OP here. I threw it in the dumpster outside our condo.

The guy at WF, took off the scales and fins (sp?). I saw the waiter deboning it in front of me almost everyday during the past 20 days or so - it is really neat.

Today I bought another one and already cooked it. It was delicious and I have some left over - I will probably make some fish tacos

And I deboned it almost as good as the waiters I saw doing it in front of me. Only a few bones left

Anonymous wrote:OMG. Who would buy fresh fish to serve 3 days later?

This. WTH?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG. Who would buy fresh fish to serve 3 days later?

Isn't there a Ben Franklin saying about how "houseguests, like fish, start to smell after 3 days"? Definitely a 3 day rule on fish and that's assuming it was fresh to start with.

Um, yeah, don't buy fish till the day you are ready to cook it.

+1

Whole Foods will definitely give you a refund (you don't have to bring the fish back, depending on when your trash pick up is, freezing it can block the smell). As a general rule, fresh fish should be cooked the day you buy it or the day after, longer than that will be risky, and also depend on when the fish came in. As I understand it, Whole Foods has a hard time moving the whole fish, mostly for show I think, which might mean the person did not know because they do not sell much of it or might have misled you to get rid of it. As noted above, whole fish is also kind of hard to cook, well not hard to cook but hard to serve, I like it because you get more flavor by cooking the fish in tact but the bones and filleting is a nuisance, for what that is worth.

Were you planning to debone and descale this fish yourself?

Anonymous wrote:OP here. First, I post in the wrong forum by mistake. Sorry for that.

Second, as I said I don't have any experience cooking fish and relied in his info. I already threw it away and can't return. But lesson learned. Tomorrow I will buy another one to cook in the evening.

You may have already thought about this but unless trash pick-up is tomorrow I would put the fish in an airtight bag and keep it in the freezer until trash day. The smell, I imagine, would become unbearable in this heat.

I cook a ton and love fish but I've never tackled a whole red snapper. Nor will I, ever.