Plaice

• 1. Introduction

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  Plaice is a flatfish so prized in Europe that it has been pulled from the North Sea for hundreds of years. It lies buried in the sand during daylight hours, waiting. At night it slides into shallower water to hunt. It can live for fifty years and grow a full metre in length. Yet today, in the waters where it has thrived for centuries, a plaice older than six years is a rarity. How did one of the most commercially important fish in Europe end up listed as outside safe biological limits? And what are the four species that share this name, spread from the Bering Sea to the Baltic? Those questions open up a story that runs from ancient Greek etymology to Danish children's menus, from Labrador to the Sea of Okhotsk.

• 2. A Name From Antiquity

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  The word plaice arrived in English via 14th-century Anglo-French, in the form plais. That word traced back to the late Latin platessa, simply meaning flatfish. Platessa itself came from the Ancient Greek platys, meaning broad. The fish's shape, compressed and wide, gave it its name across three thousand years of language. The plural follows the same rule as the singular: one plaice, many plaice. Four distinct species carry this name today: the European, the American, the Alaskan, and the scale-eye plaice. Each occupies a different stretch of cold northern water, but all belong to the same evolutionary tradition of flattened, bottom-dwelling hunters.

• 3. The European Plaice

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  Pleuronectes platessa bears smooth brown skin covered in distinctive red spots, with a bony ridge running behind the eyes. Its range stretches from the Barents Sea in the far north down to the Mediterranean. It belongs to the family Pleuronectidae and qualifies as a right-eyed flounder, meaning both eyes sit on the right side of the body. Sandy bottoms of the European shelf are its preferred home, where it can be found at depths of up to 200 metres. It feeds on polychaetes, crustaceans, and bivalves. The recorded maximum length stands at 100 cm and the maximum reported age at 50 years. Fishing for European plaice typically uses beam trawlers, otter trawlers, or seiners, and together with sole it forms the backbone of the European flatfish trade. In the Celtic Sea, the population is already considered overfished.

• 4. The American Plaice

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  American plaice range along the Atlantic coast from southern Labrador to Rhode Island, and they also appear in European waters, where they go by the name rough dab or long rough dab. They are generally smaller than their European cousins, with rougher skin and larger scales. Their maximum recorded length is 82.6 cm and their maximum reported age 30 years. Most are found between 90 and 250 metres depth, on sandy bottoms where temperatures run between -0.5 and 2.5 degrees Celsius. Spawning concentrates in the Gulf of Maine, with peak activity in April and May. The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization classifies the species as overfished with no signs of recovery. The Canadian government, however, maintains a different view, describing the species as abundant despite the country's own endangered classification. American plaice account for 50 percent of all flatfish caught in Canada by weight, a fishery second overall only to cod. The species also serves as an intermediate host for Otostrongylus circumlitis, a nematode lungworm that primarily affects seals less than one year old.

• 5. Alaska and Scale-Eye Plaice

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  Alaska plaice can live for up to 30 years and reach 60 cm in length. In practice, most fish that end up in a net are only seven or eight years old and roughly 30 cm long. Commercial fisheries generally do not target them directly. They are caught as bycatch by trawlers after other bottom fish, and the volume is substantial. In 2005, the total allowable catch for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands management area was reached before the end of May. The scale-eye plaice inhabits a different ocean entirely. Its native range covers the northern Pacific, primarily from the Sea of Okhotsk to Japan and Korea, with a presence also in the Bering Sea. It lives at depths ranging from 18 to 900 metres, grows to 46 cm, and can weigh up to 1.2 kg.

• 6. Overfishing and Collapse

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  The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, known as ICES, lists plaice alongside cod, monkfish, and sole as species outside safe biological limits in the North Sea. The fish are growing more slowly than they once did, and specimens older than six years are now rare, even though the species can reach forty. The World Wide Fund for Nature reported in 2006 that of the eight plaice stocks recognised by ICES, only one was being harvested sustainably while three were overexploited. Data on the remaining stocks was insufficient for assessment. Landings across all stocks were at or near historical lows at that time. The contradiction between Canada's endangered listing and its government's claim of abundance mirrors a broader pattern: the science and the politics of fisheries management rarely agree, and the fish pay the difference.

• 7. Plaice at the Table

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  In North German and Danish cuisine, plaice is among the most commonly eaten fish. Filleted, battered, and pan-fried, it appears on open sandwiches alongside remoulade sauce and lemon slices, served hot or cold. A fried battered version served hot with french fries and remoulade functions as a main course and is common on children's menus across Danish restaurants. Supermarkets carry breaded frozen plaice ready to be baked or fried at home. Fresh plaice is also oven-baked. The flesh, in the words preserved by its reputation, is white, tender, and subtle-flavoured. Further east, smoked plaice holds a specific seasonal status: it is one of the traditional summertime delicacies of Hiiumaa, an island in Estonia. Beyond the table, the European plaice has drawn interest as a potential aquaculture species and is kept as an aquarium fish, suggesting that its commercial future may not depend entirely on wild catch.