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For the band, see Seafood (band). Seafood is any sea animal or seaweed that is served as food or is suitable for eating. This usually includes seawater animals, such as fish and shellfish (including mollusks and crustaceans). By extension, in North America although not generally in the United Kingdom, the term seafood is also applied to similar animals from fresh water and all edible aquatic animals are collectively referred to as seafood. Edible seaweeds are rarely considered seafood, even though they come from seawater and are widely eaten around the world. See . The harvesting of seafood is known as fishing and the cultivation of seafood is known as aquaculture, mariculture, or simply fish farming. Seafood is a source of protein in many diets around the world.
History From the earliest age of human civilization, seafood has been an important food source: it can easily be hunted and gathered, even by those lacking power or speed. Basket-like traps have long been widely used to hunt fish in rivers and lakes. Sometimes, fish were speared just as one would hunt a small animal. Ancient Egyptian civilization used the symbol of fish for counting large numbers; they ate fish both dried and fresh. Observant Jews abstain from all shellfish due to kashrut. It is looked over often, but the rise of ancient Greek and Roman civilization was in no small part due to the abundant fish of the Mediterranean Sea. Shellfish was a staple food in many locations and in the Jomon period of Japan; the amount of shellfish consumed and thrown away from that time is used to measure how many people lived in a certain area. Dishes See also | ||||||||
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