Seafood Handbook Shellfish Page
The Seafood Handbook is the most comprehensive seafood directory available online. Featuring more than 100 of the most common seafood species in the U.S. market, the Seafood Handbook is the ultimate guide to seafood sourcing and preparation, brought to you by the editors of SeaFood Business magazine. And it’s free!
Search by finfish or shellfish, or by geographic region. For each type of seafood species, there is a comprehensive overview of the item, its origin, history, availability, product attributes, nutritional value and cooking tips, along with an original hand-drawn depiction.
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Brown, white and pink shrimp are a triad of warmwater animals known collectively as “Gulf shrimp.” Commercially important to both the United States and Mexico, Gulf shrimp are found along the southeastern U.S. coast, as far north as Maryland, and along the entire western Gulf, particularly on… Read More
Pacific white shrimp are among the most widely cultivated shrimp in the world. This is due mainly to ease of cultivation and rapid growth rate; harvesting begins after 120 days. The two warmwater species known as Pacific whites are Penaeus vannamei, found from Sonora, Mexico, to northern Peru,… Read More
Surimi seafood is simulated shellfish made from cooked, mildflavored, lean, white-fleshed fish — most often pollock and hake/whiting. The fish is deboned, minced, rinsed and rendered into an odorless, white paste called surimi to which starches, red coloring, flavorings, binders and stabilizers… Read More
American lobsters have two powerful claws — a crusher and a ripper — which should be kept banded to prevent injury to other lobsters or the cook. The meatiest part of the animal is the tail, though claws, knuckles, body and small walking legs offer meat, too. American lobsters are found in the… Read More
Spiny lobsters lack the large front claws of the American lobster and are prized instead for their tail meat, which accounts for 33 percent of the body weight. Some 30 species of spiny lobster are found in tropical and subtropical waters around the world. They are marketed in the United States as… Read More
The rock shrimp is a deepwater cousin of the pink, brown and white Gulf shrimp species (Penaeus spp.), but its popularity in the domestic market was slower to develop. The crustacean gets its name from its rock-hard shell, which presented a challenge for processors until a machine was developed to… Read More
A small cousin of sea scallops, bay scallops average 70 to 100 meats per pound. They are dredged, raked or tonged from bays, harbors and salt ponds along the East Coast from Atlantic Canada to North Carolina and processed ashore. They are also farmed in Nova Scotia and New England in suspended… Read More
The Dungeness crab reportedly takes its name from a small fishing village on the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington state. It’s also known as “San Francisco Crab,” since the species has been harvested off that city since 1848. Dungeness are commonly sold live, fresh or frozen as whole… Read More
Not long ago, Jonah crabs were considered little more than a nuisance by lobstermen off New England and the Canadian Maritimes, who routinely tossed the crustaceans back when they came up in lobster traps. But in the 1990s, as demand for an alternative to established and costly crab species grew,… Read More
Florida’s regulatory agencies recognize three species as true stone crabs: the Florida variety (Menippe mercenaria), the Gulf crab (M. adina) and a hybrid resulting from interbreeding of the two primary species. Stone crabs are found along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Texas to the Carolinas,… Read More
