin in the Mediterranean, and for good reason. Tuna spawn in the eastern Mediterranean, and each year they migrate through the Mediterranean to the Straits of Gibraltar and then head out into the Atlantic Ocean. Since the migration is an annual event, fishermen can predict within a few weeks when the fish will be passing near their shores. As soon as migrating tuna are spotted, fishermen flock to their boats and net as many fish as possible before the school moves on. Once in the open ocean, tuna have widely divergent migratory patterns, making their capture much more problematic.

For several thousand years fishermen in the Mediterranean have caught and consumed tuna. It comes as no surprise that ancient Greek and Roman texts make numerous references to tuna, and images of the fish appear in art and on coinage. References, artifacts, and archaeological digs have documented tunas history for thousands of years, and the fishs continued popularity in southern Europe and northern Africa is yet other reason to begin tunas history in the Mediterranean.

American tuna history, however, is not about the Mediterranean; it is mainly about the Pacific, where humans have caught and consumed tuna for more than 40,000 years, according to the latest archaeological evidence. Virtually all of the tuna that Americans have consumed for the past centuryand still eatcomes from the Pacific. Unlike the relatively well-documented Mediterranean tuna history, however, American tuna history is scanty until the twentieth century, and the record that survives is filled with paradoxes. These incongruities and the questions generated by them are where I began my research: