Flaky Renaming Fails To Net Shark Diners

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday January 14, 2006

Damien Murphy

FEAR of shark attack or not, Sydney, indeed NSW, has always had a hate affair with the fish, even to the extent of declining to eat it.

Maybe it is one predator's way of telling another "we won't eat you, so you don't eat us", but the fact remains that shark always fetches the lowest prices at the Sydney Fish Market.

A Bermagui commercial fisherman, Alan Broadhurst, sends his shark to Melbourne, where it fetches up to $10 a kilogram.

"But in Sydney, I'd be lucky to get $5 a kilo. Three bucks would probably be closer," he said.

The managing director of the Sydney Fish Markets, Grahame Turk, said the variety of shark species caught in NSW waters - often wobbegongs - were generally not as "tasty" as sharks caught in the fisheries of Bass Strait and southern Australia.

"People in NSW by and large just do not go for it. But there's no doubt Victorians have developed a taste for shark," Mr Turk said.

Over the years the fishing industry has tried to rebrand shark. It was once commonly called dogfish, a name enough to put off most diners.

In the early part of last century shark was renamed monkfish to cash in on the "fish on Fridays" Roman Catholics trade, but evoking religion still failed to attract interest.

During the Depression shark became known as blue flake and then flake, which fooled Victorians but not people in NSW.

One Newcastle fisherman, who did not want to be named, said there seemed to be so many Victorians living in Sydney now that any fish and chip shop owner who renamed his business "Flake Are Us" would make a fortune each Friday from homesick southerners.