THE TIFFANY BLUE CHEF: The New Fulton Fish Market @ Hunts Point

I was up in the wee hours this morning in order to take a little field trip with my culinary management class to the New Fulton Fish Market at Hunt's Point in the Bronx. Fulton is one of the largest fresh fish markets in North America, as such, it was an incredible experience that I didn't mind having to be up so early for! Our large, and I must say, fairly rowdy group for the time of day, left the school on a "party bus" at 4:30 to be at the fish market by 5am. Ironically, as early as it was, we were actually getting there a little late -- the fish market's prime hours are from 1am to 5am. Being "late" meant that we had missed a lot of the serious buying action from the city's various purveyors but I still got to hear a little haggling and bargaining which was rather delightful.

View down the market

I can't even begin to list all the different types of fish that I saw at the market. One of the chefs from school accompanied us on the trip and was able to tell us about certain types of fish but the fish mongers themselves were not at all shy if we had questions, in fact, they were quite the characters. They were also incredibly skilled. We watched one gentleman fillet fish in less then 10 seconds. He made four cuts, flipped the fish over and before we knew it, he was on to the next one! It was fascinating.

Sassy fish monger

What surprised me about the fish market was how many purveyors were selling shark(!) and swordfish -- it was pretty crazy to see whole sharks and headless baby sharks just hanging out. Who knew there was such a demand for them? The market also had a ton of red snapper, blue crabs, tons of different white fish, lobster, tons of catfish, sea urchin, scallops, monk fish, mussels, clams (of literally every size), salmon, tuna, prawns...you get the point -- they have everything.