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Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by zhte415 on Monday September 21, 2020 @12:06AM (#24539689)
Certainly tends to be popular with kids in the UK as a quick and easy dish: Put them under the grill (broiler), heat some backed beans, butter some bread, fruit for desert, and there's a reasonably nutritious fast food lunch once a week that can be prepared in a hurry.

On numbers:

A quick search [1] suggests 1.5 million fish fingers are eaten per day in the UK (18 per second).

A US search was less easy, but at 25,000 tons per year, and 26 grams per stick, that'd be the equivalent 2.6 million fish sticks consumed (purchased, I suppose) per day in the USA, which on a per-capita basis is interestingly much less.

[1] https://www.intrafish.com/marketplace/youll-never-guess-how-...

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by mattmanser on Monday September 21, 2020 @04:12AM (#24540957)
For other confused Britons.

Fish sticks = Fish Fingers != seafood sticks

If you said fish sticks to most people in the UK, they'd think you were talking about these:

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/287149425

A common gastro pub lunch time dish here in the UK is a posh fish finger sandwich, usually hand made fish fingers in a crusty white bread with a tartare sauce.

https://images.squaremeal.co.uk/cloud/article/9374/images/be...

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by implements on Monday September 21, 2020 @10:03AM (#24543587)
For the financially distressed you can also make a serviceable fish finger sandwich with toasted and buttered thick white sandwich bread and a scrape of Pataks curry paste.

Iceland do 28 “prison grade” fish fingers for £2, and you can ‘cook’ them in a microwave for the same time it takes to do the toast.

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by faichai on Monday September 21, 2020 @05:03AM (#24541245)
Posh Fish Fingers = Fish Goujons
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by 082349872349872 on Monday September 21, 2020 @06:45AM (#24541851)
https://www.tatler.com/article/new-rules-of-social-engagemen...

What's Hancock's Golden Rule?

Edit: seems to be the "rule of six". Best exceptions are country sports: hunting ("scaring the horses") and angling ("revising our knots"). Worst exceptions: canoeing/kayaking (too reminiscent of american beer) and gymnastics (unless one is the Duke of York?).

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by wil421 on Monday September 21, 2020 @07:57AM (#24542271)
At least tesco tells the truth. In the US those would be called imitation crab sticks. Where imitation would be in a small font that isn’t noticeable at first glance.

Crab flavored cod sticks.

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by SamBam on Monday September 21, 2020 @09:58AM (#24543514)
Almost always pollock in the US, but yeah.

https://www.google.com/search?q=imitation+crab&tbm=shop

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by thaumasiotes on Monday September 21, 2020 @12:05PM (#24544989)
This fails to demonstrate that "imitation would be in a small font that isn’t noticeable at first glance". It's always prominent, and often part of the single most prominent piece of text on the package.

https://www.google.com/shopping/product/8945736565554256086?...

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by orclev on Monday September 21, 2020 @10:47AM (#24544095)
More generally labeled as Krab.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by soylentcola on Monday September 21, 2020 @11:27AM (#24544535)
Yeah, we call it "kay-rab" to avoid confusion.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by quercusa on Monday September 21, 2020 @10:54AM (#24544172)
This USian was quite a few decades old before realizing that Four of fish and finger pie might not be a strange British delicacy.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by soylentcola on Monday September 21, 2020 @11:27AM (#24544526)
Heh...I assume you do know the meaning now. Got a chuckle when I learned that as well.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by OJFord on Monday September 21, 2020 @04:06AM (#24540923)
Oh, fish sticks = fish fingers?

I assumed they were like crab sticks, but mixed fish.

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by VBprogrammer on Monday September 21, 2020 @06:20AM (#24541692)
Amusingly, crab sticks are usually made of pulverised white fish and starch. They don't actually contain any crab.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by Fnoord on Monday September 21, 2020 @07:13AM (#24541999)
Surimi also contains chicken egg protein. I guess for emulsifying. Surimi might contain crab, but then its a very small % (the legal requirement).

