May 13, 2019 — Dogfish doesn’t have an appetizing ring to it. The name for this member of the shark family has kept it off dinner plates, at least in the United States. In Britain, dogfish is often the key ingredient in fish and chips.
A few years ago, in an attempt to make the fish sound more appealing, the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, New England fishermen, and conservationists tried to rebrand it as “Cape shark.” The effort to create local demand for this plentiful regional species, which grew in number with the collapse of the cod fishery, hasn’t yet taken hold.
With its mild white boneless flesh, Kate Masury, program director for Eating with the Ecosystem, said dogfish is less flaky than cod but just as delicious.
Eating with the Ecosystem, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit that promotes a place-based approach to sustaining New England’s wild seafood, is working with consumers, chefs, suppliers, processors, and fishermen to build a market for dogfish and the many other lower-valued species swimming off New England’s coast.