Clam and salmon safety

I have noticed local stores selling clams that are labeled, simply, "wild caught." But I thought that the origin of the clams is designated by a tag on the bag. I've always assumed that the clams I purchased were from safe waters, but this wild-caught designation makes me wonder, especially since one of the stores was also selling frozen wild salmon caught in China. Would that be safe? -- Linda Bradshaw, Huntington

Even though clams just sit there in the sand and breathe, they are still considered "wild caught" ("wild dug" might be a more accurate designation) because they are not farmed - as some oysters and many mussels are.

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture imposed Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) that requires retailers to label fish with its country of origin and whether it is farmed or wild. For a while, the feds concentrated on COOL enforcement at supermarkets, but now independent seafood retailers have gotten with the program as well.

You are correct that all shellfish arrives at the retailer in a sack with a tag attached to it indicating where it was harvested. If the store in question only labeled the clams "wild caught," it was omitting some of the information it had. Anyone behind the fish counter should have been able to tell you where those clams were from. Nor would I worry too much about clams. According to Roger Tollefsen, president of the New York Seafood Council, "clams are probably the most regulated food we eat. They must be tagged, and the harvester, buyer and distributor all have to be licensed."

As for the salmon, I had never heard of wild salmon from China. Neither had Tollefsen, but he noted that it makes perfect sense since, before they head back upstream, the fish live in the Pacific Ocean. "We are familiar with the salmon that swim east - toward the United States and Canada," he said, "but some of them must swim west toward China."

This was confirmed for me by Michael Marino, seafood director at Best Yet Market in East Northport. He said that frozen fillets of wild Chinese salmon have been in supermarkets for years, "but most people don't look at the country of origin on frozen packages."

As for concerns that Chinese salmon may somehow be less than safe, Tollefsen pointed out that fish is regulated far more stringently than building materials or toys, two categories of imported products for which China's manufacturing abuses have been well-documented. " When seafood is imported, the importer is responsible for checking to see that there is no contamination, that the fish was produced and processed under the FDA's HACCP regulations - just as if it were produced locally."

Can salt go bad?

No, never. Only organic matter - meat, dairy, vegetables - can go bad. Salt is a mineral and will be around, unchanged, after we are all gone. Many spices and herbs lose their flavor as they sit on the shelf. Not salt.