I bought real (river)crabs at Ikea. Needs a lot of time to get rid of the ice, and its a bit messy and tricky to eat (take your time!), but I found it delicious. The flavor is unlike anything I ever had, and the texture is pristine and delicate. After a while, it even becomes fun to dismantle them. Though the very first one got my glasses full with... whatever it was.

As for fish sticks, I know the brand we got contains Atlantic cod. Its a very cheap fish, and quite frankly it tastes disgusting (had it out of oven while cooking on budget). However the sticks add structure (crisp/bite and salt I suppose) to the otherwise bland fish which remind me of rotten fish, so they make it edible. Our daughter (2) loves them, and they can easily be prepared in an airfryer or oven. They might be a bit salty though.

Normal Atlantic cod I'd rather just feed my cats. Even with seasoning I still find it barely edible, and I just got this rule with fish (and shellfish) if it smells or tastes something remotely resembling rotten, I don't eat it. Cause as kid I ate enough of that already. Plus I generally eat my foods seasoned, with herbs and spices. Dill, for example, goes great with a lot of fish.

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by throwaway0a5e on Monday September 21, 2020 @09:17AM (#24542964)
Pretty much any fish will be decent as a fillet. Pretty much nothing you get in a fish stick or processed product is going to be any good because if it were it would have been made into something higher margin. Fish sticks are the hot dogs of the ocean.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by OJFord on Monday September 21, 2020 @07:22AM (#24542044)
Yeah, I wouldn't buy something sold as 'fish' fingers personally. If I wanted them, you can (at least in the UK) also get 'cod fingers', 'haddock fingers', perhaps others (e.g. hake) rather than minced fish surprise.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by nemacol on Monday September 21, 2020 @08:12AM (#24542379)
Are the crabs you purchased from Ikea crab legs or more like crayfish (aka crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, mudbugs, or yabbies.)?
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by pvaldes on Monday September 21, 2020 @09:04AM (#24542818)
Ikea wouldn't sell the crab sticks. Cooked crayfishes are part of the swedish culture. They even have a summer party (kräftskiva) based on eating those. My father caught a lot also when he was young.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by Fnoord on Monday September 21, 2020 @08:22AM (#24542455)
Red crayfish, they were quite small. Not a gigantic lobster (would love to try that too). My ex-girlfriend had hermit crabs as pets. These were smaller, and they sometimes attacked or ate each other (when vulnerable without shell due to losing skin), which put the cycle of life in perspective. Still felt a bit odd.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by OJFord on Monday September 21, 2020 @07:18AM (#24542022)
Huh I didn't know that, or that they were Japanese ('surimi') - I've only ever had or seen them in France.

(Not that I've been to Japan, but I'm English, so not having seen them here I just associated them as being a French supermarket snack.)

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by thaumasiotes on Monday September 21, 2020 @01:21PM (#24546015)
> I didn't know that, or that they were Japanese ('surimi') - I've only ever had or seen them in France.

Could be a coincidence. Naomi is a very traditional Hebrew girls' name, and also a Japanese girls' name.

Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by kube-system on Monday September 21, 2020 @01:03AM (#24539980)
It’s mostly seen as a food for kids in the US too.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by coldtea on Monday September 21, 2020 @04:09AM (#24540945)
On the other hands most US adults eat what many would deem kids food...
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by mrguyorama on Monday September 21, 2020 @09:40AM (#24543262)
The cynical take is that many US adults never really grew up
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by watwut on Monday September 21, 2020 @03:24AM (#24540727)
All the food that US sees as "for kids" is stuff that I dont want kids to eat too much.
Re:How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks by wil421 on Monday September 21, 2020 @08:21AM (#24542448)
Nobody has to feed their kid or themselves that crap. Unfortunately, many people are just fine pressing some buttons on a microwave to feed a family.

I don’t like feeding my kid any baby food, even organic, but we make the majority of it.