When Seafood Chefs Bait and Switch, the Fish Detective Knows.

FORT Lauderdale (Fla.); FLORIDA

The article focuses on Mahmood S. Shivji, a professor at Nova Southeastern University's oceanographic center, who is known in the Miami, Florida media area as the Fish Detective. Shivji used DNA analysis to test fish from local restaurants and discovered many instances of restaurants substituting a cheaper fish for the more expensive one listed on the menu. He has tested grouper and is expanding to snapper and scallops. In 2007 he tested fish for the Miami television show "Shame on You." Shivji is quoted saying it is much more exciting for students to learn genetics in the context of uncovering deception than in a regular genetics class. Typically he takes his class to a restaurant for a fish dinner. They take the leftovers to the lab and analyze them.